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Mac Forum / General / Networking / July 2005Very slow apple file sharing from G5 over cablemodem. Please advise about fastest way to access remote files.
I'm noticing a data transfer rate problem that I'm hoping someone can help me troubleshoot. I'm at home, on a broadband connection, which according to 2wire.com has a rate of 217.90 Kbps. At work, I have a Mac G5, 2 CPUs at 2 GHz each, running OS X10.3.9, not doing anything other than sitting there (while I'm at home). I use the Finder's "Connect to Server" to mount my office G5's hard drive on the desktop of my laptop (a 2003 17" G4) so that I can have access to the files. The access is painfully slow, when navigating through the remote directories. File downloads are slow too, and 50 Megs takes about 1 hour, which seems to me to be about 15 times slower than my broadband can deliver. So it's not the cablemodem that's holding things up. I find it hard to belive that my idling G5 is the choke-point either. So, what's happening? Is it apple file sharing that's inherently slow? If so, is there a better way for me to have access to my files from home? If I set up some sort of VPN etc. or go through a different service rather than apple file sharing, is there any hope that this can be made better? Is it possible that our IT people have something set wrong (firewall or whatever) that is slowing things down? Surely there's a way for people to work form home and have access to files on a Mac server without growing old waiting to see the contents of a remote folder to pop up. If anyone has any thoughts on the right way to do this, please advise... Thanks in advance!  SignatureMike Levin mlevin77@comcast.net > I'm noticing a data transfer rate problem that I'm hoping someone can help > me troubleshoot. I'm at home, on a broadband connection, which according to [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > I find it hard to belive that my idling G5 is the choke-point either. So, > what's happening? Is it apple file sharing that's inherently slow? No. Your machine should easily be able to supply data faster than that. I suspect something in the office's connection to the outside world, actually. You haven't talked much about the office environment itself, but for a fair amount of time I had better access from home than I did from my office, and I work at a company for whom online traffic is a critical business element. > If so, is > there a better way for me to have access to my files from home? If I set up > some sort of VPN etc. or go through a different service rather than apple > file sharing, is there any hope that this can be made better? Is it possible > that our IT people have something set wrong (firewall or whatever) that is > slowing things down? Note that while I suspect the issue lies in your office, I wouldn't necessarily say they've got it set "wrong." They may have it set exactly as they want and the slowness may be an unpleasant side-effect of the tools or techniques they've used to achieve a more important goal. Security comes to mind. G SignatureGoal 2005: Convincing James Hetfield to cover the Strawberry Shortcake "Are You Berry Berry Happy?" song. On 7/23/05 10:50 AM, in article uce-140BE8.10502623072005@comcast.dca.giganews.com, "Gregory Weston" <uce@splook.com> wrote: > No. Your machine should easily be able to supply data faster than that. > I suspect something in the office's connection to the outside world, > actually. You haven't talked much about the office environment itself, > but for a fair amount of time I had better access from home than I did > from my office, and I work at a company for whom online traffic is a > critical business element. interesting. I had been guessing it's a problem inherent to AFP. What would you suggest as the right questions to ask of the IT folks to figure out what the problem is? We're a small research institute and while security is certainly a factor, being able to get to my data from home is a priority as well. They are likely to be helpful in troubleshooting this problem, if I know the right questions to ask. What are the sorts of settings/network properties which might potentially result in such a slowdown? SignatureMike Levin mlevin77@comcast.net > What are the sorts of settings/network > properties which might potentially result in such a slowdown? Going from home to office? The path followed will be part of it. What happens if you ping the office server from Network Utility? Traceroute? djb Signature~ Stay Calm... Be Brave... Wait for the Signs ~ ------------------------------------------------------ One site: <http://www.balderstone.ca> The other site, with ww links<http://www.woodenwabbits.com> On 7/23/05 2:02 PM, in article 230720051202304910%dave@N_O_T_T_H_I_S.balderstone.ca, "Dave Balderstone" <dave@N_O_T_T_H_I_S.balderstone.ca> wrote: >> What are the sorts of settings/network >> properties which might potentially result in such a slowdown? > > Going from home to office? The path followed will be part of it. > What happens if you ping the office server from Network Utility? > Traceroute? % ping office.drmichaellevin.org PING office.drmichaellevin.org (216.204.103.232): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=0 ttl=52 time=42.928 ms 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=1 ttl=52 time=19.256 ms 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=2 ttl=52 time=23.843 ms 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=3 ttl=52 time=18.601 ms 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=4 ttl=52 time=19.656 ms % traceroute office.drmichaellevin.org traceroute to office.drmichaellevin.org (216.204.103.232), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 10.211.192.1 (10.211.192.1) 46.895 ms 7.698 ms 9.068 ms 2 68.87.153.89 (68.87.153.89) 8.9 ms 9.776 ms 9.315 ms 3 10g-9-4-ar01.woburn.ma.boston.comcast.net (68.87.144.165) 21.95 ms 10.545 ms 11.132 ms 4 12.125.47.17 (12.125.47.17) 9.217 ms 13.784 ms 11.234 ms 5 gbr1-p10.cb1ma.ip.att.net (12.123.40.186) 10.494 ms 7.906 ms 8.825 ms 6 ar1-p310.mncnh.ip.att.net (12.123.220.1) 9.969 ms 11.236 ms 13.856 ms 7 12.119.96.22 (12.119.96.22) 22.042 ms 17.119 ms 16.593 ms 8 ipn36372-f52526.cidr.lightship.net (216.204.17.174) 13.99 ms 16.882 ms 14.814 ms 9 ipn36372-b93958.cidr.lightship.net (216.204.179.134) 19.281 ms 22.043 ms 30.796 ms 10 office.drmichaellevin.org (216.204.103.232) 31.781 ms 34.275 ms 20.995 ms 11 * * what do you think this all means? I don't know how to interpret these data for speed info. I can ask my IT guys for any settings/setup details they may have, if you can suggest the right questions. Thank you! Mike SignatureMike Levin mlevin77@comcast.net > 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=0 ttl=52 time=42.928 ms > 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=1 ttl=52 time=19.256 ms > 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=2 ttl=52 time=23.843 ms > 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=3 ttl=52 time=18.601 ms > 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=4 ttl=52 time=19.656 ms Those are decent times, and suggest to me that the network between your home and your office isn't the problem. Talk to your IT guys. Pinging the same IP address from here (western Canada) gives me: 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=0 ttl=51 time=76.415 ms 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=71.720 ms 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=2 ttl=51 time=80.760 ms 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=3 ttl=51 time=94.242 ms 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=4 ttl=51 time=88.739 ms 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=5 ttl=51 time=212.120 ms 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=6 ttl=51 time=72.342 ms 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=7 ttl=51 time=79.056 ms 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=8 ttl=51 time=69.868 ms djb Signature~ Stay Calm... Be Brave... Wait for the Signs ~ ------------------------------------------------------ One site: <http://www.balderstone.ca> The other site, with ww links<http://www.woodenwabbits.com> > > 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=0 ttl=52 time=42.928 ms > > 64 bytes from 216.204.103.232: icmp_seq=1 ttl=52 time=19.256 ms [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > djb Response and bandwidth are 2 different things. Ping only needs a tiny amount of bandwidth, it is only going to indicate response times. But if the outbound bandwidth for the company or if the company puts bandwidth limits on a single connection so it does not hog all the bandwidth from other users, then ping is not going to show that. Neither is traceroute. As a diagnostic, try using another protocol, such as FTP. Enable the FTP server on your work system (System Preferences -> Sharing -> FTP Access). Put a nice large file in an accessible location, then fetch it using ftp://yoursystem.yourcompany.com/path/to/file. Or enable ssh access on your work system (System Preferences -> Sharing -> Remote Login). Then from a terminal window, use scp username@yoursystem.yourcompany.com:path/to/file Both of these will use different protocols. If they run faster, then it is an AppleShare issue. If they run the same speed then it is more likely a networking issue. Especially if you can download stuff faster from a website on the net then you get from work. You could also install something like menumeters and watch the transmit/receive numbers on your menu bar http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17713 Also at work, if you have a way of using ftp to push files outside of the corporate firewall, _OR_ if you access to a WebDAV server that can transfer files over http (like a .mac account), then you could try pushing a file from your work system to an independent site on the internet and see what the transfer speeds are separate from your home system and cable modem connection. Oh, yea. One more thing. At home you could check the bandwidth of your cable modem connection by using DSLReports speed test http://www.dslreports.com/stest I don't think you will be able to run this from work, because of firewalls, but at least you can verify the speed on your home connection. Bob Harris > I'm noticing a data transfer rate problem that I'm hoping someone can help > me troubleshoot. I'm at home, on a broadband connection, which according to [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > contents of a remote folder to pop up. If anyone has any thoughts on the > right way to do this, please advise... Thanks in advance! AFP is extremely sensitive to network latency. It was designed for local networks and hasn't been fully updated for long distance sharing. It's a little faster and a little less prone to hangs in 10.4. You should also check your upload bandwidth. It's typically much lower than the download bandwidth. Mine DSL is 608 Kbps up and 6016 Kbps down; about 10x slower serving than downloading. > I'm noticing a data transfer rate problem that I'm hoping someone can > help me troubleshoot. I'm at home, on a broadband connection, which [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > files. The access is painfully slow, when navigating through the > remote directories. Are you using any VPN software to connect? Encryption on both ends of a connection can slow things down quite a bit if the boxes doing the encryption aren't fast enough. Also, whas speed is your office's link to the outside world? And how many other people are using it at the same time? If your company has a T-1 line (1.5Mbps both ways) and twenty employees are all connecting at the same time, transferring files, you'll have less effective bandwidth than a dial-up connection. If your company has a web server that's connected over that link, all the people accessing it will also take up that bandwidth. And if your company's router gives priority to web traffic (which many companies do so that employees will bog down before customers do), that will also impact you. File sharing itseld is pretty fast, but there are a lot of things that affect a remote-login than just the speed of the network at each end. -- David On 7/26/05 12:16 AM, in article m2fyu2qk1r.fsf@qqqq.invalid, "David C." <shamino@techie.com> wrote: >> I'm noticing a data transfer rate problem that I'm hoping someone can >> help me troubleshoot. I'm at home, on a broadband connection, which [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > > -- David Hmmm. We've got a T1 line but I don't know how fast, nor how many people are accessing it at once (it might be quite a few, and we do have a web server as well). I'm not using VPN. I guess I'll have to investigate with IT what their speed is going out. SignatureMike Levin mlevin77@comcast.net |
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