The transfer rates are dictated not only by the network speed, but also the devices you are transferring from/to and how fast they can read/write.
I believe the packaging says up to 15~20MB/sec (I've had my DNS-323 over two years now, and the packaging is long gone), since then D-Link has added jumbo frame which potentially improves the throughput so it's should be a little faster than that, assuming the other end can handle the speed
I've got a couple of different computers - one, a server can write to the DNS-323 at close to 15MB/sec and read from it at just under 30MB/sec, but my desktop (gigabit equipped), which has the same processor and memory as the server can't manage anywhere close to that - maxing out at a miserable 6MB/sec.
Your 12MB/sec isn't the fastest, but it's also not the slowest.