Extremely Slow Download Speeds With Remote Desktop

[flexy]

Here the situation & specs:

My PC is Win8.1 PC on a 10M/1M DSL line.

I am logged in on a dedicated server which runs Win2008 (i3, 8GB) which is on a 100MB connection, via RDP. (Speed test on the server confirms server speeds itself are ok, 96MB/s up, 96/MB/s down etc.).

The problem appears when I log into the server via Remote Desktop. My RDP is configured so that two of my *local* drives are available also on the server.

If I now want to copy a file, say a 300MB text file, via Copy/Paste from the server to my local PC it is extremely slow. ("Extremely" as in max. 60kb/s). For a 300MB file I would need 50mins, this is insane!

It should be WAY faster especially since my rather limited DSL speed should not matter, I mean the file is DOWNLOADED to my PC via RDP so it should come down a lot faster.

I also already "optimized" my RDP somewhat so it uses less overhead, but I still cannot get good speeds downloading.

Note: When I do it the awkward way, say, upload a file from dedicated server via FTP, I get good speeds and of course also then download the file using FTP to my local computer.

Mods: Copied to Networking as well, maybe I am getting more replies there.

 

[imagoon]

Are you using copy and paste or drag and drop from \\tsclient\c\ (mapped drives?)

Copy and paste is really slow because it tries to keep the copy and paste buffers on the machines in sync and is processed through the copy and paste system where drag and drop is a mapped share which should perform better. It is not typically as good as a dedicated transfer however.

 

[Gryz]

That is to be expected.

The source-file is on your local PC.
The destination is on your local PC.
But the process that does the copying is actually on the remote server that is only reachable via ADSL.

You click on something on your local screen.
The clicks are being sent via RDP to the remote machine.
The windows explorer (or unix shell, or whatever) on the remote machine initiates the file copy.
It opens the source file. It starts to read bytes.
Bytes are sent via a file-sharing protocols (SMB?) from your local PC to the remote server.
The copying process on the remote machine starts writing bytes to the destination file.
Bytes are sent via file-sharing protocols from the remote server to your local machine.

You are copying your file not from disk to disk on your local machine.
You are copying your file over the network twice.

What did you expect ?

 

[flexy]

nope, I am copying from the remote server to the local PC.

Also, I am aware that RDP is actually a KVM protocol and not really a file transfer protocol, but it STILL should go faster.

 

[imagoon]

I feel the need to point some things out here.

The source-file is on your local PC.
The destination is on your local PC.
But the process that does the copying is actually on the remote server that is only reachable via ADSL.

You click on something on your local screen.
The clicks are being sent via RDP to the remote machine.
The windows explorer (or unix shell, or whatever) on the remote machine initiates the file copy.
It opens the source file. It starts to read bytes.
Bytes are sent via a file-sharing protocols (SMB?) from your local PC to the remote server.
The copying process on the remote machine starts writing bytes to the destination file.
Bytes are sent via file-sharing protocols from the remote server to your local machine.

You are copying your file not from disk to disk on your local machine.
You are copying your file over the network twice.

What did you expect ?

Actually as long as the machine is Windows XP and newer, doing a copy from \\tsclient\ to another location on \\tsclient\ will all occur locally as SMB that is being tunneled over the RDP protocol will ask the remote machine to do the move.

However that is irrelevant. I asked if this was a cut and paste or a drag and drop.

 

[azazel1024]

Well, it depends does matter. From one mapped network drive to another, it'll go through the local machine first. If going from one mapped network drive to the same mapped network drive, it all occurs locally.

Copy and paste does matter. Especially since you are probably looking at RDP overhead here, which means that 10/1 line is deffinitely coming in to effect. Your local machine has to be sending data up to the server on 1Mbps of pipe, which is then having to compete with a copy/paste operation. 60KB/sec is roughly half of your 1mbps upload pipe...which tells me RDP is taking up the other half.

 

[Lorne]

When logging into the remote server are you logging in directly or using something like VNC?
If your using just straight remote log in and then copy your system playing middle man, It is copying the file to your system over your DSL and back to that remote local system, This is hitting that 1Mbsp upload wall and what ever the upload speed of the server internet provider speed is.
If your are using something like VNC you are making the remote server copy directly to the other system on its LAN.
The FTP program is smart and it is using direct IP and knows and uses direct routing.