WiFi 6 vs WiFi 7 for file transfers: how much faster is a big copy?

How they differ

The gap comes from WiFi 7's wider 320 MHz channels, denser 4096-QAM modulation, and Multi-Link Operation, which lets a device use two bands at once. In a clean environment near the access point, WiFi 7 clients sustain 4-5 Gbps in practice against WiFi 6's 1.5-2 Gbps. In a congested apartment, MLO is the bigger win because it keeps the link stable when the 5 GHz band fills up, so a long copy doesn't stall. The catch is that both the router and the client device must be WiFi 7, and your internet plan is irrelevant here - this is local network speed, so LAN file copies, NAS backups, and device-to-device transfers are what improve, not your download speed from the web.

Verdict

The peak-link comparison is 9.6 Gbps for WiFi 6 against 46 Gbps for WiFi 7, which puts the nominal 100 GB copy at about 1 minute 23 seconds versus 17 seconds. A real transfer will be slower because client radios, channel width, signal quality, congestion, storage, and protocol overhead reduce the usable rate. The gain applies to local transfers, NAS backups, and device-to-device copies, not to a slower internet plan.