It does sound like a connectivity problem. BTW, you are right: Speedtest is irrelevant as that is testing out onto the Internet. You can run some rudimentary tests on the NAS itself in File Station: copy a large file between two shared folders will probably do it. Or there are commands to create new files with a set amount of random data (I forget the commands right now).
At the moment you will be limited to around 1Mbps for wired connectivity. For wireless the maximum speeds will vary based on client's hardware, access point's hardware, distances between devices, physical environment/obstructions, other devices connecting, other nearby wireless networks. It's not simple to say get X and Y and you'll be super-duper to go.
To test the wireless network from your Mac you can use a scanner application such as WFi Explorer (£18 on MAS) or the lite version (<£2). I bought the £18 version (direct from their website some years ago, I see it has a 3 day free trial) and it's been really useful to see what networks are about and the signal strengths. There are other applications that do this so you should have a look for what seems best for you. But doing an audit of your current WiFi setup may save you cash.
Here are a few things you could do to check the Mac to NAS connectivity and file transfer speeds (Mac specific). Note: examples are between my Mac and NAS which are both wired to the same LAN switch using 1GbE ports.
Use ping on the Mac to check time to reach the NAS
Using Mac's Terminal run this command (
-c 10 limits to 10 pings, so you don't have to stop it running using
ctrl C).
ping -c 10 NAS_IP_ADDRESS
You will get an output like this.
Bash:
$ ping -c 10 NAS_IP_ADDRESS
PING networkdrive.nesfield.me.uk (NAS_IP_ADDRESS): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from NAS_IP_ADDRESS: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.618 ms
64 bytes from NAS_IP_ADDRESS: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.451 ms
64 bytes from NAS_IP_ADDRESS: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.565 ms
64 bytes from NAS_IP_ADDRESS: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.386 ms
64 bytes from NAS_IP_ADDRESS: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.279 ms
64 bytes from NAS_IP_ADDRESS: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=0.624 ms
64 bytes from NAS_IP_ADDRESS: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=0.843 ms
64 bytes from NAS_IP_ADDRESS: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=0.619 ms
64 bytes from NAS_IP_ADDRESS: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=0.333 ms
64 bytes from NAS_IP_ADDRESS: icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=0.631 ms
--- networkdrive.nesfield.me.uk ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.279/0.535/0.843/0.162 ms
Use iperf3 on both Mac and NAS to test the data transfer speeds (not to NAS disks)
iperf3 sends data between the client and server but doesn't write to disk, so this is purely a network test.
Unfortunately, neither Mac nor NAS comes with
iperf3 installed as a command line utility, so you will have to do this first. There used to be a few free apps in Mac App Store but they look to have disappeared.
On Mac you the options are to install the command utility binaries from
iPerf - The TCP, UDP and SCTP network bandwidth measurement tool or to use Homebrew / Mac Ports (the latter two are easier/useful if you have other things you want to install but take some disk space just for themselves). There used to be WiFiPerf on MAS and I think it may now be available only via their own website.
Once installed the NAS will run as an iperf3 server (
iperf3 -s). In Mac's Terminal run iperf3 in client mode both sending to NAS and NAS sending to Mac. You should get something like this, note the two commands to run 'forward' and 'reverse' tests.
Bash:
$ iperf3 --client NAS_IP_ADDRESS; iperf3 --client --reverse NAS_IP_ADDRESS
Connecting to host NAS_IP_ADDRESS, port 5201
[ 7] local MAC_IP_ADDRESS port 61472 connected to NAS_IP_ADDRESS port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 7] 0.00-1.00 sec 114 MBytes 955 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 1.00-2.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 2.00-3.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 3.00-4.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 4.00-5.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 5.00-6.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 6.00-7.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 7.00-8.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 8.00-9.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 9.00-10.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 7] 0.00-10.00 sec 1.10 GBytes 942 Mbits/sec sender
[ 7] 0.00-10.01 sec 1.10 GBytes 940 Mbits/sec receiver
iperf Done.
Connecting to host --reverse, port 5201
[ 7] local MAC_IP_ADDRESS port 61499 connected to NAS_IP_ADDRESS port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 7] 0.00-1.00 sec 114 MBytes 955 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 1.00-2.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 2.00-3.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 3.00-4.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 4.00-5.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 5.00-6.00 sec 112 MBytes 936 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 6.00-7.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 7.00-8.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 8.00-9.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 9.00-10.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 7] 0.00-10.00 sec 1.10 GBytes 941 Mbits/sec sender
[ 7] 0.00-10.01 sec 1.09 GBytes 940 Mbits/sec receiver
iperf Done.
Install Blackmagic Disk Speed Test on the Mac and test the data transfer speeds (to the NAS disks)
If you don't have this already then you can get it from the Mac App Store. UK link...
Disk Speed Test is an easy to use tool to quickly measure and certify your disk performance for working with high quality video! Simply click the start button and Disk Speed Test will write test your disk using large blocks of data, and then display the result. Disk Speed Test will continue to...
apps.apple.com
You mount a location in Finder. In Disk Speed Test select the mounted volume as the Target Drive (via the 'cog' settings button). Run the test. It should look something like this (the results will var, I was getting 105MB/s write in one test).
View attachment 10031
