Slow Download to WD My Cloud

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud
1

Hi,

I have been trying to find an answer to my question here and in google search too with no luck.

When I download to my WD NAS the speed significantly drops. Direct download to my Mac desktop or USB attached external HDD runs around 8.5MB/sec. Same download’s speed to Wd My Cloud is around 2.2MB/sec.

There is no problem with the router and cabling between devices either. Is there any clue why there is that big difference between download speeds?

Thanks,
Peter

2

You might check out this article, it covers a lot of areas.

https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=5736

3

When you say “download” what and where are you downloading from? Is the device/computer on the local network? Is the USB attached external HDD connected to a computer or to the My Cloud?

If the USB attached external HDD is connected to the computer then it uses a DIFFERENT connection method and speed than the local network speed between the computer/device and the My Cloud.

Couple of suggestions beyond what Bill_S has suggested. Ensure the router the My Cloud is connected to is a Gigabit speed router/switch. Ensure the device that is “downloading” to the My Cloud is also Gigabit capable and has a Gigabit connection to the same router or switch the My Cloud is connected too.

WiFi is typically slower than a wired Gigabit connection.

Sometimes if a computer or device that is connected via Ethernet wire to a router also has a WiFi connection to that same router the computer OS may choose the WiFi connection over the wired connection yielding slower speed. Turn off WiFi (if it is slower than the wired connection) if this is the case.

4

Thank you for your respond Bennor.

Downloading from the internet to WD My Cloud; this is what I meant under download. When I directly download files to my MacBook or usb attached external HDD the speed is around 8.5MB/sec. When I use WD My Cloud that speed drops down to 2MB/sec.

My WD My Cloud is connected to my Bt Home Hub 5 (gigabit speed) with the provided ethernet cable. The MacBook has gigabit connection to the same router.

5

There are a few things I see here that will yield different results.

  1. If you’re downloading to the My Cloud from your computer then you’ve created an extra step for the data transfer. Data flow will come in from the internet to your computer, and then back out to the My Cloud. Like Bennor said, if you’re doing this wirelessly, it will slow down.

  2. If your My Cloud is connected to a Hub, that’s connected to the router, then you may get different transfer rates than what you get with your computer connecting directly to the router. If you have the port, connect your My Cloud directly to the router and see if you get better transfer rates.

6

Thank you for your answer.

I have followed the steps above but still, I cannot figure out what the problem is. This is the current configuration I am using.
72 Mb download, 20 Mb upload speed with BT HomeHub 5 router. My WD My Cloud is connected to this router gigabit ethernet port with cat 6 cable. My MacBook Pro is connected to the internet wirelessly (802.11ac Wi‑Fi wireless networking; IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n compatible).

Do I have to have then wired connection between the router and my MacBook too to provide the same download speed (8.5 MB/s) to the WD My Cloud as when downloading to my computer? Again, internet file download speed to my computer is 8.5 MB/s, to the NAS drive is 2.2 MB/s.

7

It would be good way to test and see if the slow transfer speed is because of the wireless. Because the MacBook is essentially handling the data from the internet to the My Cloud, you may still have a difference in speed, but this is a good was to see for sure.

8

Have you tried a disk speed test between PC and MC? Not involving the internet.

The reduced rate you are seeing may be because the Mac is downloading to its memory (or disk, even) via wifi, and then having to read the data from memory or disk, and send it over WiFi back to your router, and then on to the MyCloud. So your wifi is carrying twice the traffic, and, since it is a half-duplex protocol (unlike full duplex wired Ethernet), it will take at least twice as long. But the internet rate ought to be the limiting factor for a good n or ac wifi…

It may also be that the link speeds in the two directions are different, due to the RF environment; the uplink from computer to router could be slower than the downlink. But both ought to be much higher than the 2.2MB/s you’re getting.