surprised by how slow networking is

[2ms]

I have a current MBP, a little older C2D iMac, and an Airport Express. I was hoping to be able to have a huge hard drive in my iMac as my main storage for things like music and movies and then watch the media from wherever in my house on my laptop (and maybe iPad later on).

However, having only just now actually tried to do this (accessing files on one computer from another wirelessly), I'm discovering that the transfer rate is way lower than I thought it would be.

I'm not really able to watch movies from my iMac hard drive on my MBP because it's too slow so the movies get hung up frequently during watching. When I try to copy a 100MB audio file for listening, it takes 5 minutes just to copy it.

I thought 802.11n was super fast, both of my computers are fast, and my OS is fully updated Snow Leopard.

Why are things so slow?

 

[JGruber]

I have a current MBP, a little older C2D iMac, and an Airport Express. I was hoping to be able to have a huge hard drive in my iMac as my main storage for things like music and movies and then watch the media from wherever in my house on my laptop (and maybe iPad later on).

However, having only just now actually tried to do this (accessing files on one computer from another wirelessly), I'm discovering that the transfer rate is way lower than I thought it would be.

I'm not really able to watch movies from my iMac hard drive on my MBP because it's too slow so the movies get hung up frequently during watching. When I try to copy a 100MB audio file for listening, it takes 5 minutes just to copy it.

I thought 802.11n was super fast, both of my computers are fast, and my OS is fully updated Snow Leopard.

Why are things so slow?

There are a bunch of factors that determine how fast or slow your network is going to be.

How far is the Airport Express from both computers?
Is the Airport Express near any electrical devices? Phones, Microwave, etc..
Are you sure you are running in "N" mode?
Wireless Speed from another computer is also determined by hardware on the other end, is your iMac running a 5400rpm drive?
Transferring a 100MB file, in "N" mode should take around 30sec.

 

[Consultant]

Did you set it to 5.0ghz N only?

Airport express only has 100mbit port.