Hi @Kevin_Z , thanks for replying.

 

With your computer connected to the wifi, click here to check the wireless negotiation speed. 

 

Wireless status (speed is more than 800 Mb/s):

 

 

How did you transfer the files between the HDD and the computer? Could you please show us a picture? 

 

I have mapped \\TP-Share\sda1 as a network device, and copy it via Windows Explorer:

 

 

 

For the CPU and RAM value, please take a picture as well; and is there any heavy traffic network activity at that point? 

 

This is actually interesting, as yesterday the CPU was 100% most of the time. Today it was just 50-65%. During both tests, there was no traffic running in the network (just few connected devices).

I have tried to copy the files, and the CPU has not changed today - it stayed on the same level during copy as before. But it was still slow (5MB/s).

 

 

 

With computer connected to the C1200 by wired cable, what is the teansfer speed? 

 

Same as through the WiFi.

I have disabled NAT boost, but did not see any major improvement. It was still low speed (around 5-7 MB/s).

 

However, after router rebooted, CPU was for some time around 100%. It stabilizerd later on after testing back to 50%.

 

 

I have tested then access to HDD via FTP. And the throughput was almost 2 times as before.

 

Access method FTP (ftp://192.168.0.1:21, using Total Commander):

 

Access method Network Neighborhood (\\TP-Share, using WIndows Explorer):

 

I have tested also FTP using Windows Explorer, and the throughput was more similar to Total Commander throughput (no screenshoot, as that method did not show transfer speed).

 

 

Do you know why is such a diffrerence between two types? From my perspective, Network Neighborhood (\\TP-Share) way should map address directly to FTP one. May it use different protocol?

 

Transfer speed of 12 MB/s still seems small (even for USB 2.0). Is this limitation of the particular USB in the device, or is there something that still could be improved on?

@Kevin_Z 

For me, this is a problem.

Is there a way to improve speed?

Like @Mike85, I've got the same problem. Interestingly, read speed seems faster - still pretty slow, but just fast enough to stream video, about 2-3 megabyte/second. But write speed is about 1mb/second, which is quite torturous for a backup system. Speed seems the same for SMB and FTP. Note that the transfer speed is markedly less than download speeds, so it's not a WiFi issue, and plugging the hard drive directly into my Mac via USB gives normal fast hard-drive access speeds, so it's not the drive.

 

Is this a malfunctioning router? Just bad software, or an underpowered CPU? What can we do about it? It's most definitely not working as advertised. Thanks!

Unfortunately I didn't fully fix the issue. Connected the drive directly to one of the PC.

Oh dear, that's not very promising! @Kevin_Z, as our local rep.. any ideas about what's going on here? Have you guys been able to get the filesystem working correctly in-house, or is this one of those afterthought things?

FYI, reply from support:

 

"For the speeds of the USB file server you mentioned, I consulted our senior engineer and they told me the speed you got was normal USB 2.0 from the Archer VR1600v. Therefore, we didn't have any other better suggestions to provide."

 

So I guess this is a known issue that won't be fixed. 

 

My original email: 

 

"Hello! I'm having problems with slow fileserver access speeds via the USB port. I've set up a hard drive with the router, but copying to or from the file server is very slow - at best, it's about 4 or 5 megabytes per second (40 megabit), but usually it's much less, about 1-2 MB per second (16 megabit). This makes backups run very, veeery slowly. Given that the device has a USB 2 port, I would expect speeds one or two orders of magnitude faster (i.e. 40-50 megabytes per second, or 400 megabits), so this seems like a malfunction.

WiFi speeds are fine (my Mac is telling me the current TX rate is 780 Mbps), and similarly when plugging the drive directly into my Mac via USB, it runs at expected USB 3 speeds, so it's not the WiFi or the hard drive itself. I'm seeing the same speed problems via FTP and SMB/"Network Neighbourhood".

Would appreciate some help getting it working!"