Wireless AC vs. Wireless N, my little test.

[Mr. Wonderful]

Interesting thread with good info.

This is making me reconsider my recent purchase of an A/C AirPort Extreme. I read a number of reviews, but didn't go to Small Net Builder. For example, I read the CNET review, which included a chart on throughput.

CNET's throughput chart showed the following:
ASUS RT-AC66U: 339.2 Mbps
AirPort Extreme: 287.2 Mbps

http://reviews.cnet.com/wireless-ac...port-extreme-base/4505-3265_7-35781432-2.html

Although the ASUS was faster, it was not enough for me to decide to get it over the AirPort.

Do these two charts show similar tests? Or am I not comparing "apples to apples"? Maybe Small Net Builder just got more out of the AirPort and a lot more out of the ASUS?

I haven't opened the AirPort yet. I may return it and get the ASUS....

I typically get ~867-1167Mbps (or something like that) speeds with my AC Extreme (reported via Option-clicking the wireless icon in OS X, not actual speed tests). I would imagine the first couple of generations of AC products however aren't going to be able to come close to actually reaching theoretical speeds, the same way N products couldn't even hit 300Mbps until a year or two after the N specification was FINALLY finalized.

It's the range of AC on the 5GHz band that is awesome.

I guess the point of everything I said above is that I will most likely be upgrading to the second-generation AC AirPort Extreme, because there's still a lot of room for improvement.

 

[priitv8]

I guess the point of everything I said above is that I will most likely be upgrading to the second-generation AC AirPort Extreme, because there's still a lot of room for improvement.

The thing that confuses most consumers is the diveristy of antenna configurations offered.
That said, actual MBA will never get higher speed than it does today, just because it has 2-antennae. The actual MBP has 3, meaning it is already at outset 50% faster than MBA. Both being on 5GHz AC wlan.
The max spec'd speed of 802.11ac calls for 8 parallel radio transmission paths, it remains to be seen if such beasts will ever be built for home use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ac#Example_configurations

 

[Steve.P.JobsFan]

Interesting thread. I have a 5th gen .11N AirPort Extreme, and was thinking about upgrading to a new AirPort Time Capsule so I could backup over Wi-Fi instead. Should I go for the APTC, or get say the ASUS AC66U, plug a USB 3 drive into it, and use the Terminal hack to backup wirelessly that way?

 

[tubbymac]

Interesting thread. I have a 5th gen .11N AirPort Extreme, and was thinking about upgrading to a new AirPort Time Capsule so I could backup over Wi-Fi instead. Should I go for the APTC, or get say the ASUS AC66U, plug a USB 3 drive into it, and use the Terminal hack to backup wirelessly that way?

I chose the time capsule because I didn't want to futz around with terminal commands/hacks just to get a backup started. I tried that before back in the non retina days and eventually time machine would give me an error that the sparse bundle was corrupt. On top of that, when you want to restore you have to do a few different terminal commands just to get your time machine backup to show up. Like you had to mount an afp share and a bunch of stuff and that's exactly the thing you don't want to try to remember when your machine won't boot and you have no browser to google it.

 

[Steve.P.JobsFan]

I chose the time capsule because I didn't want to futz around with terminal commands/hacks just to get a backup started. I tried that before back in the non retina days and eventually time machine would give me an error that the sparse bundle was corrupt. On top of that, when you want to restore you have to do a few different terminal commands just to get your time machine backup to show up. Like you had to mount an afp share and a bunch of stuff and that's exactly the thing you don't want to try to remember when your machine won't boot and you have no browser to google it.

Got it. Just have a hard time swallowing Apple's insane $400 for a 3TB APTC. But I guess it'll be worth it.


At least I have 0% financing on my Apple Store Barclaycard until next year...

 

[tubbymac]

Got it. Just have a hard time swallowing Apple's insane $400 for a 3TB APTC. But I guess it'll be worth it.

If you have a computer you can run as a server box, you can save yourself the money and try setting up a ubuntu time capsule. I had to do this recently on my ubuntu NAS as Mavericks broke a lot of my shared file networking. I used this guide to set up an AFP share to replace my SAMBA share, and the added benefit is that my non Apple server now shows up as a "time capsule" to my Apple notebooks without having to do any terminal hacks or anything. It "just works" even from a fresh Macbook out of the box.

I still don't use the ubuntu NAS for my backups since I already have two real Apple time capsules in the house, but for anybody wanting to save some money, you can give it a shot.

If you don't have a spare computer, you could set it up as a virtual machine in an iMac, etc, using something free like VirtualBox.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/servers/86371-howto-use-ubuntu-mac-os-x-time-capsule.html

 

[CavemanMike]

So, is 45 MB/sec via Wifi AC reasonable?

I read this thread twice and I'm really confused.

The SmallNetBuilder chart suggests I should be getting 325 mb/sec (40 MB/sec) which is what indeed I'm getting from my Late 2013 Macbook Retina via WiFi AC (connecting via OPT Wifi at transmit rate 1053) to my Synology DS214 Nas.

The CNET chart suggests my Airport Extreme benchmarked out at 24 MB/sec.

However, if my transmit rate is 1053, why is my throughput as measured by BlackMagic drive benchmark report like 320mb/sec?

I know you never get the theoretical max, but 33% of the theoretical max seems pretty bad.

How could the apple be soo much worse than the top rated router which is like 300% better?

Please help me understand this.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Ai-apple]

If you have 802.11N and 802.11AC devices connected the same wireless Network, they're all probably running at 802.11N speeds.

Not so. My rMBP is connecting 802.11AC and my wife MBP is connecting 802.11N. I have Asus RT-AC68U. There are 2.4GHz and 5GHz. The 802.11AC is on 5GHz and 802.11N is on 2.4GHz.

 

[CavemanMike]

??

Sorry: "not so" what? (Sorry, I said a bunch of things in my post and I'm not sure to which comment you refer).

My retina macbook pro is the only device on the 5 ghz AC band. All other devices are on 2.4 ghz.

So, 1) what is reasonable performance to expect relative to the transmit connect rate of 1056?

2) in the benchmark cited by SmallNetBuilder, how could apple be 33% as fast as the top performer?

3) what's up with the huge disparity in reported throughput between difference sources (e.g. cnet, and what people report)?

 

[CavemanMike]

If gigabit: what to expect to NAS?

If I purchased a thunderbolt or USB3 to gigbit adapter, how many MB/sec would be reasonable to expect to a synology DS214 NAS?

Thanks for any experiences you could share.

Mike

 

[jgiannakas]

Wifi AC performance

I have recently bought a netgear n7000 router along my retina 13 mbp and over AC I have measured speeds of up to 90MB/sec (720mbps) to my Synology DS213+, which is pretty close to maxing out what the NAS can output over gigabit pan (125MB/sec is the Gbit limit). Also no speed drop when having N clients in the same 5ghz wifi connection.

The router is about 20 feet from the laptop, with one pasteboard wall in-between.

I'm inclined to believe that the bad performance you are seeing is mostly due to the AirPort Extreme...

 

[CavemanMike]

Do you like your n7000?

The reason I paid a premium was I wanted perfect seemly macbook wake-up/reconnects to wifi. That was true when I first got my mac, but sadly, after a mac OS update, that stopped.

Overall, how much do you love your router?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[jgiannakas]

Have you tried transferring a large file and see what activity monitor report as throughput speed? I've found that for some reason the benchmark is much lower that actual file transfer speeds

And couldn't be happier with the router. Getting almost gogabit speeds from the Nas over wifi is astonishing

 

[CavemanMike]

The one thing I HATE about my apple router:

The thing i hate about my apple router is it only has 3 ports.

I have 2 wired windows pcs, a VOIP, and a NAS.
When I got my macbook I stopped using one win8 wired pc (cause I hate it); I had to disconnect the network cable since I only had 3 ports.

Now, if I ever want to use it, I have to fuss with the plugs.

I don't use it enough to get a wireless adapter for it.

All in all: would it have killed apple to give me 4 ports on a $200 router?

As for benchmarking, I was getting similar results as reported in the MB/sec in the OS file copies. A large single file is certainly faster, but I never got what you got. However, you have the + nas which I think does better than my nas

 

[jgiannakas]

Not sure how the nas's compare but I would presume they are close in performance as both are dual core RISC processors and sane amount of ram: http://www.macworld.co.uk/review/network-storage/synology-diskstation-ds214-review-upgraded-network-storage-enclosure-pushes-design-limitations-3470170/

Also don't forget that at about 100MB/sec you're probably at the limit of the hdd speed either way


Why not get a cheap switch to get some more ports if you need to?

 

[CavemanMike]

I refused to create an octopus of mess

just because apple gave me 3 vs. 4 ports.

I really don't use the win8 pc much (I hate it so much, it drove me to mac!)

I have enough wires in my life, and not enough elec outlets. I will just tuff it out and stop complaining

 

[YN36]

I have a question, sorry if this is not post related or if it has been answered before.. If i have a 20mbps connection will i see a benefit if i upgrade to a wireless ac router? Or would it be best to stay with a N router?

 

[Weaselboy]

I have a question, sorry if this is not post related or if it has been answered before.. If i have a 20mbps connection will i see a benefit if i upgrade to a wireless ac router? Or would it be best to stay with a N router?

You will see zero benefit for your Internet connection. If you have a 802.1ac client device though, your wireless transfer speeds inside the network (like copying a file between machines or to a NAS) would be much faster.

 

[citivolus]

In-fact I did a time machine restore like this: rMBP 15" 802.11ac -> Router -> Gigabit Ethernet Server. I transferred 300GB or so of personal data in just over an hour and 10 minutes. That is an average data rate of 70MB/s (560Mb/s) which is insanely good for WiFi in my opinion especially when you consider it was having to unpack the disk image and do whatever else processing it does when restoring a Time Machine backup.

I think people are mis-interpreting this. I think he was saying that he connected his rMBP wirelessly to the AC66U and performed a Time Machine Restore from his server which was connected to the WAN port of the AC66U. Therefore, the bandwidth he reported of 70MB/s is actually wireless, not wired performance. Quu, can you clarify?

I myself have an Apple Extreme Time Capsule which I am planning to switch out to an Asus AC66U and perform Time Machine backups from my late 2013 rMBP to the 1TB internal drive of my iMac which is unused since I also installed an SSD in there.

 

[Quu]

I think people are mis-interpreting this. I think he was saying that he connected his rMBP wirelessly to the AC66U and performed a Time Machine Restore from his server which was connected to the WAN port of the AC66U. Therefore, the bandwidth he reported of 70MB/s is actually wireless, not wired performance. Quu, can you clarify?

I myself have an Apple Extreme Time Capsule which I am planning to switch out to an Asus AC66U and perform Time Machine backups from my late 2013 rMBP to the 1TB internal drive of my iMac which is unused since I also installed an SSD in there.

That is how I did it yes.

Retina MacBook Pro -> 802.11ac -> Router -> 1Gb Ethernet Cable -> Server

 

[barthq]

That does not really make sense. How can some people get 70-90MB/s over AC with Routers that are tested around 40-50MB/s max.

I got a Netgear R7000 and can only manage about 30MB/s to its SMB share, but i guess its due do bad SMB performance on OSX in general. On a wired windows PC i am getting 60MB/s which is the max that the routers CPUs can do, so its either SMB on OSX or AC Wifi having problems.

 

[ND40oz]

I'm using a Netgear R7000 as well, wired I can max out the line speed copying from my Server 2012 NAS (LSI 9260-8i RAID 5 backend), 120MB/s on a constant copy both directions, though this never actually goes through the R7000, just through a Cisco 3560G.

Actually using the R7000 over 802.11ac to the rMBP using the Black Magic disk speed test with the NAS as a target, I get 40MB/s write and 30MB/s read. I'm decent distance from the router on a different floor and through a few walls, so not too bad, but we've still got a ways to go to replace wired.

 

[barthq]

Some people are getting 40-50MB/s wireless which i would be totally happy with, 30MB/s is still 10x faster than my old router but leaves me a tad disappointed.

It's still enough for what i need at home which is mostly media streaming and backups. So for me AC Wifi does indeed replace wired GB LAN because it reached a point where it's good enough for private use.

I still wonder why i only get around 250Mbit/s. I tested it with iperf to rule out protocol overhead and bad implementation but i still get only 250Mbit/s when using TCP, strangely using UDP shoots up to 600Mbit\s.
Last thing holding it back could be drivers under OSX then, but even under OSX some people are getting more throughput.

 

[barthq]

After some more testing i discovered that the Router CPU is the limiting factor when using the USB3 port and Wifi at the same time. The limit was around 250Mbps (30MBps).

When using my Desktop PC (connected with GbE) as a NAS i was able to achieve up to 560Mbps (70MB/s) under optimal conditions and a minimum of about 360Mbps (45MB/s) throughout my appartment.

Here is a screenshot of Blackmagic Speed test when using desktop PC as the target drive (this is over 802.11ac Wifi!)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fekcab2v5sy85cd/Screenshot 2014-07-11 11.28.35.png

I am seriously sold on 802.11ac now, in my apartment i see no use for GbE any longer apart from connecting a NAS to the router.