Horrible Time Capsule Speeds
“Why is the internet so slow?” I thought… was Comcast the problem?
Just last week I “upgraded” from a white UFO-style Airport Extreme base station (B/G) to the new 1TB Time Capsule integrated hard drive/base station from Apple.
Tonight, I used Speedtest to test my broadband speeds.
Using the Time Capsule (7.3.1) Airport software, I achieved:
- 2376 download speed (kbps)
- 2193 upload speed (kbps)
As a reference, as T1 line is 1.5kBps, or 1540 kbps.
Downgrading the TC to 7.3, with the older software, resulted in similar numbers. Somewhere in the low 2K for TC.
Seemed sluggish. What was it without the TC?
Plugged directly into my cable modem, I achieved the following download speed, using the same server via Speedtest.
- 28465 download speed (kbps)
Now that’s broadband. Went to Apple’s HD movie trailer site, and the HD movies just screamed into my Mac.
I replaced the TC with my older base station. What were those results?
- 17590-19118 download speed (kbps), 2 tests
- 1913-2249 upload speed (kbps), 2 tests
Now, several hours separated the tests; but it’s clear that the older Apple Airport Extreme base station is conveying the bulk of the cable modem’s speed via Ethernet to my desktop machine. TC is not; it’s cutting things down by a factor of 10.
update: After a lot of playing with TimeCapsule after erasing the backup drive (preparing to return it), I found some interesting statistics. I began using a Quicktime HD movie trailer as a benchmark for download speed.
With the TimeCapsule switched on to AirDisk support (yes), WPA2 encryption, no WDS, download speeds ranged from 800 KBs upwards to 2.2 MBs. This was consistent being connected to the cable modem directly.
When the 1TB drive is mounted on the desktop, speeds decrease; they ranged from 512-760 KBs. Un-mount the disk, speeds go up.
Further testing will follow…
update: April 19…
I decided to keep the TimeCapsule. The speed results were horrible. But I found when I turned off the WDS functionality with my first-generation AirPortExpress (b/g), the speed problem was not there. I am guessing that with my experience, the WDS is unnecessary in my home now (because this airport seems more robust in its coverage). So–I am losing one piece of this new Airport’s functionality, but no real functionality is lost in my home. I can now backup (over Ethernet), and I can still stream music to my listening room.
As to why WDS slowed things down (wireless or not), is still a mystery.
April 12th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Did you try plugging into the ethernet port on the TC? Curious to see if it’s the wireless signal or the unit itself.
April 12th, 2008 at 9:49 am
I updated my post to reflect that all these numbers came from doing tests over Ethernet cable. Swap-in old AE, and get fast speeds, akin to plugging-in directly to the cable modem. Swap-in TC, and download speed reduces by a factor of 10. Not to mention that the upload speed stays consistent.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:12 am
Nice post - I was having problems with my 500GB Airpark slowing down on upload speeds (60kps). Really bad. Download was fine - 15mps.
If I plugged my modem directly to the mac, all was fine. Reversion to connecting (wired) to the Airpark - again horrible.
I shut down the wireless service and speeds came back fine. I restarted wireless and the speeds are still there.
Next time, I’ll downpower the Airpark to see if that fixes it.
Interesting!