Resolved Is it faster to connect USB 3 hard disk to newer Mac and connect remotely, vs direct?

[poiihy]

I have a lot of transferring to do to my USB 3 HD between a 2009 MBP and iMac. They only have USB 2 ports and the speed is slow (30MB/s). On a newer mac with USB 3 ports, the speeds are much faster (100MB/s). Would it be faster to connect the usb disk to the new rMBP with USB3 ports and connect to the hard disk remotely from the old 2009 Macs (using File Sharing)?

 

[Intell]

Depending on the network, it can be faster to connect to it over a network.

 

[Altemose]

You would need to be using Gigabit Ethernet as the backbone to see any speed benefit.

 

[poiihy]

You would need to be using Gigabit Ethernet as the backbone to see any speed benefit.

I use WiFi
802.11n has max speed of 600Mbit/s which is 75MB/s, according to Wikipedia if I understand it correctly.
Whatever it is I am going to test it now and see.

 

[Intell]

That's the maximum theatrical speeds, real world speeds are much less around that of USB 2.

 

[poiihy]

Ok...so...I tested it...
5 MB/s.
Oh the horror.

 

[Altemose]

I use WiFi
802.11n has max speed of 600Mbit/s which is 75MB/s, according to Wikipedia if I understand it correctly.
Whatever it is I am going to test it now and see.

Most routers are 3x3 which is limited to 450 Mbps.

 

[poiihy]

Most routers are 3x3 which is limited to 450 Mbps.

idk what that means

For some reason it only runs at 5MB/s
Surely it can do better than that, can't it?

 

[Altemose]

idk what that means

For some reason it only runs at 5MB/s
Surely it can do better than that, can't it?

I wonder if it is copying to the internal hard drive then having the Mac put it on the USB drive? What are the transmit rates on both of the computers? You can view this by option clicking the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar.

 

[Intell]

Don't forget if both machines are using the same access point speeds will be cut as the radio can only talk to one machine at a time.

 

[sammich]

You could just take an Ethernet cable and directly connect the two computers.

 

[ColdCase]

I have a lot of transferring to do to my USB 3 HD between a 2009 MBP and iMac. They only have USB 2 ports and the speed is slow (30MB/s). On a newer mac with USB 3 ports, the speeds are much faster (100MB/s). Would it be faster to connect the usb disk to the new rMBP with USB3 ports and connect to the hard disk remotely from the old 2009 Macs (using File Sharing)?

In my experience, just save the stuff to the drive via USB and transfer to the iMac. Fewer problems in the long run. The network latency will hurt you and you need a strong network backbone. The old 2009 mac probably has a slow wireless radio anyway. Ethernet connections would be better. But just kick off the save and come back tomorrow. Set the Mac to never sleep.

 

[Altemose]

Set the Mac to never sleep.

Or use Caffeine which is free in the App Store.

 

[Intell]

You don't even need Caffine, just use the builtin Terminal command: caffeinate -dims

 

[MrX8503]

You'll never get any kind of appreciable speeds over 802.11n. You need gigabit ethernet or 802.11ac. Ethernet would be the best though.

 

[poiihy]

Or use Caffeine which is free in the App Store.

Caffeine doesn't seem to work anymore

----------

You could just take an Ethernet cable and directly connect the two computers.

rMBP does not have Ethernet port.

----------

In my experience, just save the stuff to the drive via USB and transfer to the iMac. Fewer problems in the long run. The network latency will hurt you and you need a strong network backbone. The old 2009 mac probably has a slow wireless radio anyway. Ethernet connections would be better. But just kick off the save and come back tomorrow. Set the Mac to never sleep.

You misunderstood... I needed to transfer data from 2009 MBP and 2009 iMac to 2TB hard drive. The question was if using network to USB 3 would be faster. Apparently it is insanely slow

----------

I wonder if it is copying to the internal hard drive then having the Mac put it on the USB drive? What are the transmit rates on both of the computers? You can view this by option clicking the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar.

The Tx Rate? on 2009 MBP it is 200-250Mbps. Don't know about the rMBP.

 

[ColdCase]

You misunderstood... I needed to transfer data from 2009 MBP and 2009 iMac to 2TB hard drive. The question was if using network to USB 3 would be faster. Apparently it is insanely slow

Perhaps, but the answer is the same. Just copy and let it run. It may be more reliable to do it in chunks (groups of folders) than just dragging and dropping the entire disk. If this was a routine part of your work flow, it may make sense to spend some time optimizing. For a one or two time deal, just brute force it. I've done that numerous times on a number of different machines and in the end it just works better. Slow but without potential complications to resolve that makes one do it again and again A total of 2TB of data is not that much today.

 

[poiihy]

Perhaps, but the answer is the same. Just copy and let it run. It may be more reliable to do it in chunks (groups of folders) than just dragging and dropping the entire disk. If this was a routine part of your work flow, it may make sense to spend some time optimizing. For a one or two time deal, just brute force it. I've done that numerous times on a number of different machines and in the end it just works better.

ik
it's already been done

 

[Altemose]

The Tx Rate? on 2009 MBP it is 200-250Mbps. Don't know about the rMBP.

USB 2.0 is capable of 480 Mbps theoretically. Your network connection was a bottle neck to begin with.

 

[poiihy]

USB 2.0 is capable of 480 Mbps theoretically. Your network connection was a bottle neck to begin with.

Mbps is megaBITS per second? I thought Mbps was the same as Mb/s. Ugh these bits and bytes are so confusing.
Still it shouldn't be 5MB/s should it? It should be same speed as USB 2...

 

[Altemose]

Mbps is megaBITS per second? I thought Mbps was the same as Mb/s. Ugh these bits and bytes are so confusing.
Still it shouldn't be 5MB/s should it? It should be same speed as USB 2...

USB 2.0 is 480 Mbps (Megabits Per Second) theoretically. Your wireless router likely can only go to 450 Mbps (Megabits Per Second) as most consumer routers are 3x3. You say that the transmit rate on the 2009 MacBook Pro was 200-250 Mbps (Megabits Per Second). We will assume it was consistent at 200 Mbps. 200 Megabits per Second is 25 Megabytes per Second. Coupled between overhead, the transmit rate of the other Mac, and if the files were being copied to the internal drive first could cause speeds to consistently be that low.