How do I check my home LAN/Wifi speed?

[anonymouse1]

There are lots of "speed tests" that will test how fast my connect to my ISP is. I want to check the speeds on my internal LAN, including WiFi connections.

Are there any apps that will do that?

Thanks!

[mattkime]

On your Mac, option click the Wi-Fi menu

[anonymouse1]

On my Mac, that just takes me into the Network Preferences. I don't see a speed test, there.

mattkime wrote:
On your Mac, option click the Wi-Fi menu

[Tiangou]

Download the BlackMagic Speed Test app.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blackmagic...4550?mt=12

Mount a shared volume from another Mac or PC from your your network. If you want to test max available network-speed, make sure that the shared drive/folder is from a SSD or speedy RAID.

Open the app. Click the tiny cog button to select the mounted share as your target.

Click "Start."

This will test your maximum transfer speed across the network.

Most of the time, this will provide a good estimate of your network-bandwidth.

Note that it's limited to the max network speed of the slowest device that you're connecting to/from, so if you're using a 802.11ac MacBook Pro to test the connection to a 802.11g Mac mini, you're not going to see 802.1ac speeds. And if you're connecting to a device with a slow drive, you may see reduced xfer speeds due to the impact of that drive's speed (even striped RAIDs often can't match the speed of a modern SSD and may not be able to keep up with the max speed of your network).

[mattkime]

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help...connection&text=On%20your%20Mac%2C%20Option%2Dclick,network%20you're%20connected%20to.

[anonymouse1]

THanks!

mattkime wrote:
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help...connection&text=On%20your%20Mac%2C%20Option%2Dclick,network%20you're%20connected%20to.

[anonymouse1]

That's clever-thanks!

Tiangou wrote:
Download the BlackMagic Speed Test app.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blackmagic...4550?mt=12

Mount a shared volume from another Mac or PC from your your network. If you want to test max available network-speed, make sure that the shared drive/folder is from a SSD or speedy RAID.

Open the app. Click the tiny cog button to select the mounted share as your target.

Click "Start."

This will test your maximum transfer speed across the network.

Most of the time, this will provide a good estimate of your network-bandwidth.

Note that it's limited to the max network speed of the slowest device that you're connecting to/from, so if you're using a 802.11ac MacBook Pro to test the connection to a 802.11g Mac mini, you're not going to see 802.1ac speeds. And if you're connecting to a device with a slow drive, you may see reduced xfer speeds due to the impact of that drive's speed (even striped RAIDs often can't match the speed of a modern SSD and may not be able to keep up with the max speed of your network).

[jdc]

mattkime wrote:
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help...connection&text=On%20your%20Mac%2C%20Option%2Dclick,network%20you're%20connected%20to.

For some reason, this link opens in Sanskrit?

I just sent a 1 GB file with 495 items from my 2020 imac to M1 mini... 60 seconds.

blackmagic only pegged at 30 MB/s.

[Tiangou]

jdc wrote:
[quote=mattkime]
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help...connection&text=On%20your%20Mac%2C%20Option%2Dclick,network%20you're%20connected%20to.

For some reason, this link opens in Sanskrit?

I just sent a 1 GB file with 495 items from my 2020 imac to M1 mini... 60 seconds.

blackmagic only pegged at 30 MB/s.
Test speed with a single large file.

When you test with multiple files there's additional time blown writing file-system and directory info and potentially other stuff like Spotlight-indexing slowing down the transfer. You'll never hit top-speed that way.

[jdc]

It was more of a curiosity thing, we never transfer files about the house.

Id consider 1 GB in 60 seconds great, so if it is any faster with other options, even better. =)

Remember when writing a single 650 MB CD took 30 minutes? =)