Slow speed when transferring files between android phone and computer

I've recently gotten a new LG Optimus G E975 phone (with android), and wanted to wirelessly transfer files from my (stationary) computer to the phone. So I installed the ES File Explorer app and shared a folder on my computer and was able to connect and transfer. The speed was however very bad. It was stable at around 700-750 kB/s and this is without anything else taking up speed on the network.

It should be a class 12 SD card in my phone, but I also ran a test with the SD Card Tester app and it showed that the writing speed to the SD card was about 15 MB/s (so this shouldn't be the problem).

Using the AirDroid app to transfer files between my phone and computer yields similar poor speed.

It should be noted that when I transfer files between my laptop and stationary computer, there is no issue with the speed. The WLAN specs of my phone should be: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n which I guess is fine.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to improve the transfer speed? Thanks in advance.

Stefan

Posted 2013-07-19T18:40:51.753

Reputation: 23

Assuming that the speed reported is in kb (which is most likely), you're getting a throughput of 5.6MB/s, which isn't too bad. How do you have the computer hooked up to the network, wireless or wired to a router? Is your phone connecting to the router? If so, how far from the router is your phone when you try to do this? – Taegost – 2013-07-19T19:29:09.700

@Taegost: It's 700 KB/s, so that for example a 700 MB file takes roughly 14 minutes to transfer. My computer is hooked up by cable and my phone is about 2 metres from the router which sends the wireless signal. – Stefan – 2013-07-19T20:21:23.250

Answers

I never recommend "sharing" large files across devices over a network. I quoted that word for a reason, there is an ambiguity going on here most likely from the windows side of things. If you truly wish to 'transfer" files you should use the FTP protocol, if you are simply sharing it across devices then you are most likely using windows SMB protocol which will encrypt the connection. The encryption results in slow transfer speeds as the contents have to be encrypted before they are sent, then decrypted and assembled on the other side.

I am not familiar with the application you are using on your mobile device, but based on the windows side setup you described it sounds to me like you should try moving to a transfer over FTP.

Transfers over wireless add another layer of encryption as well as decreased connection stability. the signal is not fluid so your device might be wasting time trying to normalize the connection. I don't recommend transferring this way.

Jason Bristol

Posted 2013-07-19T18:40:51.753

Reputation: 776

Thanks for your reply. But shouldn't I be able to attain the same speed when transferring from phone to pc compared to transffering between laptop and pc? I'll try using the FTP solution to transfer instead. Thanks – Stefan – 2013-07-21T14:21:25.870

@Stefan that depends on the bandwidth speed of your phones network card compared to your laptops. Hardware plays a big part when comparing a laptop and a phone – Jason Bristol – 2013-07-22T03:01:19.113