LFTP transfer speeds over WiFi

    On my RPi5 running LiberELEC, if I'm transferring a single file using get, my transfer speeds are ~6mb/s using ethernet and 2mb/s using wifi.

    On my laptop, I get the full 6mb/s using wifi.

    However, when I use pget on the RPi5, my wifi transfer speeds exceed 4mb/s

    Any ideas why the transfer speeds are so much slower over wifi than ethernet when using a single TCP stream?

    Quote from chewitt

    Random guess is that pget is multi-threaded and get is not.

    Yes. That's exactly it.

    What confuses me is that a single thread can be just as fast when on my laptop, or when using an a wired connection to the RPi5.

    it's only when using wifi on the RPi5 that pget is faster. There isn't any transfer speed improvement when using pget on my laptop or when using pget w/ a wired connection on the RPi5

    The laptop has a proper WiFi antenna allowing 'max' transmission rates and so much single-core CPU capacity that single vs. multi-threading makes no practical difference. The CPU design is general purpose and the fully built system uses a large amount of power and generates a lot of heat even when handling trivial tasks.

    The RPi5 has a rubbish antenna so WiFi will always be at a disadvantage when compared to Ethernet, and the ARM CPU single-core performance is much lower so single vs. multi-threaded has a more noticeable impact. The SoC package is a lot more efficient and a fully built system uses considerably less power and generates less heat for a trivial workload.

    As usual, the moral of the story is .. use Ethernet :)