Wifi or Ethernet for my iMac?

I've been using my 27-inch iMac with an ethernet cable attached to my AirPort Extreme for about a year. I recently removed the ethernet cable and added the iMac to the wifi network in my home.


Am I missing anything by using wifi instead of the ethernet cable? Which would be better for daily use, including downloading music and videos?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.2), 27 inch, 2.8GHz Quad-Core i5, 12GB RAM

Posted on Jan 9, 2012 2:16 PM

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6 replies

Jan 9, 2012 2:23 PM in response to Tgara

You may be a little less on the safe side with WiFi, but you can setup a good password protection.

If you are even on a fast internet connection you will not see any decrease in speed if you connect with WiFi instead of Ethernet. That's why usualle Internet is slower than WiFi connection provided by Airport Extreme. You may have problems if there are many WiFi connection but you can test it.

Ethernet will be for sure much faster if you measure the connection speed locally, that is between 2 or more devices connected locally.

Jan 9, 2012 2:22 PM in response to Tgara

No as long as the wi-fi connection is doing the job just enjoy not having another cable attached! If you were transferring large files between computers in your home Ethernet would be faster however for music and video wi-fi is just fine. One thing you may want to do though is in


System Preferences - Network - Click the upside down triangle in the lower left and choose Set Service Order... and move the wi-fi to the top. Here is a graphic showing:


User uploaded file

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Wifi or Ethernet for my iMac?

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