I recently got the Linkstation Pro Duo to replace a failing backup drive that I have. The backup drive is an eSata Lacie drive connected directly to the PC. Given that it's an eSata drive, it's really fast.
So my question is what kind of speed should I expect, realistically, from the new Linkstation Duo Pro? I know the theoretical limits of the Gigabit transfer speed, but I wanted to know about real-world values. The reason I ask is that the drive does seem slow. It transfers 400MB of iTunes files in about 40 seconds. Likewise, the whole transfer of my 250GB backup drive that was failing took about 8 hours. Does this seem reasonable for real world usage? I also noticed that lots of small files (such as photos) transfer much slower than 1 large file. That part makes sense.
I have a Dell Dimension 8400, which is 4 years old, and am connecting through a LinkSys wireless routed (to which the PC and Linkstation are hardwired). I'm using WEP encryption on the wireless part.
Other things I noticed are that the print server takes a while to respond. Printing a doc from MS Word takes about 1-2 minutes to actually start.
On the plus side, I have a Ubuntu Dell laptop that connects seamlessly to the same linkstation, which was nice. The performance from the laptop is exactly the same.
Any comments are welcome.
Thanks!