Hello everyone, I’m new to networking and just started working from home as an interior designer. My files are stored on my PC, with a backup on another HDD inside the same machine. I bought a Zyxel NAS326 with a 4TB WD Red drive to use as my home backup and media storage, aiming to free up space on my PC. Since I haven’t used a NAS before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I connected the device to my ASUS router via Ethernet and followed the online setup guides—creating accounts, setting up folders. I created a network drive in Windows 10 and was ready to start. But when I began transferring the large files (over 800GB across 200,000 items), the speed was much slower than I anticipated. My PC stayed connected to the router on 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, but the transfer only reached about 14% in the morning after an overnight run. The average speed was around 5MB per second, with 45 hours remaining. The NAS reports it’s running at full CPU capacity. I’m wondering if the slowdown is due to my network connection, the NAS configuration, or something else. Should I check my router settings, adjust any parameters, or just accept the limits? Any tips would be really helpful. Thanks a lot! Jeggy.
During the data transfer, please avoid using just your WiFi connection. Instead, connect your computer via another Ethernet cable or use the router directly. You might also try linking the network adapter to your PC for the initial upload. I followed that method. For streaming, you can depend on your WiFi, but note that the first transfer may be slow—don’t count on it for critical tasks.
Handling such large amounts will be slow even on a real machine. We have a gigabit LAN, so why not utilize it? Connect directly to the PC; Wi-Fi is far slower than wired connections. However, you may not achieve gigabit speeds due to the NAS's limited CPU power.
Thanks for your messages. Your setup seems to be working fine so far. The router is positioned in the living room with the NAS, and your workstation is in the upper floor office. You placed the PC near the router for better performance, keeping the distance around 2.5 meters. You're okay with slower speeds and wondering if everything is set correctly.