Read much slower than Write on ReadyNAS 516.

Your old router will not have more signal strength than the new one. The maximum transmit power is regulated by country (and in your case is 100 mw). The old router might have less power, but it will not have more.

Powerline is an option - it can be hit or miss (depending on your power circuits), and (like wifi) your throughput is always much less than the link speed. However, in many situations it works well. Get at least AV500. A WiFi extender is another possibility - especially if it enables 5 ghz, which is much less crowded.

On the read/write question - anything you write can be queued up at every step in the network path. That means in Windows, your USB adapter, the router,and the NAS. The NAS itself can do read-ahead when you are doing the read test, but it cannot send any data until the read request reaches it. So the queuing is asymmetric, and favors the write path in cases where the wifi network is misbehaving.

FWIW, as far as the NAS is concerned the writes take longer (since the raid parity blocks need to be rewritten).

#rovingmedic #StephenB
Thanks for your suggestions and replies (again)

StephenB wrote:
Your old router will not have more signal strength than the new one. The maximum transmit power is regulated by country (and in your case is 100 mw). The old router might have less power, but it will not have more.

To be clear I was not suggesting replace Router with Router, but the WNDA3100v2 access point with a Router switched to be an AP only. If AP transmitted power is less than 100mw this might be an option.

Re the use of powerlines, I considered these years ago, but I have many socket extensions and multiple fuse boxes (5) in the house. I also have at least 5 suppression extension sockets for IT equipment.
I am led to believe that all of these MAY 'dilute' and/or 'interfere' with any signal on the mains.
So I currently think it is not a goer.

StephenB wrote:
FWIW, as far as the NAS is concerned the writes take longer (since the raid parity blocks need to be rewritten).

Are there raid parity blocks on RAID10 as I thought it was mirrored with both mirrors being written in parallel?

BaJohn wrote:
To be clear I was not suggesting replace Router with Router, but the WNDA3100v2 access point with a Router switched to be an AP only.

In other words, a wifi extender. Most new netgear routers include an extender/bridging mode, you can also buy devices that only work as extenders. Either way you will have better antennas and probably more power than your dongle.

BaJohn wrote:
Re the use of powerlines, I considered these years ago, but I have many socket extensions and multiple fuse boxes (5) in the house. I also have at least 5 suppression extension sockets for IT equipment. I am led to believe that all of these MAY 'dilute' and/or 'interfere' with any signal on the mains. So I currently think it is not a goer.

I think you need to try something, though it might have some risk of failure. Multiple fuse boxes are an issue, ideally the two adapters would be connected to the same fusebox. Then connect the AP to the in-house adapter. The IT sockets won't be a problem if you aren't connecting the powerline adapters into them. Powerline noise can be a problem, so you should look for an adapter pair that has built-in powerline filters. Maybe try this: http://www.netgear.co.uk/home/products/ ... P1200.aspx

BaJohn wrote:
Are there raid parity blocks on RAID10 as I thought it was mirrored with both mirrors being written in parallel?

It is mirrored, I forgot you were running raid-10.

I have been working on this problem since late Feb.
I already have an extender elsewhere in the house and do not want another one cluttering up the airwaves.
We have about 30 networks (on 2.4 GHz) that I can see from my front room, for basically 3 channels (1,6,11).
The 5GHz is also used as well.

The P1200 looks great, but seems to not be available in the UK. Not certain if it sensible to buy US version for UK.
I'm sort of hoping it will be available here soon :)

I have made some progress in that I now have the read slightly faster than the write, which has improved a little.
This was achieved by changing channels on the 5GHz band (not quite so crowded) from 140 to 100.
I checked and double checked and yes the effect is consistent, which is great news.

There is just two more things I would like the answer to:-
1. Does a 'g' connected device on the 2.4GHz channel degrade a 'n' connected device on the 5GHz channel on the
same router, in this case a Netgear WNDR4500?
2. If it does, or can do, how can I monitor which of the 'g' or 'n' is each device using dynamically?

The 2.4 ghz and 5 ghz bands are completely independent, and can run different protocols. And associating a 802.11g client will not degrade performance for 802.11n devices even in the 2.4 ghz band.

For powerline, you want to get the UK version, so you'd want to wait until that is available in your region.