Confused over upgrading to gigabit network

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Confused over upgrading to gigabit network - help please!

jonathan18

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#110316 7-Oct-2012 22:47

Hi there

I'm wanting to improve the speed of my network to provide for high-speed transfer between the NAS and the computers on the wired network.

I am confused as to what I need to do to ensure I have the relevant parts of the network set up to maximise transfer rates. I understand the cable needs to be at least cat 5e (all cable will soon be cat 6), but the confusing bit is the hardware. From digging around it seems that there are basically no wireless modem/routers that provide gigabit ports, so I'm thinking I need a combination of gigabit routers and/or switches, but I'd appreciate some guidance.

This is the current arrangement:

home theatre                                       study                               lounge
? (not yet built)------------------------modem/router----------10/100 wireless router
Mac mini, TV, blu-ray, TiVo, receiver--------NAS----------------Mac Mini, TiVo, Squeezebox

My thinking of what I need is:

home theatre                                       study                               lounge
                                      current modem/router (10/100)
                                                            |
gigabit-capable switch---- gigabit-capable wireless router-----gigabit-capable wireless router

Some of the reasoning here is:
* Switch in the HT is close enough to the study to use its wireless, plus I need min. of 5 ports)
* I need wirelesss in the lounge end of the house - but perhaps wireless-n may be strong enough to cover the whole house, thus I assume I can go for another basic gigabit-capable switch?

This way I understand I'm not limiting the internal network as everything that needs to operate at the highest speed is connected from the gigabit-capable router.

Anyway, I would really appreciate some advice here as to the best way to upgrade this network.

Many thanks
Jonathan

nickb800

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#697676 7-Oct-2012 23:37

You're plan looks right, you will need a gigabit capable switch (whether standalone or part of a router) at each point in the network.

You could try the TP-Link TL-WR1043ND in your study which is a router with gigabit capable switch (not to mention decent wireless-n)

sbiddle

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#697705 8-Oct-2012 06:45

Why are you wanting to have multiple routers in your network? Only one router is required.

jonathan18

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#697706 8-Oct-2012 07:27

sbiddle: Why are you wanting to have multiple routers in your network? Only one router is required.

The only reason I may need two routers is if I need a second WiFi access point due to the signal not being strong enough from one (it has to get to the complete other end of the house). In this situation currently I use a second router (as they are cheap), though I guess I could use another type of WiFi extension device as long as it has gigabit ports as well.

My thoughts are to first purchase the very router linked to above to see if the signal is strong enough; if it is I'll buy two of the same branded 8 ported switches for the other 2 rooms. Is this on the right track?

If I do need an additional WiFi point (with gigabit ports), what are my options?

Why is it that ADSL modem/routers don't tend to come with gigabit ports? Would save one component plus power of course...

Thanks
Jonathan

sbiddle

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#697717 8-Oct-2012 08:19

If you want additional WiFi AP's you should use AP's - using a router as an AP doesn't really make any sense unless you reusing existing equipment as you're paying significantly more $ for something and not using 99% of the functionality.

As for routers with Gigabit there are a lot of these on the market, but it's only mid range to high end equipment that has these. You certainly aren't going to see Gigabit on a $69 device. Historically many low end routers with Gigabit had terrible routing performance and would struggle to route more than 100Mbps. Faster CPU's to handle this means higher costs.

Likewise AP's with Gigabit ports are only needed if you're wanting to push through dual band MIMO, so if you don't have wireless devices that support this there is no need as you're never going to hit more than 100Mbps over WiFi.

Zeon

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#697719 8-Oct-2012 08:25

Yea try not to use routers as wireless access points. Can cause problems e.g.if DHCP persists to stay on etc.

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jonathan18

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#697738 8-Oct-2012 09:29

sbiddle: If you want additional WiFi AP's you should use AP's - using a router as an AP doesn't really make any sense unless you reusing existing equipment as you're paying significantly more $ for something and not using 99% of the functionality.

Take your point - when I purchased the router it was because it was cheap; I have indeed had DHCP issues, despite it being disabled. The use of an AP would solve this.

sbiddle: As for routers with Gigabit there are a lot of these on the market, but it's only mid range to high end equipment that has these. You certainly aren't going to see Gigabit on a $69 device. Historically many low end routers with Gigabit had terrible routing performance and would struggle to route more than 100Mbps. Faster CPU's to handle this means higher costs.

You say historically, but what about more recent ones? That TP-Link device is just on $100, for example, and I've read favourable comments about it - what are your thoughts on this unit's ability to do the job ok? (I remember reading that the NAS I bought [a Netgear ReadyNAS v2) is only capable of speeds of around 60MB/sec - but that's faster than the 8MB/sec I'm getting at the moment!). I really don't want to have to spend too much more, as this is all unexpected spend on top of a large bill for the HT - both building and equipment. That said, I do want to get it right and have it relatively future-proofed for fibre (we have fibre available now if we wanted it, but it's only through Orcon and they were beyond incompetent as an ISP/phone provider last time).

Likewise AP's with Gigabit ports are only needed if you're wanting to push through dual band MIMO, so if you don't have wireless devices that support this there is no need as you're never going to hit more than 100Mbps over WiFi.

Re APs with gigabit ports - I'm not needing wireless at this speed but gigabit wired ethernet ports, to provide maxiumum speed networking for the HTPC connected to the TV (for HD video etc).

If we need to extend the wireless coverage at that end of the house it seems somewhat redundant to have both a network switch AND a wireless AP at the same location if I can do both jobs with a single unit. Hence me wondering if I need both functions (wireless and gigabit wired ethernet), can I get a ethernet gigabit-enabled AP with wireless or do I need to get a switch and connect an AP to that, or go down the router route (and potentially hit the issues discussed above)?

Thanks again for your advice.

Cheers
Jonathan

DrStrangelove

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#697803 8-Oct-2012 12:15

I'm not recommending the modem below as I never even seen as much as a review. It's just a woooohhh... look at that moment.

As an all in one (and I don't recommend all-in-1) modem/router, it looks pretty special on paper.

DSL-N55U Annex A Dual-Band Wireless-N600 Gigabit ADSL Modem Router

If I can get 15metres WiFi range (-63dBm on Notebook and -73dBm on old XPERIA X10i mobile) on a Linksys E4200v1, the above modem/router should be able to give you more.

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richms

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#698727 9-Oct-2012 21:23

The only reason they get away with putting 100 meg ports on the "300" meg accesspoints is because the 300 is a fantasy figure. The 150's will tend to hit about 80, the 300's dont really do any better when we were testing some at a friends place. Thats why they ended up just getting a hell of a lot of the cheap 150 meg ones.

Richard rich.ms

DrStrangelove

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#698775 9-Oct-2012 22:35

richms: The only reason they get away with putting 100 meg ports on the "300" meg accesspoints is because the 300 is a fantasy figure. The 150's will tend to hit about 80, the 300's dont really do any better when we were testing some at a friends place. Thats why they ended up just getting a hell of a lot of the cheap 150 meg ones.

True, My Linksys E4200 using 5GHz (450Mbps) WiFi only gives a file copy speed of 16.5MBytes (~132Mbits/s) from my Notebook when sitting right next to it. BUT I do only have a two antenna WiFi in my Notebook and if that was bump'd up to three.... then my router and notebook would really have something to talk about. May even get around 180Mbits/s.

As a rule of thumb you get about half the access rate in bandwidth for WiFi if number of antennas are matched too.

802.11g will give about 24Mbits.

My Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10i 802.11g gets ~20Mbits to my NAS when sitting within a metre of the Wireless AP.
This is recorded with iPerf running on my Android phone and the NAS.

However if like me you are using 1Gb Ethernet with a NAS in the mix, it's only really the WiFi devices that'll never get much more than 100Mbps, but my desktop and etc is getting ~90MBtyes file access :-)

And that's almost getting up to SATA access speed. :-)

sonyxperiageek

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#698795 9-Oct-2012 23:15

DrStrangelove: I'm not recommending the modem below as I never even seen as much as a review. It's just a woooohhh... look at that moment.

As an all in one (and I don't recommend all-in-1) modem/router, it looks pretty special on paper.

DSL-N55U Annex A Dual-Band Wireless-N600 Gigabit ADSL Modem Router

If I can get 15metres WiFi range (-63dBm on Notebook and -73dBm on old XPERIA X10i mobile) on a Linksys E4200v1, the above modem/router should be able to give you more.

Why don't you recommend All-in-one's?

Sony

DrStrangelove

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#698827 10-Oct-2012 06:30

sonyxperiageek:
DrStrangelove: I'm not recommending the modem below as I never even seen as much as a review. It's just a woooohhh... look at that moment.

As an all in one (and I don't recommend all-in-1) modem/router, it looks pretty special on paper.

DSL-N55U Annex A Dual-Band Wireless-N600 Gigabit ADSL Modem Router

If I can get 15metres WiFi range (-63dBm on Notebook and -73dBm on old XPERIA X10i mobile) on a Linksys E4200v1, the above modem/router should be able to give you more.

Why don't you recommend All-in-one's?

Generalising of course, but most All-in-1 ADSL2+ boxes focus on the DSL component and then build an Ethernet, WiFi, USB environment around it.

This means the Ethernet is normally 10/100Mb, the WiFi is normally just 2.4GHz 150/300Mbps and the USB is just there to make the specs look good.

For most people who use the modem to access the Internet this is enough.
So an ALL-IN-1 modem is the best fit for this usage group.

However as soon as you start talking NAS, media servers and Gigabit LANs most modems will fall by the wayside on spec's (memory and CPU considered too) and those that don't are like the ASUS DSL-N55U and come at approx $250.00

And now that you have a high end modem, any advances in LAN or WAN technologies means getting a whole new modem and they don't normally come with leading edge specs. So you may have to separate the two functions to service your new requirements. So why not do it sooner than later.

And if the ADSL2 component fails, it's not cheap to buy another high-end modem.

And you're stuck with the firmware, so if you want a DNS or OpenVPN server you'll have to source another device to provide the service and then try to seamlessly bind it into you exiting modem environment.

A good ADSL2+ modem on it's own it's mostly no more than $100.00
A good router is around $250.00

For me, the one **BIG** thing is there is almost no alternative firmware for modems.
AND so that's my main reason for saying no to ALL-IN-1 modems.

Broadcom chipset routers have a raft of alternative firmware which provides a huge benefit in services.

I have a Thomson TG585v8 as a modem with the WifI generally disabled. This is also a true router with VLANs and thus, I have a subnet'd IP network all farmed out to support different functional groups. There is a guest network, my main LAN and two other LANs. These networks are all discrete.

Telecom gave me the Thomson modem, so I'm using it. Then I could spend all my money on a good router(at the time)

On my main LAN the Linksys E4200v1 is running Tomato firmware with PPTP, OpenVPN, DNS and DHCP servers. Other than DHCP, all the other services can only be provided by third party firmware on a broadcom router.

My NAS is connected to the Gigabit backbone LAN.

So an All-In-1 modem would not be fit for purpose in my environment.

It may be some time before 802.11ac makes it to modems and I'm only waiting for Android phones to come out with 802,11ac and I'll be getting an 802.11ac router. :-)

And I'll probably still be using my Thomson modem, if I'm still on ADSL2. :-)

So that's why I don't recommend ALL-IN-1 modems to people looking at supporting an expanding Gigabit LAN. :-)