Transfer files between 2 pcs

[Harrison]

I have quite a large network setup at home. My computers and consoles are mainly wired to an 8 port Gigabit switch, which is connected to the router via a Gigabit port. I transfer files between them all using the Gigabit network and can normally get around 70-95MB/s, but it depends on the transfer speed of the drives and interfaces too, so some transfers can be a bit slower due to this, maybe 50-70MB/s.

I also have 2 WiFi access points to connect to on the network. One is the main router, so the same login as the wired network, and the other is a WiFi network running off the wired network via a Billion 7800n set in WiFi access point only mode. I use that because it has a much stronger signal than the main router and can broadcast much further and reach the front of the house for my Smart TV and Sky HD boxes to see and connect to. But I also now have a TP-Link WiFi Repeater connected to the network too and placed about halfway between the router at the back of the house, and the front of the house. It boosts the WiFi signal really well for On Demand for Sky, and for Streaming video from the server to the Smart TV. Was a bit fiddly to setup though, and I was going to post about that in a new thread.

For WiFi speeds it really depends how close the device is to the access point/router. If you are within a couple of meters then I can get 35MB/s transfer speeds, but move further away and it will drop off quickly. In another room I might only manage 5-15MB/s and right at the edge of the range maybe as low as 1-2MB/s.

It also depends how your network is setup. If you only have 10/100 ports on your router then the most you will ever transfer at is 12MB/s, but if you have Gigabit ports then the theoretical transfer max is 125MB/s.

Regarding your WiFi speeds, are the wireless network cards in the laptops n or g? If they are only g then 10MB/s is probably about right. It is only with n that you will see faster transfer rates.

If you use a crossover network cable between the 2 laptops then make sure they are both set to the same Workgroup and they should work OK as a closed network. The transfer speed will depend on the network cards in the 2 laptops. If they are Gigablt ports then expect at least 60MB/s, but if they are only 100Mbit ports then expect around 12MB/s. Also check the cable/s you are using. If you have Gigabit ports then try to use at least Cat 5e cables, and Cat 6 even better. Cat 5 cables often work OK with Gigabit networking but not always. Cat 5 is fine for 100Mbit though.

[Tiago]

1st laptop has:
Wireless LAN 802.11b/g/n with Wi-Di and Miracast
Gigabit 10/100/1000

2nd latop has:
Wi-Fi®
suporte de rede : 802.11b/g/n
fabricante : Broadcom®
Tecnologia Wireless : Wireless LAN
Versão : BCM94313
fabricante : Broadcom®
Tecnologia Wireless : Bluetooth® 2.1
Versão : 2.1 + EDR (BCM2070 integrated in BCM94313)
Comunicações com fios tipologia : Lan 10/100MBit
velocidade : 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX


1 st laptop has 1000 card
2nd laptop (4/5 years) has 100 and not 1000 card, so i guess the speed for crosscable will be 100 between the both. What about wireless?

[Harrison]

Yes, for wired it will default to the lowest common speed, so 100MBit will be the fastest you will get, which is about 12MB/s

For wireless both are 802.11n compatible, so as long as your router is also 802.11n compatible then you should be able to transfer at faster speeds then the older 802.11g. The older 802.11g has a theoretical speed of 54Mbit, which is about 6.5MB/s, whereas 802.11n is between 150Mbit for a single aerial device, to 300MBit for a 3 aerial device... But you are more likely to achieve something around 100MBits/s which would be a transfer rate of about 12.5MB/s, which as you can see is about Ethernet wired 100Mbit speeds. But WiFi speeds are not really that sustained so you might get a slower overall transfer. Plus you need to be close to the router, and also to ensure the router is set to use 802.11n and that you have no 802.11g based devices connected to the network, otherwise it will switch the router into mixed mode and slow the speed down.

As you can see even 802.11n really isn't that fast these days. The fastest speed I've achieve transferring files over WiFi is about 33Mbit/s downloading from broadband, which is about 4MB/s, so not too bad.

You are probably best using a wired network for the laptops. Rather than a crossover cable between the 2, which can be a bit fiddly to setup and get working, why not just connect each to your router via Ethernet cable? Put them on the same Workgroup and make sure share files is switched on on both, and at least one directory or HDD is shared and then you can easy copy files across as the maximum speed 100Mbit Ethernet can handle.

[Tiago]

As you said wireless was below 12.5mb/s and i have a lot of small files so speed was even lower. I will do as you said, connect them both to the router with cables.
Thanks