Question Questions about VPNs and how they work

[pete6032]

My office has multiple locations. Our server is in City A, a couple hundred miles away. I am in City B. We have a VPN connection set up in Windows 10 that I connect to which allows me to access network drives. Our VPN is super slow and when I move (not open or edit, just move) a file from one folder in the City A server to another folder on the City A server the transfer is painstakingly slow on the VPN. So when I move files over VPN does the transfer move the file temporarily from City A to my computer in City B, and then back to it's final location in a new folder on the City A server? Is that why it is so slow?

 

[mxnerd]

Location A, upload speed 3Mbps, download speed 30Mbps
Location B, upload speed 10Mbps, download speed 100Mbps

The fastest transfer speed will be 3Mbps from A to B
The fastest transfer speed will be 10Mbps from B to A.
And it's the best speed you can get without any VPN encryption.

Yeah, if you are in City B, you copy/move files from folder X to folder Y on City A server using VPN and
it will be copied to city B then copy back to City A.

If you are just working with files on server A, what you should do is just use remote control/remote desktop.

VPN is just for creating a private encrypted network out of public network, it's never meant for speed.

 

[iamgenius]

Location A, upload speed 3Mbps, download speed 30Mbps
Location B, upload speed 10Mbps, download speed 100Mbps

The fastest transfer speed will be 3Mbps from A to B
The fastest transfer speed will be 10Mbps from B to A.
And it's the best speed you can get without any VPN encryption.

Yeah, if you are in City B, you copy/move files from folder X to folder Y on City A server using VPN and
it will be copied to city B then copy back to City A.

If you are just working with files on server A, what you should do is just use remote control/remote desktop.

VPN is just for creating a private encrypted network out of public network, it's never meant for speed.

Why does the file need to be copied to city B? Aren't you just giving city A server a command using the vpn to move files? The movement should occur in server A

 

[mxnerd]

Why does the file need to be copied to city B? Aren't you just giving city A server a command using the vpn to move files? The movement should occur in server A

Because it's the client doing the job, not server. Only when you are using remote control/remote desktop or using Telnet/SSH login into the server to execute the copy command then the command will be executed on the server directly (so the copy action does not have network activity involved, it only happens on the disk).

In the above case, the max speed copying files from folder X to folder Y is 3Mbps if doing this from city B (assuming no VPN encryption slowdown) .

You can verify this even locally using Windows Hyper-V or VMware Workstation trial. You can limit each machine's incoming and outgoing bandwidth and see what happens.



A 200MB file took 11 minutes to copy from folder X to folder Y on the server with 3Mbps uplink.

 

[iamgenius]

Because it's the client doing the job, not server. Only when you are using remote control/remote desktop or using Telnet/SSH login into the server to execute the copy command then the command will be executed on the server directly (so the copy action does not have network activity involved, it only happens on the disk).

In the above case, the max speed copying files from folder X to folder Y is 3Mbps if doing this from city B (assuming no VPN encryption slowdown) .

You can verify this even locally using Windows Hyper-V or VMware Workstation trial. You can limit each machine's incoming and outgoing bandwidth and see what happens.

View attachment 54234

A 200MB file took 11 minutes to copy from folder X to folder Y on the server with 3Mbps uplink.

View attachment 54235

Interesting. Thanks dude.