04-12-2009, 02:09 AM
I've been getting my Xserve G5 ready to take the place of my 1TB Time Capsule. Part of that has been getting benchmarks of transfer speeds to the two devices. My original issue with the Time Capsule was that it was too slow(music skipping and stuttering) trying to read music off the drive from iTunes and stream to an Airport express while doing a file transfers from the iMac. Right now I just have the stock Apple 80GB 7200rpm drive in the Xserve. Time Capsule is the stock 1TB drive. Each device is directly connected to a 24 port gigabit switch along with the two client machines I used. I used an iMac G5 and a MacBook Pro for my testing. The iMac G5 has a 250GB 7200rpm drive, MacBook Pro has been upgraded to a 200GB 7200rpm drive. iMac runs 10/100 and obviously should be slower transfer rates, the MacBook Pro is Gigabit Ethernet. Here are my results, I'm a bit confused by the read speeds from the Time Capsule on the G5. They seem to be WAY WAY slower than it should be.
iMac G5
Write to Time Capsule
1:18.9 for 609.2mb to Time Capsule
1:05.4 for 609.2mb to Xserve
Read from Time Capsule
2:32.6 for 609.2mb from Time Capsule
1:00.2 for 609.2mb from Xserve
MacBook Pro Gigabit 200GB 7200rpm Drive
Write to Time Capsule
0:52.9 for 609.2mb to Time Capsule
0:20.0 for 609.2mb to Xserve
Read to Time Capsule
0:32.0 for 609.2mb from Time Capsule
0:13.8 for 609.2mb from Xserve
The iMac G5 could write to the Time Capsule near as fast as the Xserve, I am assuming that this is topping out the network connection. What I can't figure out is why the read speed is so slow. I would have guessed it would have been similar to the Xserve and that the network interface was the limiting factor. Is something crippled in the Time Capsule or does it not play nice with 10/100 devices? The TC itself can handle faster transfer rates, the MacBook Pro had much faster read and writes. I can't wait to see the transfer rates from the MacBook Pro to the Xserve once the RAID drives are installed.
iMac G5
Write to Time Capsule
1:18.9 for 609.2mb to Time Capsule
1:05.4 for 609.2mb to Xserve
Read from Time Capsule
2:32.6 for 609.2mb from Time Capsule
1:00.2 for 609.2mb from Xserve
MacBook Pro Gigabit 200GB 7200rpm Drive
Write to Time Capsule
0:52.9 for 609.2mb to Time Capsule
0:20.0 for 609.2mb to Xserve
Read to Time Capsule
0:32.0 for 609.2mb from Time Capsule
0:13.8 for 609.2mb from Xserve
The iMac G5 could write to the Time Capsule near as fast as the Xserve, I am assuming that this is topping out the network connection. What I can't figure out is why the read speed is so slow. I would have guessed it would have been similar to the Xserve and that the network interface was the limiting factor. Is something crippled in the Time Capsule or does it not play nice with 10/100 devices? The TC itself can handle faster transfer rates, the MacBook Pro had much faster read and writes. I can't wait to see the transfer rates from the MacBook Pro to the Xserve once the RAID drives are installed.