The network interface card in your computer, whether Ethernet or WiFi, will also get driver updates from time to time. It’s not just your router that can benefit from having updated software. Your ethernet card may be set to run at 100Mbps when it’s actually capable of faster transfer rates. But there are situations where the adapter itself could be misconfigured. In these cases the lowest common denominator will limit data transfer speeds, causing an overall slow network. Likewise, Ethernet adapters that support 10GBps, 1 Gbps, 100Mbps and even less on old hardware may all be mixed together. For example, your newest toy may support WiFi 6, but the rest of your network consists of WiFi 4 and 5 devices. The adapters themselves support a particular set of standards. That’s the Ethernet adapter or WiFi adapter. Network Adapter Speeds and SettingsĮach one of your devices on the network has a network interface adapter. Unfortunately each router has its own unique QoS interface, so you’ll have to consult the manual for your model to learn the specifics. If you want file transfers to your NAS device to always get the bulk of local bandwidth, then you can specify that by logging into your router and modifying the QoS settings. Many routers have QoS or Quality of Service settings that let you specify which types of traffic on the network should get priority. We don’t recommend this to novice users, but if you’re interested in seeing whether your router has custom firmware, check out either DD-WRT or OpenWRT. This is firmware written by third party creators that can fix bugs and unlock additional router features and performance. Router manufacturers usually issue updates to their firmware that fix performance issues and improve reliability.Įven if your router’s updated firmware doesn’t handle network performance well, you may have the option of custom firmware. Routers can hang up, have bugs and handle network traffic poorly. Your router’s performance is also affected by the operating system that runs it. Router Firmware Updates & Custom Firmware This is especially true if your network performance problems affect the entire network and not just between certain devices. If you’re asking too much of your current router, replacing it with a newer and better model could be the answer. A router with many CPU cores, lots of RAM and the latest network technology will significantly outperform everything else. A router is actually a specialized computer, with its own processor, memory, storage and operating system. Your network router sits at the heart of your network’s performance. If you have a very fast broadband connection, it might actually be faster to keep your files on a cloud service like Google Drive or Dropbox. Storage devices almost always hold things back a little, so it makes sense to keep your largest and most frequently accessed files on a local network drive that’s built for speed. Use multiple drives in a RAID configuration to speed up performance.Set up a shared storage area on the network, such as a dedicated home NAS (network attached storage) product.Upgrade the drive in question to faster models such as SSD or high-RPM mechanical technology.If a slow drive is causing slow file transfers, there are a few things you can do: If the network benchmark shows normal performance levels, then you can look to another source of problems not related to your network hardware. These programs are designed to test the transfer speed of your network from one point to another while cutting out irrelevant factors such as speed of the hard drive or operating system caches. Benchmarking Your Network Speedīefore you start looking all over the place for problems, a good first step is to benchmark your network performance using a specialized utility. This means you may need to check the individual nodes of the mesh system as well. Mesh WiFi routers are becoming more common in the home as well. For example, you might be using a powerline adapter or WiFi repeater, adding another step in the chain. There are times when it can be a little more complex than this. another PC or network attached storage device) A network connection (Ethernet or WiFi).
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