Tutorial Change Wireless settings that have improved TimeMachine stability

[iTyPsIDg]

I recently made some changes to my Wireless settings (General and Professional pages) which have significantly improved the stability of my TimeMachine backups. I have two USB drives attached to my router. I use one for Entware and the other as a NAS (I know, I shouldn't. I will eventually get a real NAS, but that isn't an option right now).

I live in an apartment with other Wifi networks nearby. I'm sharing this for two reasons: 1) Selfish - I can use it to reconfigure my setup if I have to factory reset, and 2) it might help others who have experienced issues.

Spoiler: Wireless - General

On the General tab, the big thing was to stick to 20 MHz due to the nearby traffic. Also, I learned that adjacent-channel interference is worse than co-channel interference. My neighbors aren't respecting the 1/6/11 rule. I initially thought 11 was best because the signals were weaker around that channel, but it had more adjacent-channel interference.

Spoiler: WiFi - Professional 2.4 GHz

For Professional 2.4 GHz, I made the following changes:
Preamble type: Short (recommended for busy networks)
DTIM Interval: 3 (increasing to 3 helps battery life on mobile devices without major impact)
Optimize AMPDU aggregation: Enable (can enhance efficiency)
Airtime Fairness: Disable (can sometimes cause issues)
OFDMA (802.11ax): Disable due to how crowded the band is in my area
Universal Beamforming: Disable (not useful in most scenarios)

Spoiler: WiFi - Professional 5 GHz

For Professional 5 GHz, I made the following changes:
DTIM Interval: 3 (increasing to 3 helps battery life on mobile devices without major impact)
Optimize AMPDU aggregation: Enable (can enhance efficiency)
Airtime Fairness: Disable (can sometimes cause issues)
OFDMA (802.11ax): DL/UL OFDMA + MU-MIMO (OFDMA is excellent for my low-throughput devices (smartwatches, Kindles, IoT) and MU-MIMO is helpful for devices requesting large streams (Zoom, FireTV)
Universal Beamforming: Disable (not useful in most scenarios)

 

[Tech9]

You effectively limited your 2.4GHz band to AX capable clients only. AMPDU aggregation may increase throughput, but also latency and may break time sensitive data.

 

[sfx2000]

You effectively limited your 2.4GHz band to AX capable clients only. AMPDU aggregation may increase throughput, but also latency and may break time sensitive data.

That's problably ok - as most recent Macs support 11ax, and there is benefit to 11ax in 2.4 that cannot be denied...

WiFi DTIM=3 is good for all Apple devices in my experience.

My concern is TimeMachine on AsusWRT - one is asking for a lot of trouble, as the implementation there is older than old - you won't know until you try to restore backed up data.

Apple Silicon Macs don't use Apple Share File Protocol (Netatalk) and the sparsebundles don't use HFS+ any longer... There's only two ways I suggest TimeMachine support these days - either direct attached storage over APFS, of if needed to support devices over a LAN, is to use a Mac with attached storage there...

It's bad enough that I no longer recommend using older TimeCapsules and AirportExtremes with USB attached drives - one cannot trust the backups - and the AsusWRT and others that have reverse engineered them...

it's your data - TimeMachine might not be your friend...

 

[sfx2000]

You effectively limited your 2.4GHz band to AX capable clients only.

11ax over 2.4 might be a good discussion over on the general wireless thread - seriously, I've kind of been waiting on that one, and getting prepped to support that discussion with both QCA and MTK platforms, along with Broadcom and Intel clients...

 

[ApexRon]

After experiencing persistent instability issues, I discontinued using ASUS Time Machine several years ago. I subsequently explored various alternative solutions, but none of them proved to be reliable. I have been using an external SSD for the past several years and my MacBook Time Machine backups have been exceptionally reliable.

 

[iTyPsIDg]

That's problably ok - as most recent Macs support 11ax, and there is benefit to 11ax in 2.4 that cannot be denied...

WiFi DTIM=3 is good for all Apple devices in my experience.

My concern is TimeMachine on AsusWRT - one is asking for a lot of trouble, as the implementation there is older than old - you won't know until you try to restore backed up data.

Apple Silicon Macs don't use Apple Share File Protocol (Netatalk) and the sparsebundles don't use HFS+ any longer... There's only two ways I suggest TimeMachine support these days - either direct attached storage over APFS, of if needed to support devices over a LAN, is to use a Mac with attached storage there...

It's bad enough that I no longer recommend using older TimeCapsules and AirportExtremes with USB attached drives - one cannot trust the backups - and the AsusWRT and others that have reverse engineered them...

it's your data - TimeMachine might not be your friend...

I'm not using the TimeMachine option directly on AsusWRT, what I use does support APFS. Here is my method: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/t...macos-big-sur-and-monterey.76232/#post-731686

I agree that this isn't the best solution long term, but I am not currently in a situation where I can have a NAS because I am a digital nomad. This method allows me to have something.

 

[iTyPsIDg]

You effectively limited your 2.4GHz band to AX capable clients only. AMPDU aggregation may increase throughput, but also latency and may break time sensitive data.

I think the only items I have that use 2.4GHz are my Kindles and the apartment's smart fridge and they seem to be working fine.