Slow Wifi Speed Macbook Air and Airport Express

[Pete55]

Hello,

I just switched to Mac and bought a Macbook Air (Mid 2012) and Airport Express (latest version). Given that the equipment is up-to-date I was a bit disappointed by the transfer speed I get when copying files to my Synology NAS (connected to Airport Express via LAN). The Macbook Air is not even 30 feet away from the Airport Express.

Network Utility is showing a link speed of 144 Mbit/s. MenuMeters is showing outgoing file transfer speed between 260KB/s and 1.2 MB/s with peak throughput being 2.9MB/s. That seems too slow.

Can somebody help me to troubleshoot this?

Many thanks,
Alex

 

[drsox]

Hello,

I just switched to Mac and bought a Macbook Air (Mid 2012) and Airport Express (latest version). Given that the equipment is up-to-date I was a bit disappointed by the transfer speed I get when copying files to my Synology NAS (connected to Airport Express via LAN). The Macbook Air is not even 30 feet away from the Airport Express.

Network Utility is showing a link speed of 144 Mbit/s. MenuMeters is showing outgoing file transfer speed between 260KB/s and 1.2 MB/s with peak throughput being 2.9MB/s. That seems too slow.

Can somebody help me to troubleshoot this?

Many thanks,
Alex

My 2011 MBA connects to a V2 AExpress connected to a ReadyNAS at 11MBps when writing. Link speed is 300Mbps. The AExpress is 12 feet up and 15ft across from the MBA, so approx 20ft away.

I use the 5Ghz band of the AExpress. Throughput is from Network Speed Monitor. I have a test folder of 6x 1GB files that I use. What are you using ?

 

[ehfz]

I have a synology nas and an airport extreme (latest non-AC version) and I see a very large speed dropoff past ~20-25ft. The first thing I'd test is to measure transfer speeds right next to the airport and then move progressively further away to test if the dropoff is linear. If the speeds are good right up close then you at least know it's a symptom of the wireless signal and not a software setup problem with the nas/router.

 

[Pete55]

Sorry for the delay, had to leave on a sudden business trip. Thanks for the replies so far!

Well today I am connected with 300 Mbs, according to Network Utility. To test the speeds I will copy a 2 gb file from NAS to Mac and check the speed with MenuMeters.

30 feet away from access point: 1.9-2.5 MB/s
10 feet away:7.7-9.1 MB/s
1 foot away: 9.4-11.2 MB/s

Looks like distance really makes more difference than expected. This is a bit disappointing, are all access points that bad or is this the small form factor of the Apple devices (with no external antenna)?

Or maybe the connection is not setup correctly. How can I check if I am connected via 5Ghz?

 

[Pete55]

Today's connection is back to 144. Laptop is sitting in the exact same place. Are those kind of fluctuations normal?