Question about running an USB flash drive as Media server on your router

[Radi_SVK]

Hello peeps! I am bit struggling to figure out the following:
I have gotten myself a pretty decent Router - TP Link Archer VR2100 and couldnt be more happy with it! It replaces my old Plusnet (UK) ISP router and without even touching anything, the ping on the network went down by 50% out of the box! My Downstream also went up by a good chunk, so happy days!
But to the point.. I am fiddling a bit with setting up an USB drive as media server and everything is up and running. But I cant figure out why the transfer rate of files from my PC directly to the the USB drive on the router is only 10MB/s - 12MB/s.
Both of my Sandisk Ultra USB 3.0 drives behave same way and they normally both have up to 50MB/s transfer rate.
The USB port on my router is also 3.0
my question is what could be the bottleneck of the 12MB/s transfer speed?

 

[elghinnarisa]

Pretty much every one seems to be getting 10-13MB/s from the USB port on said router (and tp-links other ones as well). There are multiple threads on their forums about it and no official answer as to why, just plenty of support emails going unanswered.
USB ports on routers in general have always been slow, at least I have never sene one with even remotly close to 'decent' performance. Thats just how it goes.

Allocation size might matter, at least it did for my playstation where picking the wrong unit size resulted in horrendous performance.

 

[Radi_SVK]

Pretty much every one seems to be getting 10-13MB/s from the USB port on said router (and tp-links other ones as well). There are multiple threads on their forums about it and no official answer as to why, just plenty of support emails going unanswered.
USB ports on routers in general have always been slow, at least I have never sene one with even remotly close to 'decent' performance. Thats just how it goes.

Allocation size might matter, at least it did for my playstation where picking the wrong unit size resulted in horrendous performance.

Thanks for the prompt reply! Oh well, I guess it is what it is.. Liked the idea of popping movies on the USB on the router from my PC and then directly stream on our Smart TV, without lifting my bum of the chair

 

[elghinnarisa]

Thanks for the prompt reply! Oh well, I guess it is what it is.. Liked the idea of popping movies on the USB on the router from my PC and then directly stream on our Smart TV, without lifting my bum of the chair

As long as it works, even if a bit slow to add stuff, should still be fine right?
I mean moving files doesn't require you to do anything, just queue it up.

Either way if you wanna stream it on your TV there are other ways to do that, Plex/emby, serviio(DNLA) etc. I use chromecast personally quite a bit mostly together with my Plex instance but you can stream pretty much anything to a chromecast in one way or another.

Otherwise a RPI or similar solution should do the job you wish to do with the router for a cheap price. They are way cheaper but better. The RPI4 gets a decent 300MB/s+ over USB.

Can do a lot of other fun stuff with a rpi as well, but its an option of the USB stick in a router isn't working out all that well for you that doesn't require something expensive.

Maybe your smart TV has some useful app integration you could use either way, havn't used a modern smart TV (or well the 'smart' functions of one) for quite a while. I just plopped my chromecast in to my TV and hit "cast" on my phone and im good.