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gdanov
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max 5g transfer speed with R11e-5HacT or hap ac2?

Mon Dec 26, 2022 1:19 pm

I have number of MTs and one of my APs was due for upgrade, but I got frustrated that the new AX hap is not available anywhere, bit the bullet and got tp-link EAP650 (ax3000 per spec). Was shocked to see it transfer files to my NAS 3-4 times faster than my best MT box, using my aging macbook which has wifi5/ac wireless. I feel I must be doing something terribly wrong, despite having invested lots of time to learn MT's antics.

My top speed using hap ac2 or rbm33g + R11e-5HacT (with proper antennas) is 20-25MB/s , 30MB tops.
exactly same physical set-up, same client (laptop), the EAP moves files at 60-80MB/s. Once again — the laptop is strictly wifi5 AC capable, no AX or wifi6.

To rule out obvious idiotic errors and questions — the EAP uses rbm33g's ethernet hub, they are placed 1m from each other, so the conditions are really identical.

After spending many late nights to debug, optimize and learn (with the help of this forum) I was convinced that's the maximum in my noisy apartment house environment and my NAS.

I could post my MT's wifi config, but at this point it's pretty standard and I prefer to hear other people's experience with this level of hardware, not nitpick my config. If someone can replicate these speeds with this hardware, I'd gladly share everything needed.
 
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mkx
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Re: max 5g transfer speed with R11e-5HacT or hap ac2?

Tue Dec 27, 2022 12:32 pm

Mikrotik's legacy/proprietary wireless drivers severely limit performance, specially of newer AC radios. New wifiwave2 driver makes thinfs much better (some say it even comes close to other cendors' AC performance), but the roster of devices supported by this driver is a pretty small one. Wifiwave2 driver requires 256MB RAM (or more) and requires 64MB flash (or more). Which unfortunately rules out quite a few devices, e.g. hAP ac2 (the later requirement being particularly demanding since MT used insanely small flash devices for quite some time).
 
gdanov
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Re: max 5g transfer speed with R11e-5HacT or hap ac2?

Tue Dec 27, 2022 1:35 pm

none of my devices is eligible for wifiwave2 and anyway, hap ac2 is specced oficially as "Wireless 5 GHz Max data rate 867 Mbit/s " which means I should be able to come close to this with ROS v6.x — but I don't.

same applies to the triple-chain R11e-5HacT advertised as "Wireless 5 GHz Max data rate 1300 Mbit/s " but I've never reached even half of this.
 
whatever
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Re: max 5g transfer speed with R11e-5HacT or hap ac2?

Tue Dec 27, 2022 1:58 pm

mkx already explained the situation, what you are seeing is unfortunately expected behavior. I believe the lack of support for larger A-MPDU/A-MSDU values prevents the old driver from reaching high throughput.

The old Mikrotik driver provides a lot of control, but lacks modern features and performance. The Wifiwave2 driver is pretty much the opposite:
Hap ax2 throughput is indeed comparable to the competition, even with Wifi5-ac clients, but due to the wifiwave2 driver a lot of old settings and features like custom rates or "station bridge" mode are completely gone.
Last edited by whatever on Wed Dec 28, 2022 11:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
 
gdanov
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Re: max 5g transfer speed with R11e-5HacT or hap ac2?

Tue Dec 27, 2022 2:31 pm

So basically MT has been making false claims about their hardware knowingly for years?
 
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mkx
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Re: max 5g transfer speed with R11e-5HacT or hap ac2?

Tue Dec 27, 2022 4:07 pm

Basically none of wifi gear allows real-life transfer rates as high as specified. One of reasons is technical: specifications are about maximum symbol rate, reality requires gaps (duplex gap, multi-user gaps), BSSID broadcasts and preambles. Which reduces maximum tbroughput at least by 20-30%. So even if some vendor tunes their radio for performance and does it 100% right, throughput will be around 75% of specced at beast. And that is in ideal radio conditions. If some vendor doesn't do tuning to the maximum, performance will be even lower, figures around 1/2 of specs are not unheard of (and that's what legacy MT drivers are capable of). If device's CPU can keep up with radio, sometimes it simply can not (e.g. original hAP ac with 3-chain radio and slow single-core MIPSBE CPU.

So in short, every single wifi vendor "is making false claims about their hardware knowingly for years". Only some are a bit worse than the rest.
 
gdanov
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Re: max 5g transfer speed with R11e-5HacT or hap ac2?

Tue Dec 27, 2022 5:49 pm

Basically none of wifi gear allows real-life transfer rates as high as specified. One of reasons is technical: specifications are about maximum symbol rate, reality requires gaps (duplex gap, multi-user gaps), BSSID broadcasts and preambles. Which reduces maximum tbroughput at least by 20-30%. So even if some vendor tunes their radio for performance and does it 100% right, throughput will be around 75% of specced at beast. And that is in ideal radio conditions. If some vendor doesn't do tuning to the maximum, performance will be even lower, figures around 1/2 of specs are not unheard of (and that's what legacy MT drivers are capable of). If device's CPU can keep up with radio, sometimes it simply can not (e.g. original hAP ac with 3-chain radio and slow single-core MIPSBE CPU.

So in short, every single wifi vendor "is making false claims about their hardware knowingly for years". Only some are a bit worse than the rest.
Sitting 1.5 meters away, ac2 maxes out at 300mbps. This is not “bit worse”, this is 35% of the advertised speed.

It’s ridiculous to excuse such performance for whatever reason. And I feel so duped for believing problem is on my side. Have spent so many hours to read and change settings.
 
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mkx
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Re: max 5g transfer speed with R11e-5HacT or hap ac2?

Tue Dec 27, 2022 6:03 pm

You're right, comparing 300Mbps (real transfer rate) to 867Mbps (specced symbol rate) is dissapointing. My point being the best vendors can pull around 500Mbps (give or take) in the same conditions. Indeed 60% better than MT ... but still not 867Mbps.

So I'm not making excuses for poor MT performance. But I am explaining (explaining is not excusing) and I'm trying to put things in realistic perspective (other vendors). You used very strong words when talking about MT.
 
gdanov
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Re: max 5g transfer speed with R11e-5HacT or hap ac2?

Tue Dec 27, 2022 6:35 pm

I didn't mean to be disrespectful to you. As much as I'm happy I won't be wasting more time chasing a ghost, I'm very disappointed. I've written more than once in the forum and it was always "tune your config, there's interference, blah blah blah". This is the first time I understand where the root cause lies.

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