SMB super slow within LAN between MAC and PC

Question

I have a windows desktop which stores all my movies, songs and pictures.

I have a mac laptop which I would like to access these files.

I don't want to utilize the FTP or SCP protocol because I don't want them to be downloaded to my mac. I want to access them as if they are a network mounted disk.

So I tried using the native SMB protocol (available in Finder -> Go -> Connect to server). I tried dragging a file and dropping it onto my MAC's desktop. Surprisingly, I am only able to transfer at a very slow rate of about 1mb/s.

Assuming network connectivity is not a problem, has anyone experienced incredible slowness with SMB?

Are there alternative protocols for me to use in this case between PC and MAC?

Solution

In Mavericks, try using a cifs:// connection rather than SMB. The new SMB2 implementation has a bug.

Comments

[jmreicha]

Why not use SFTP? It uses port 22 (SSH) which is regarded as a safe means for file transfer.

[Jonathan Komar]

@jmreicha You cannot stream videos with SFTP.

[tomdelahaba]

+1 this can be marked as an answer. Thank you very much sir, you saved my nerves..

[James T Snell]

Holy crap is that better. Like entirely resolves what I've been starting to resent OS X over. Effin epic. Thank you so much!

[Scott]

7 years later and this answer is still relevant. Steaming 4k video over LAN from Win10 -> Catalina was a slideshow on smb://. Thank you!