I'm busy setting up my Plex server on a separate Wi-Fi router and I'm testing the transfer speeds between two MacBook Pros. It's just got me baffled because I've come across something weird. Not being familiar with the terminology, I don't know what words to type into Google so I've come here for help.
I've been using TotuSoft LAN Speed Test Lite to try and see where the bottlenecks are. The test involves uploading and downloading a 20 MB file to and from each computer (I run the program on computer 1 and then again on computer 2).
I expected that the upload speed when said program is run on Computer 1 will be the same as the download speed on Computer 2 and vice versa.
Note that the test doesn't measure that directly. It measures upload and download speed on one computer using the other as the target. However, if I repeat the test on both computers, the upload speed on one ought to match the download speed on the other since the same file transfer is used to test both. The results from test 1 are actually:
Readings on Computer 1: 5 Mbps upload, 85 Mbps download
Readings on Computer 2: 9 Mbps upload, 90 Mbps download
Here's a screenshot of similar results from test 2:
Note: I used my USB3 HDD as a target location on my mac as it has a SSD and would make the results less comparable if the network transfer speed wasn't a bottleneck.
Why do the tests appear to show an order-of-magnitude difference between sending and receiving, regardless of which direction the test is performed? I totally get why the upload and download speeds are different over the Internet, but not on the same network.