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File transfers (wireless and wired)


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On the wireless front, I did some testing late last night.  The laptop used is a Windows 7 laptop with an internal 802.11n adapter  I have an 802.11ac adapter, but haven't installed it yet.  The router/wireless access point is an ASUS tri-band router, with a 2.4 Ghz radio and two 5.8 Ghz radios.

For file transfers, I was running a WebDAV server on the Pro1 and mapping that as a drive letter in Windows Explorer.  This approach would only let me send data to the Pro1, not from the Pro1 to the laptop.  I'm guessing that is due to the lousy WebDAV client built into Windows.  I'll try with a better client some other time, as well as trying FTP.

NOTE:  This file transfer was timed with a stop watch and then the rate calculated manually.  Highly prone to error, so the speeds should be taken as approximate.

Laptop reports 300 Mbps link speed (802.11n), Pro1 reports 866 Mbps link speed (802.11ac).  About 9 feet from the wireless access point.  The first 5.8GHz radio in the router has some interference from another system in the house, so it might not be transferring at maximum speed.

Sending file from laptop to Pro1 internal storage:

Pro1 and laptop on 2.4 GHz = 38 Mbps
Pro1 2.4, laptop 5.8-2 = 60-70 Mbps
Pro1 and laptop 5.8-2 = 76 Mbps
Pro1 5.8-2, laptop 5.8-1 = 126 Mbps
Pro1 5.8-2, laptop gigabit ethernet to wireless access point = 220 Mbps.  Full duplex matters.

 

Testing raw data speeds with WiFi Speed Test (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pzolee.android.localwifispeedtester&hl=en_US) between the Pro1 and a Pixel 1 phone.

NOTE:  The tests can be fairly variable. I didn't run N tests and average the results.  I just ran one or two (or more if they didn't come close) and reported the approximate values for semi-matching tests.

Pro1 as server:

Pro1 5.8-2, Pixel 1 5.8-2 = about 100 Mbps Pixel 1 to Pro1, about 200 Mbps Pro1 to Pixel 1
Pro1 5.8-2, Pixel 1 5.8-1 = about 150 Mbps Pixel 1 to Pro1, about 400 Mbps Pro1 to Pixel 1


Pro1 as client:

Same speeds as above.  So Pro1 can send much faster to the Pixel 1 than it can receive, for some reason.  Either the Pro1 sends faster than it receives, or the Pixel 1 receives faster than it sends, or there is some other variable at play here.  Once I upgrade my laptop with the 802.11ac adapter, I'll test to/from it as well, with WiFi Speed Test (there is a windows server program).

UPDATE:  I tested from a Pixel 4 XL just now and it also shows the Pro1 sending much faster than receiving.  

Pro1 5.8-1, Pixel 4 XL 5.8-2 = about 300 Mbps Pixel 4 XL to Pro1, about 540 Mbps Pro1 to Pixel 4 XL

Pro1 5.8-1, Pixel 1 5.8-2 = about 140 Mbps Pixel 1 to Pro1, about 475 Mbps Pro1 to Pixel 1 (retesting from last night to check consistency)

Pixel 1 5.8-1, Pixel 4 5.8-2 = about 310 Mbps Pixel 4 to Pixel 1, about 150 Mbps Pixel 1 to Pixel 4

 

NOTE:  Before these tests, the Pixel 1 and Pro1 weren't getting close to the speeds they were last night.  I rebooted the ASUS router and the speeds went back to where they were yesterday, or even a bit faster.  Must have been something built in up the router.  I'll have to schedule it to reboot periodically I guess. 

Also, I am holding the Pro1 about 2-3 feet away from the Pixels and they are sitting on a flat surface.  Having them too close together affects the speeds.

NOTE:  The Pixel 1 and the Pixel 4 XL both have 2x2 MU-MIMO, as does the Pro1.  However, obviously, either something in software or hardware of the Pixel 4 allows for significantly faster speeds.  It might be simply a matter of processing power a those speeds.  The Pixel 4 does support 802.11ad, but my router doesn't support that.

What to make of the Pixel 1 to Pixel 4 test?  Pixel 4 to Pixel 1 sends faster than Pixel 1 to Pixel 4.  About twice as fast.  And it is about the same speed as Pixel 4 sending to the  Pro1.  So maybe that is as fast as the Pixel 4 can send.  The Pro1 can send to either Pixel significantly faster than the Pixel 4 can send to the other phones.

The Pixel 1 to Pixel 4 and Pixel 1 to Pro1 are about the same.  So that might represent as fast as the Pixel 1 can send.  

Possible conclusion:

In other words, the Pro1 can't receive more than 140-150 Mbps out of the Pixel 1.  That is probably as fast as the Pixel 1 can send.  The Pro1 can't receive more than 300-310 Mbps out of the Pixel 4.  That's probably as fast as the Pixel 4 can send.

For anyone with Gigabit Internet and an 802.11ac router with multiple antennas, you can possible test what the max receive speed could be for the Pro1.  I can't test it, because the devices I have for testing aren't fast enough for sending to the Pro1.  Your upload speed will probably be slower than a LAN to LAN WiFi test, but it is the max speed the Pro1 can receive at, over WiFi, that we are trying to determine here.

 

Additional test done:  

I did speed tests with the Pro1 on WiFi and the laptop plugged into the router with Gigabit Ethernet.  Instead of doing file transfers like the first test, I used an iperf3 application on the laptop (from http://iperf.fr) and one on the Pro1 (Magic iPerf3).  The applications can act as clients or servers, just like WiFi Speed Test.  I could send to the Pro1 about 300-310 Mbps.  That was about the same as the Pixel 4 could send.  However, I could only send to the laptop from the Pro1 at about 240 Mbps, far slower than the Pro1 can send to either of the Pixels.  That does somewhat match the speed I could transfer a file to the Pro1 from the laptop with the same setup (ethernet for laptop and wifi for the Pro1).  It is possible the laptop can't send faster than that, which is a bit surprising.  The laptop sends far faster than that over USB 3 to the Pro1, and that is with the Pro1 writing to internal storage.  But maybe the ethernet hardware in the laptop isn't up to the task.  

Edited by david
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I did more wifi speed testing the past few days.  I found out the following things:

- The Pro1 is able to *send* data extremely fast over 802.11ac.  I was able to get regular speeds over 500 Mbps with iPerf3 to Pixel 4 phones and to a laptop connected to the wireless access point via gigabit ethernet.  It is theoretically possible that it could send faster, as I'm not clear on what the max receive limit is for the Pixel 4 or the laptop or the access point.  My guess is that this is probably about as fast as can be achieved by 802.11ac 256 QAM 2x2.

Oddly enough, the Pixel 4 can't send that fast.  Even sending to a laptop top on ethernet or another Pixel 4, it can only send at about 350 Mbps.

- I thought the Pro1 was limited in receiving (downloading) data.  The best I can get is about 350 Mbps.  This is from the Pixel 4.  I might haven that speed from the laptop on ethernet too.  However, I'm not entirely sure I've reached the max download speed for the Pro1.  The Pixel 4 can only send at about 350 and the laptop can only send to the Pixel 4 at about that speed too.  So I really don't have anything that has been shown to be able to send faster than that, hence I can't really test the Pro1's max receive speed.

There is something weird with my router, because the laptop can send 800+ Mbps ethernet to ethernet to another laptop.  But when trying to send from ethernet to a wifi client (Pro1 or Pixel 4), it maxes out at about 350 Mbps.  One could think that is due to the half-duplex nature of wifi, but the Pro1 can send to the Pixel 4  and the laptop at 500 Mbps, so that shoots that theory down.  I am guessing the router has a difficult time maintaining speed when converting between ethernet to wifi, but for some reason, does not have a problem converting from wifi to ethernet.

I'll probably be getting an 802.11ac adapter for my desktop PC at some point, plugged into a USB 3 port.  I'll test with that and see if I can get some faster send speeds, hence being able to test out the max receive speed of the Pro1.

- Regarding why the Pixel 4 can only send 350 Mbps (to the laptop and to the Pro1 and to another Pixel 4), my guess is that the Pixel 4 is only managing 64 QAM with my router for some reason.  Regardless of the reason, for this particular setup, the Pro1 is definitely faster than the 2 year newer chipset in the Pixel 4, which is really surprising.

- I'd be curious to hear from anyone who can get faster than 500 Mbps send speed, measured with iPerf3 client/server, or faster than 350 Mbps receive speed, again measured with iPerf3.  And I'm not talking about just a blip that fast, but rather over a number attempts averaged.  I usually used the -t 15 option to force it to test for 15 seconds.

NOTE:  For anyone trying this, don't use the latest iPerf client from https://iperf.fr, if you are using Windows.  This seems to be the main place to get the compiled binaries for Windows for iPerf3 for Windows.  But I wasted a lot of time until I found out that the software wasn't able to communicate as fast to multiple iPerf3 apps on Android as those apps were able to communicate to each other.  I finally found the binaries here that brought the speeds up to where they should be:  https://files.budman.pw/.  For android, I tested a few different iPerf3 apps, but the one I used the most was Magic iPerf including iPerf3:  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nextdoordeveloper.miperf.miperf&hl=en_US

Feel free to ask if you have any questions about which parameters I was using or how I was testing.

- I have not tried measuring the speed over the USB port with USB tethering to the laptop.  I'll try that in the coming days and report.  Although that has nothing to do with wifi, it could show some sort of networking limitation.  At a minimum, it will tell us what the USB port is capable of in a raw data transfer test, albeit with the overhead of however it does the tethering/networking over the USB interface.

UPDATE:  Okay, I did a very quick test over USB Tethering.  The Pro1 sent under 300 Mbps to the laptop and received under 450 Mbps.  So I guess it is receiving faster over USB tethering than anything I have tested it with for wifi, butt it isn't sending as fast for some reason.  Since the main use case for me, for wanting fast speeds from the Pro1, is to send photos/videos from the Pro1 to my computers, I guess Wifi is currently the leader in that regard.

Other tests would be an OTG ethernet adapter, ADB over USB 3 (if there is a way to setup a TPC connections over USB instead of the normal way where you use it only to set up ADB over wifi), and possibly setting up a TCP connection over MTP or PTP (again, if there is a way to do this).

As it is, for truly transferring files, not just playing around with testing limits, the end throughput (which will be slower than the max rate) of a 500 Mbps raw data connection (Pro1 sending data to the laptop) is fast enough for me to use in those situations where I need some extra speed for copying files off and I can plug the laptop into my access point via ethernet.  The laptop does have an 802.11ac 2x2 MU-MIMO adapter, but it doesn't send or receive as fast over wifi to the Pro1 as it does over ethernet to the Pro1 (unlike the Pixel 4, which can do so just fine).  Whether the SD card can handle that speed is a totally different matter.  As I've reported elsewhere, the benchmarking apps show SD card access being much slower than it should be.

Edited by david
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Another test.  I set up the Pro1 as a wifi hotspot, switching the default to 5.8GHz instead of 2.4GHz.  The Pro1 can send to a laptop connected to that hotspot over 400 Mbps, which is about what it can send to that laptop when the laptop and phone are connected over the wireless access point.  For some reason sending from the laptop to the Pro1 isn't as fast over the hotspot as it is with them connected through the access point.  The laptop can send 200+ Mbps to the Pro1 through the router (over wifi, that is...when it is over ethernet, it is faster, I believe).  It is under 200 Mbps when the laptop is connected directly to the phone as a hotspot.

I've also found that this laptop is much more distance sensitive than the Pro1 when it comes to the physical link speed negotiated to the access point.  It is an older laptop with an older 802.11ac card that plugs in inside.  That card was released in the middle of 2013.

I'm looking at various options for an 802.11ac USB 3 MU-MIMO adapter to use with my desktop PC (and can also test with the laptop).  There are a lot of off-brand options cluttering Amazon.  I'd rather not go with something where drivers will be a problem down the road.  I'll keep looking and possibly get one of those to test.

Edited by david
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2 hours ago, Laska said:

Hello,

Maybe there is any way to activate UMS on Pro1? There is an app called USB MASS STORAGE Enabler (https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/apps-games/app-universal-mass-storage-enabler-beta-t3240097) but it's crashing immediately after open. Have you tried?

I was under the impression that recent versions of android require root to enable mass storage mode.  I haven't tried any apps yet, but I can try and report back.

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26 minutes ago, Laska said:

I'm rooted but I'm afraid this is not the only requirement...

Did you try any of the other apps that he linked to in the 3rd post?

Some older apps that require root expect supersu.  This might be one of them.  The others may be more forgiving.  Did you get a pop-up asking for root access?

Edited by david
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The only time I did a file transfer, I did it with sftp. Set nemo's password on Sailfish OS-Fxtec Pro1 side, and then sftp-ed in from Nokia N900, to transfer a few photographs and some music (copy, not cut). Used one of the photographs later to create an ambience, and a few audio files as ringtone/SMS sounds in this ambience.

Didn't time the file transfer. But it went without a hitch, no supervision required. Was a few hundreds of MBs (some audio files were flac , such as, Morricone music from archive.org ).

File transfer over microSD card was surprisingly untenable in comparison. Pro1-Sailfish decided that it has lots of partitions, most of which need to be formatted. Seemed to be quite insane, considering that Nokia N900 seemed to view the microSD card as one partition, no questions asked.

Thank you. Best wishes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Per aspera ad astra...

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27 minutes ago, Wikiwide said:

File transfer over microSD card was surprisingly untenable in comparison. Pro1-Sailfish decided that it has lots of partitions, most of which need to be formatted. Seemed to be quite insane, considering that Nokia N900 seemed to view the microSD card as one partition, no questions asked.

Have you tried looking at the SD card in a computer to see if there are multiple partitions?  Did you have the Pro1 format the partitions it thought it found?

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13 hours ago, david said:

Did you try any of the other apps that he linked to in the 3rd post?

Some older apps that require root expect supersu.  This might be one of them.  The others may be more forgiving.  Did you get a pop-up asking for root access?

Yes, I've tried them all. They say device isn't compatible... :(

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3 hours ago, Laska said:

Yes, I've tried them all. They say device isn't compatible... 😞

Maybe the Mass Storage code isn't compiled into the firmware then. 😕

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3 hours ago, 3zet said:

X-Plore have really nice support for many type of file transfers and you can even set wifi server through it. 

Thanks for adding this.  It looks very powerful.  It does look like there might be some bugs, with file transfers failing, but it is unclear if that is particular phones or the app. I'll have to try it out sometime.

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