Networking question... (1 Viewer)

[Mr. Ected]

I have a hopefully simple question about LANs. I recently purchased a WD 2T My Cloud and I am in the process of loading my data onto it. I have noticed that it has been acting extremely slow. I have an iMac, and when I go into the Finder it takes a couple of minutes to 'connect' and once I get there, it often takes longer to get to the Public folder and the subfolders beneath it.

I needed space on my router when I bought the My Cloud so I bought a 10/100Mbps switch to add it to my network. After first experiencing the slowness, I returned that and bought a 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit switch that I have both my Mac and the My Cloud connected to (I saw this in one set of instructions on the WD website to get the best speed). The rest of my network is at the 10/100 speed, but I think since the Mac and the My Cloud are both in the gigabit switch, they should be operating at the faster speed, is this correct?

My network is set up like this:

Router

|

|

|

Gigabit switch

| |

Mac My Cloud

When I asked this on the WD Community website, I received a response that the reason that it was still slow was the fact that the gigabit switch that i have is 'unmanaged' which results in it staying at the 10/100 speed. I was confused because other instructions at the WD site said that this would be an 'optimal configuration' and that "It is okay to connect a 10/100 baseT router to a gigabit Ethernet switch as long as all gigabit Ethernet devices are connected to the gigabit Ethernet switch."

Anyway I am confused, so I turn to the source of all information that I trust, the FFA. I know there are folks in here that know far more about this than I could ever know!

TIA,

 

[StrikeS2k]

Typically, the ports will negotiate the speed. So your Mac and your Mycloud should both connect at 1000 (gigabit) speeds if they support it. Most switches have different colored lights to tell you what speed the ports are operating at. Read the book for your new switch, or look up online how to determine the speed each port is operating at. Then check the ports for the two devices that should be operating at gigabit speeds.

 

[17seconds]

your router is gigabit or 100/10?

I'd take the router out of the picture and run a LAN Speed Test between your Mac and My Cloud with the Gigabit switch in the middle. See what speed that gives you

 

[Mr. Ected]

The router is a 10/100. It is the Verizon FiOS Actiontec MI424WR.

I will look at both suggestions later tonite.

What confuses me is shouldn't the internal 'communication' between the Mac and the My Cloud be at 1000 since they only 'talk' to each other via the switch? (Apologize for the terminology - don't know the right words!)

Thanks for the help!

 

[StrikeS2k]

What confuses me is shouldn't the internal 'communication' between the Mac and the My Cloud be at 1000 since they only 'talk' to each other via the switch? (Apologize for the terminology - don't know the right words!)

You understand this correctly. The router shouldn't come in to play unless something actually needs to be routed. So you're not confused.

 

[Mr. Ected]

What confuses me is shouldn't the internal 'communication' between the Mac and the My Cloud be at 1000 since they only 'talk' to each other via the switch? (Apologize for the terminology - don't know the right words!)

You understand this correctly. The router shouldn't come in to play unless something actually needs to be routed. So you're not confused.

Thanks!!

 

[17seconds]

Yeah, router shouldn't matter but I like to isolate/eliminate things when things seemingly make no sense. You learn more about how everything works and eventually it leads you to the answer.

 

[Guest]

Are the MAC and the My Cloud always on or are you noticing the slowness when they are first turned on? Taking a bit to get a DHCP address from the router? Does the My Cloud "sleep"? My wireless printer takes a while to "wake up".

 

[Mr. Ected]

Typically, the ports will negotiate the speed. So your Mac and your Mycloud should both connect at 1000 (gigabit) speeds if they support it. Most switches have different colored lights to tell you what speed the ports are operating at. Read the book for your new switch, or look up online how to determine the speed each port is operating at. Then check the ports for the two devices that should be operating at gigabit speeds.

The manual says that the lights do not change colors based on speed. "The corresponding LED indicator will light solid green when connected to a network device. It flashes green when data is being transmitted or received on the working connection."

your router is gigabit or 100/10?

I'd take the router out of the picture and run a LAN Speed Test between your Mac and My Cloud with the Gigabit switch in the middle. See what speed that gives you

I took a speed test without removing the switch from the network and received a speed of 1 Gbits/s, as seen in this result.

 

[SacramentoBob]

Typically, the ports will negotiate the speed. So your Mac and your Mycloud should both connect at 1000 (gigabit) speeds if they support it. Most switches have different colored lights to tell you what speed the ports are operating at. Read the book for your new switch, or look up online how to determine the speed each port is operating at. Then check the ports for the two devices that should be operating at gigabit speeds.

The manual says that the lights do not change colors based on speed. "The corresponding LED indicator will light solid green when connected to a network device. It flashes green when data is being transmitted or received on the working connection."

your router is gigabit or 100/10?

I'd take the router out of the picture and run a LAN Speed Test between your Mac and My Cloud with the Gigabit switch in the middle. See what speed that gives you

I took a speed test without removing the switch from the network and received a speed of 1 Gbits/s, as seen in this result.

I'm not particularly OSX savvy, but I think that screenshot is telling you that the link negotiated 1Gbps, not that it's transferring at that speed. You might not get 1Gbps speed with a cheap switch bought at Best Buy, but it should still be fast enough to make a significant difference.

A quick Google search shows me that there's something called "Activity Monitor". If you can bring that up and go to the network tab while doing a file transfer, it should tell you how fast the transfer is going in real time.

Looks like it reports in Bytes, so you'll have to multiply by 8 to get an equivalent network seed. Or just realize that the closer you get to 125MB/s the closer you are to maxing out your link.

 

[Zasada]

FWIW, my Mac has a really rough time finding SMB shares on my home network (which is 1gbit, and I get almost all of that speed on file transfers). Not sure how you configured the NAS, but that could be the case.