Will a NAS run fast enough?

[eric44]

I was planning on buying a Synology 212j NAS and attaching it to my time capsule via Ethernet.
The plan was for both iMacs, MacBook pro etc to use it as a server by N class wi-fi.
All our files,music,photos,video would be on it, no more local storage.
Share the iTunes library from it, stream videos, the works...
So will the read/write and general experience be fast enough?
Should I be waiting for a USB 3.0 version?
Any experiences & advice would be gratefully received.
Many thanks

 

[murphychris]

The plan was for both iMacs, MacBook pro etc to use it as a server by N class wi-fi.

Should I be waiting for a USB 3.0 version?

These appear to be mutually exclusive because one is wireless, the other isn't. Also, no one can answer the question on wireless because the theoretical performance is meaningless, so the question asks people to speculate. Depending on distance and how many solid objects are between WAPs and signal clutter in the area, will determine performance.

You need to find some real world wireless N values, and see if that works with the bandwidth requirements for streaming video times however many people would stream video/audio simultaneously.

 

[eric44]

sorry, didn't make myself very clear.
The question about USB 3.0 was whether connecting a NAS to a wifi router using USB3.0 would be faster than by ethernet cable.
The other point was a general question to find out what peoples' real world experience was of using a NAS over wifi.
My concern was that I might buy this drive and find it to be much slower than accessing files locally.
Does that make a bit more sense?

 

[murphychris]

sorry, didn't make myself very clear.
The question about USB 3.0 was whether connecting a NAS to a wifi router using USB3.0 would be faster than by ethernet cable.

How could it be?

The other point was a general question to find out what peoples' real world experience was of using a NAS over wifi.

There are nearly 1 million Google hits for "real world wireless n speeds".

My concern was that I might buy this drive and find it to be much slower than accessing files locally.

It will be slower, by a lot. In one case it's 7MB/s in another case it's less than 3MB/s.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1012574
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/ne...sts-of-80211n-technology-how-does-it-rate/232

Wireless N is incredibly slower than locally accessed files. More than an order of magnitude slower.

 

[Ifti]

My NAS connects to my Apple Extreme via Ethernet.

My content, including movies are stored on my NAS.

I set up Plex on my iMAC and was able to stream a HD movie to the iMAC, my iPhone, and my iPad all simultaneously over wireless N.

Wireless is not as fast a hard wired connection though, and my main TV is still directly connected to my network using Ethernet, but streaming over wireless still works well for me.

I would connect the NAS to your router via GB ethernet if possible, and you should be OK.

 

[eric44]

Thanks for the thoughts.
I understand that the NAS comes with a gigabit Ethernet cable which I was planning to connect it to my time capsule with.
Sounds like I will get good performance over wifi if it is set up in this way.

 

[waw74]

here's my "real world" speeds, and sometimes it can be slower.

usb2 - 22MB/s
usb3 - 100Mb/s
gigabit - 75 Mb/s

but the most important number in this is...
wireless N - 5GHz - wide channels .... 12 MB/s

so it doesn't matter how your drive is connected to your network, if your laptop is connected via wireless, you're going to be limited by the wireless speed.

I've heard that airports are very slow with drive access, with both the internal and external drives (connected by usb).

also keep in mind, wireless is not a constant, there are multiple factors that affect it. so what works in one place may not work in another. due to things like how the building is constructed, other sources of electrical interference, among many others.

 

[radiogoober]

Also keep in mind that, to the best of my knowledge, there is no apple product with a USB3.0 port on it. So if you connected that storage to the airport, it'd be at USB2.0, which is SLOWWWWWWWW.

 

[eric44]

Very helpful - thanks.
Clearly, using the drive over wifi is the bottleneck.
Connecting the NAS to time capsule/airport looks like it needs to be by Ethernet cable for a reasonable speed.
My thought is whether I should hang on for the new class of wifi (ac).
Surely that would speed things up?
Of course every client would need to be ac ready....so maybe I should just get on with it, I have seen posts from people who can stream 1080p video over N class wifi so it can't be that slow can it?

 

[saprahan]

Very helpful - thanks.
Clearly, using the drive over wifi is the bottleneck.
Connecting the NAS to time capsule/airport looks like it needs to be by Ethernet cable for a reasonable speed.
My thought is whether I should hang on for the new class of wifi (ac).
Surely that would speed things up?
Of course every client would need to be ac ready....so maybe I should just get on with it, I have seen posts from people who can stream 1080p video over N class wifi so it can't be that slow can it?

Even using 802.11n won't be stable. And actually to get full wi-fi speed for 802.11n you should be no far then 10 meters from access point.
My friend, I advise you yo watch FullHD movies on large stationary display/tv, connected with Gigabit Ethernet. Do you really need 1080p movies on your notebook via Wi-Fi?