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Horrible transfer speeds and even worse tech support
Like so many others, I am having an issue with the file transfer speeds being extremely slow. After testing all my equipment and finding it all working perfectly, I created a tech support ticket. This is what I wrote:
Problem: Seeing maximum 5.5MB/s file transfer speeds BOTH on wired(Gigabit 1000mb/s) and wireless(1300mb/s AC) network. All ethernet cables used are Cat 6 cables.
Equipment:
Router Netgear 6300 1750mb/s AC
Wireless card: PCE-AC66 Wireless Adapter PCI Express Up to 1750Mb/s
Network Storage: Seagate Central 3TB S/N NA6S0KWR
Network cables: Belkin 6' Cat 6
Computer: Hand built
Processor: six core Intel Core i7-3930K OC to 5.0Ghz
Motherboard: ASUS Rampage IV Formula LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Video cards: x2 EVGA GeForce GTX 680 2GB GDDR5
OS: Windows 7
So now that there should be no question as to what equipment I have, lets see if we can work this out. This network storage device only attains a maximum of ~5.5MB/s on both gigabit connection and AC wireless connection. This is confirmed on my desktop and my laptop. The firmware of all my hardware including the router and the Seagate Central are all up to date. Tests on the connection between my PC and router all come back normal. I need to know what to do to be able to see file transfer speeds that fully utilize either my wired gigabit connection or my wireless AC connection. File streaming from the Seagate Central to my TV works perfectly. I just don't feel like waiting a week(non-stop file transfer) for 2 TB of movies and TV shows to transfer over to the network drive.
5.5MB/s is HORRIBLE file transfer speeds, especially considering the level of equipment I have this drive connected to. Even bargain PCs without gigabit ethernet and normal N300 routers should still see transfer speeds greater than 5MB/s, so equipment really is a non issue here. Please let me know if there is something that can be done that I have not thought of, as all my testing shows my equipment to be working perfectly.
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THIS is the generic response I received from Seagate Tech Support:
Thank you for contacting Seagate Support.
We can understand your needing some help with the Seagate Central and it slow transfer speeds.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to describe what real-world, sustained performance will be on any NAS product due to the large number of variables involved such as the grade of cabling and brand / level of hardware on the network. If you find that the performance provided by the Seagate Central is less than anticipated, please try the following suggestions:
Connect your media device or computer via cable rather than wirelessly to your router, because the router is the pass-through for all content that is served by the Seagate Central.
The performance will be dictated by the slowest device or cabling on your network. For best performance:
Use CAT-5E or CAT-6 cabling
Use a true Gigabit Router. Wireless connections are typically slower than wired connections, and some wired connections only offer 10/100 Mbps speed, not the preferred 1000 Mbps.
Update your router and the Seagate Central to the latest firmware. See Document ID: 005384 for instructions on updating the Seagate Central firmware.
If any other device is streaming from or transferring data to the Seagate Central, this will use up available bandwidth. Try to eliminate all other traffic to and from the device.
For additional assistance, feel free to contact us at: www.seagate.com/about/contact-us/technical-support/
Regards,
Ian
Seagate Support
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Explain to me HOW I failed to provide enough information for them to come up with a solution? This guy didn't even know what kind or router and other equipment I was using, even though I had everything listed! Did he not see that I already tried all the things he suggested in his response? I even uploaded screen shots of the file transfer taking place, so he can see the path and the transfer speeds! Did he even read my case?! Does this guy know ANYTHING about networking OR his company's product? This response honestly looks like a premade "it's the end of the day and I just want to go home" cut/paste kind of a response.
The Good:
Once you actually manage to get your content on the drive (which you are more likely to get married, have kids and send them off to college before that happens), it is amazing. If you have a smart TV or a smart Blu-ray player, the app available to install on your TV or blu-ray player makes accessing the content easy.
May 2013 · Electronics