12-02-2007, 05:50 PM
Do you have any idea what the actual transfer rate is after it drops, and how long is "a short while".
What you're seeing might be Comcast's "Speed Boost" feature that gives you an initial burst at a very fast speed but then slows down to your "normal" speed after several seconds.
When you get down to your normal speed, then the transfer will be limited by the slowest of the Upload/Download speeds of both ends, which might a 768kb/sec upload speed. And at that speed, 5GB might take about 15 hours. At 1mb/sec it's around 11 hours.
While the transfer is occurring you can look at Activity Monitor and the Network tab to see a graph of your transfer speeds and the current rates. Note that those are in K Bytes instead of K bits that your internet speed is normally referred to, so multiply the Activity numbers by 8 to get kilobits or megabits per second.
What you're seeing might be Comcast's "Speed Boost" feature that gives you an initial burst at a very fast speed but then slows down to your "normal" speed after several seconds.
When you get down to your normal speed, then the transfer will be limited by the slowest of the Upload/Download speeds of both ends, which might a 768kb/sec upload speed. And at that speed, 5GB might take about 15 hours. At 1mb/sec it's around 11 hours.
While the transfer is occurring you can look at Activity Monitor and the Network tab to see a graph of your transfer speeds and the current rates. Note that those are in K Bytes instead of K bits that your internet speed is normally referred to, so multiply the Activity numbers by 8 to get kilobits or megabits per second.