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Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Home networking - powerline vs wifi to ethernet bridge? Ethernet switch vs router vs splitter vs... ?
rivamon

4 posts

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#248109 10-Mar-2019 20:09
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Hi all, First post!

 

Come to my limit with google searches... I can read the product numbers but not sure what all the terms mean! Would much appreciate any advice...

 

We have fibre coming through a Calix T072G HGU ONT with 4 GB ethernet ports. This is wired to a FRITZ!Box Fon WLAN 7360 modem/router which has at least 2 GB ports, think the others might be 10/100.These are in the living room.

 

I have a WD My Cloud Mirror Gen 2 (I know these don't have the best reputation) which I want to set up in my home office downstairs so I can have an Ethernet connection to my laptop (through a dock).

 

So, questions -

 

1) powerline vs wifi to ethernet bridge? Is a range extender OK as a wifi to ethernet bridge? (I see wirecutter recommends TP-Link TL-WPA8630 V2 or TP-Link AC750 Wi-Fi Range Extender RE200)

 

2) How to get the laptop and NAS to talk to each other? Ethernet switch vs router vs splitter vs... ?

 

WD recomends GB connections between NAS and ? and Laptop

 

 

 

Diagram:

 

 

 

 

Is there a device can do 1 & 2 together !?

 

 

 

Cheers.....?

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antoniosk
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  #2196328 12-Mar-2019 09:31
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rivamon:

 

Thanks All!

 

@Antonios Yes, it's a two story house with a concrete floor in between. 1980's house so wiring shouldn't be too bad.. I've got the NAS plugged into the Fritz for now to bulk transfer, long term it can't stay in the lounge though. Fast.com shows 100 mbps through ethernet (is this as good as it gets?) , ~80 through wifi in lounge and ~33 through wifi downstairs.

 

Think I'm nearly there, just need to decide on powerline vs mesh. I guess the Decos would replace the fritz and be faster so would be a better network overall. Looks about $75 more for the Decos vs the powerline...so maybe powerline wins in this case!? will mull on it and let you know how it performs if/when the decision is made! 

 

Thanks for the great experience for a first post!

 

 

The concrete floor will be reinforced with steel rebar... and the combination of the two can be an absolute killer of radio signals like wifi. Wifi is pretty weak... 🙃

 

Powerline technology used to struggle when one plug was on a different circuit loop and fuse to the other end. The technology could also suffer from 'dirty' power, where poor quality transmission from the substation would introduce a lot of interference into the copper wiring... again bad for the way powerline works. Unfortunately there's no easy way to know whether it's going to be successful or not until you give it a try, which means putting the $$ down.

 

Mesh networks in your context will still use wireless to bridge the devices together, but their software might be a little more clever around tuning radio to get performance. 

 

The standard for Fast Ethernet is 100/100mbps, but in practise will be slightly less. The real thing is you are using the NAS for backing up - saving information - from your widgets, and over wifi the network link will be wobbly. I've used Western Digital and Synology in the past, and when the network was wobbly their software would abandon the save file and try again... meaning huge amounts of wasted space on the disk until I cleaned it out. Your experience may be different.

 

Maybe see if a friendly local computer shop will let you borrow some powerline adaptors before you commit to purchase? I cant see the big box retailers being that helpful.

 

 




________

 

Antoniosk

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