NAS Data Transfer Speed Question

OK, I haven't found a decent answer for this, I'm hoping someone here can help. What is the difference in throughput/speed between Gigabit Ethernet and Thunderbolt 2? I have a Synology NAS, which I love, but the speed over the wireless network is... sad. I'm upgrading to a Mac Pro and would like to NOT spend a ton of cash on Tbolt 2 storage right away, but I'm not seeing the performance I'd like (but I need to find out where the bottleneck is occurring).

Thanks!

So what transfer speeds do you see? It's possible to get higher speeds, but anything semi-capable should manage at least 60MB/s on gbit ethernet.

What Synology do you have? I have a DS1512+ and I can get pretty close to 120 MB/sec on Gigabit Ethernet for sequential transfers, which is the interface's maximum. They say it'll do 180 MB/sec on dual Gigabit connections.

Wifi is slow. I don't care what speed it says it connects at, its still not as fast as GigE when it comes to actually moving large amounts of data. I keep all of my raw files on my NAS and edit them in Lightroom4. Editing from the NAS is a little slower than editing files on a local SSD, but still very tolerable.

I have a DS413. I haven't done any serious documentation on the speeds I'm getting, but there's a lot of lag opening RAW files and using LR5 (though some of that could be old computer slowly rendering the jpg). It IS a helluva lot slower than my FW800 drive, especially when I'm importing from my camera.

AlFooteIII wrote in post #16578566
I have a DS413. I haven't done any serious documentation on the speeds I'm getting, but there's a lot of lag opening RAW files and using LR5 (though some of that could be old computer slowly rendering the jpg). It IS a helluva lot slower than my FW800 drive, especially when I'm importing from my camera.

That NAS should give you similar performance to mine. But, the wifi is going to limit it big time. How is your NAS configured in terms of drives and RAID type? To test the speed, just copy a big file, like a disk image, back and forth and time it. Try it over both wired and wireless.

If you need full speed, you just have to connect a cable. The Wifi network will make the transfers several times slower than the gbit cable connection.

Use a cable. Do a benchmark on both a gigabit network (including a gigabit router if one's in the way) and wireless. That should convince you to use a cable.

This work is more suitable for a desktop computer. Use the right tool for the job.

wireless isn't the best for file access. it's good for small things but if you want good speeds then use a cable. never underestimate the power of using cables to connect items.

There are many factors that effect the speed if wireless. the distance from your laptop to the wireless router, the hardware at each end and the way they work. Not all hardware is the same and despite having the specs doesn't mean they are going to play well. Other devices on the network and this includes tablets and phones of any type. The more devices you have attached the more that's going to effect the network.

use a Cat6 network cable to your nas and you could get 1gb network connecting and then you may not have any more problems.

Thunderbolt 2 is faster than gigabit Ethernet. Depending on your setup you will most likely be limited by your disk speed. If you have a NAS and are accessing it via gigabit you will max out at ~120MB/s Thunderbolt is good if your hard drives are in a raid configuration and are composed of a solid state array. Thunderbolt 2 can reach speeds of 1400-1500MB/s with a few solid states in a raid configuration. If your working off a non raid configured spindle drives then Thunderbolt 2 is a waste. I have a thunder bolt port on my server but its not being utilized at this moment. I use link aggregation (also known as teaming) on a 4 port intel NIC on the server(I also have a 2 port Intel NIC on my workstation) so I can have higher throughput when lightroom accesses the multiple photos. With the 2 ports teamed together on my workstation I saw a difference when accessing lots of photos at the same time. It doesnt help much when its one large file (such as a large video file) as the server can only send packets through a single link. But with multiple photos it load balances very well.

Note that it's irrelevant to discuss theoretical speeds.

If one side is an infinitely fast NAS with an infinitely fast link and the other side is a single mechanical disk, then it's hard to be able to have the computer supply - or receive - more than 100+ MB/s. A bit over 200 MB/s if the computer has a SSD.

The OP:s main problem here seems to be that he isn't even close to making use of his gbit link, because the WIFI is the strongly limiting factor.

Mark0159 wrote in post #16578730
use a Cat6 network cable to your nas and you could get 1gb network connecting and then you may not have any more problems.

As long as you''re under 100 meters, I don't think Cat5 vs Cat6 will make any difference.

I've seen wireless "gigabit" routers. They have multiple wireless radios that transmit e.g., @ 600 Mbits/sec and 300 MBits/sec, and then they round up. This is reduced by walls, distance and interference from other devices, not only on your network, but also electrical interference from your house. They do not transfer data as fast as a wired gigabit network.

On my gigabit network, it's hard to tell the difference between opening a file on my NAS or from an external drive. In fact, the NAS file, conceivably smaller, might open faster. I don't check the file size before opening a file, but my files range from ~150MB to over a GB.

Absolutely true. Transfers happen at the speed of the slowest device, not the speed of the transfer protocol, and the read/write transfer speed of every device is dependent almost completely on how fast it can fill or empty its cache, or, in the case of SSDs, how fast it can find the address of the data or new storage space.

Hen3Ry wrote in post #16582689
As long as you''re under 100 meters, I don't think Cat5 vs Cat6 will make any difference.

Cat5e you mean. Big difference between Cat5 and Cat5e.... Cat6 is just better at eliminating cross talk. Also Cat6 is certified for gigabit 1000Base-T where cat5e can do it but isnt certified.

gotaudi wrote in post #16582723
Cat5e you mean. Big difference between Cat5 and Cat5e.... Cat6 is just better at eliminating cross talk. Also Cat6 is certified for gigabit 1000Base-T where cat5e can do it but isnt certified.

Yup. Sorry. You're right.

Thanks all! I have tried wired vs. wireless and haven't felt much of a difference, but again, I haven't been very diligent about methodology. You've given me a lot to consider. Thanks.

Find the largest file you have and them time a copy and report back what transfer speed you get. The file should at the very, very minimum be 100+ MB large, but preferably a couple of GB big. Too small file, and you get a too high score from cache sizes and it also gets very hard to time the transfer.