Page 1 of Why is my wireless so slow when transferring files to another laptop?

I have 2 laptops in the house and on the one I have an external drive with my music on. When I try and use the other laptop to copy music to or from this drive via the wireless connection the transfer rate is ludicrously slow (we are talking 2 hours for 300MB). Is there anything I can change to speed this up? Its a Netgear router capable of 108MBPS

It may be capable of 108Mbps (that`s Mega bits per second), but I doubt you`ll be achieving that connection speed. You have to remember that both laptops need to also be connecting at that speed to achieve perfect throughput.

Even if you did somehow manage to achieve a perfect 108Mbps connection on both machines, that would be a maximum of 13.5MBps (Mega bytes), and that`s (as I say) if you manage the best possible connection.
Anything less than that will therefore mean a slower transfer than 13.5MBps.

So if you think that USB 2.0 hard drives can generally transfer around 33MBps then you`ll (at best) achieve 30% of the speed vs. just plugging the drive into the other one.

If you want faster wireless transfers then you need to check the wireless signals of both machines to ensure you get the best possible on your existing connection...or buy new hardware (router and wireless cards).

Wireless-N is supposed to run at up to 300Mbps (37.5MBps) but even then most people don`t generally achieve those speeds.

For people who want to transfer stuff frequently gigabit wired networking is the only real way.

Ahhh fair enough. I never really expected it to max out at 108Mbps but thought it should be capable of transferring a few hundred MB quicker than it does. If it can`t though it can`t. Cheers for you help

have you tried changing the channel on your router as you maybe getting interference from a local source or other nearby router?

You can get a few handy progs to sniff out what channels are clear

check channel router is on wireless cood be interferance try sumting higher that 3 always worked with me as neigburs around me are not savvy and have theres all on 1 or 2 mines on 8 hope that helps



the memory of you will bloom like the flower in the garden of my heart

Its a Netgear router capable of 108MBPS

i went to the "N" standard on all my machines last year & it was a nightmare for streaming stuff around the house, totaly unreliable, lots of dropout, one minute it`s say i was connected at 300mbps, then as soon as you put any load on it, it`d drop to 17mbps :/ i ended up dumping it, & using homeplugs (as per sj`s recomendation iirc) & even at the rated 85mbps, which on paper is much much slower than "N" wifi, it kicks the living s*** out of wireless, easily streaming 1080p mkv`s around the house, (bearing in mind, standard 54g wifi struggles with even standard xvids)

homeplugs cost about £25 each, so it`s a bit more expensive, (ie, a minimum of £50 startup) but they work very well, & it gets rid of most of the wires running throughout the house lol...