Network Hardware

[Variable]

little distraction from ao, and a big help for me.

I have moved into my new house and I've been thinking how best to setup my home network.
Networking isn't what I'm best at so I'd like to hear some of your opinions.

I have broadband via presupplied crappy router with talktalk, 2x Ethernet ports and is wireless.

I have my PC, which I prefer to keep wired for better latency, and a nexus 10. my wife has her laptop and kindle fire, as well as our 2 android phones. I've recently bought a new Samsung smart TV and an external HDD for it. (Loads of films on it plugged straight into TV)

Now I'm thinking it would be great to be able have some kind of wireless HDD, and possibly a printer in the future that I could share between all of these devices. From the searches I've done there are quite a few different ways of doing it.

How would you do it?

Var

[Difs]

A wireless router ?

[Variable]

I should have added that the router is wireless as well but doesn't have a USB slot so I can't plug in the external HDD.

I've been looking at a some products. URL inc.http://www.amazon.co.uk/Verbatim-982.../dp/B00CZ0P0PS

[sannz]

Does your ISP force you to use this router? Lots of such here in Germany, especially when it involves VoIP as well as regular internet access.

If you can't change it I suppose a decent Gbit Switch would be the thing to buy and attach your computer and other wired devices to. If your existing router's WiFi feels sluggish, slow or buggy a Switch with WiFi or a seperate AP might be a good idea. Choose one that supports both 2.4 and 5 GHz, and if possible move your devices into the 5 GHz band. One of the reasons is that it is generally a lot less used and there are more unoverlapping channels available.

If you can change it, it may be a good idea to look at different routers. Personally, I'd use a Mikrotik device. Does not give you that "NAS feature" tho. And certainly doesn't work just out of the box. Had rather good experiences with AVM Fritz!Box routers in the past with regular users.

A wireless HDD? Forget it. You will not like it one bit. Performance will be lousy and one bigger copy job will nerf every device for the duration to a crawl.
Rather spring for a decent NAS that's wired to the router or a Gbit-Switch.
Got QNAP (EC1279 & 439U) systems at work and Synology (an older DS1511) at home and am very happy with those. Get one with >1 HDD so you can at least mirror the drives (Raid1). That way one can die and you'll keep your data.
DLNA and various other streaming techs and such are pretty much standard for those and there are decent apps for mobile access as well.
Put it in the cellar and you won't even hear it
But compared to that thing you posted it certainly involves a different price tag. No doubt about that.

Another thing that may or may not work is PowerLAN, which uses your house's power grid as "media". Again, as WiFi it is a shared media and it may not work if you have a multiphasic setup, or seperate grids. Your trusty local electritian should know more here.

[jorricane]

If you can't change it I suppose a decent Gbit Switch would be the thing to buy and attach your computer and other wired devices to. If your existing router's WiFi feels sluggish, slow or buggy a Switch with WiFi or a seperate AP might be a good idea. Choose one that supports both 2.4 and 5 GHz, and if possible move your devices into the 5 GHz band. One of the reasons is that it is generally a lot less used and there are more unoverlapping channels available.

Basically, this. However, if your router does not support gigabit and is limited to 10/100, no reason to spend the extra on a gigabit switch, may as well grab a used/refurb 10/100 switch - you can get high-grade off lease commercial models damn cheap right now.

[Demoder]

Basically, this. However, if your router does not support gigabit and is limited to 10/100, no reason to spend the extra on a gigabit switch, may as well grab a used/refurb 10/100 switch - you can get high-grade off lease commercial models damn cheap right now.

The price difference between a 10/100 and 10/100/1000 switch is ridicilously small; in fact, sometimes, you'll find the gigabit ones for less than the 10/100 switches.

Aside from the price, think of the switch as the one point in your home that all of your networking traffic go through. With a 10/100 switch, any one link from that switch is capped to 100Mbit/s in either direction (so a total of 200Mbit/s if it's a good qaulity switch), and ALL of the wireless devices - combined - will be capped to a total of 100Mbit/s in either direction (200 Mbit/s total), because the wifi access point only has one cable going to the switch.

This may not be a problem if you're only using your home network to access the internet; But it will definitely become an annoyance once you start utilizing the many awesome things you can do with a local network. Such as copying data between devices, locally.

tl;dr: Go for a 1Gbps switch, the price isn't that much higher.

[Variable]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CSFCYF...986871_TE_item

Thanks for some really useful input.

The product posted here has a repeater/extender function and a Ethernet port where as the previous one doesn't. Looks promising I thought.
This network isn't going to be used constantly so I wanted to avoid large costs whilst still being able to throw small files/photos and stream media about.

Don't get me wrong I would love to have a dedicated Nas humming away somewhere in the house! But right now its not practical.

Any thoughts on that last device?
Var

[jorricane]

The price difference between a 10/100 and 10/100/1000 switch is ridicilously small; in fact, sometimes, you'll find the gigabit ones for less than the 10/100 switches.

Aside from the price, think of the switch as the one point in your home that all of your networking traffic go through. With a 10/100 switch, any one link from that switch is capped to 100Mbit/s in either direction (so a total of 200Mbit/s if it's a good qaulity switch), and ALL of the wireless devices - combined - will be capped to a total of 100Mbit/s in either direction (200 Mbit/s total), because the wifi access point only has one cable going to the switch.

This may not be a problem if you're only using your home network to access the internet; But it will definitely become an annoyance once you start utilizing the many awesome things you can do with a local network. Such as copying data between devices, locally.

tl;dr: Go for a 1Gbps switch, the price isn't that much higher.

Meh, just going by personal experience, didn't do any research - I picked up an even dozen of off-lease Nortel 10/100 16 port switches for $33 for the lot, for a grand total of less than $3 a piece.

<3 eBay.

Edit: Unless you are doing some truly, truly insane sh!t, you don't need gigabit internet in a home network. Currently, I run 3 TVs, a NAS, a small server, and 3 PCs, one laptop, and 2 tablets on a 10/100 network at home - reason? I can stream 1080 video to all three TVs at once, max out my Comcast 30 megabit service, and game with no noticeable lag, on 10/100. I used a consumer grade (read: Cisco/Linksys) gigabit switch for about three days before realizing it was a step down, and a drastic one at that, from using my previous hardware. My point is, if cost is the primary concern, seriously, check for off-lease lots and used equipment rather than spend 10x-20x as much. I'd rather get a high-grade 10/100 switch for $15 than a Walmart special 10/100/1000 switch for $15 any day of the week.

One thing about the AO forums I have noticed recently is that, thanks to the maturing player base, there is little to no frugality in ANY thread discussing tech. As we tech heads get older, we get more and more expensive stuff - stuff that MOST users do not need. Hell, even we don't really need it.

[Tryptophy]

Don't get me wrong I would love to have a dedicated Nas humming away somewhere in the house! But right now its not practical.

A raspi and a cardboard case would solve this problem for around $30. My raspi runs several AO chatbots, a media server for my PS3, and a fileserver (this is where you would plug in your usb HDD) without ever being taxed in terms of CPU/memory.

I agree that 10/100 is more than enough for almost any purpose. The only thing that would speed up with a gig switch is copying gigabyte+ size files quickly (faster than streaming) which I doubt you do regularly. Add to this the fact that wifi will never catch up to these speeds, so the only place it would be relevant is between devices that are both wired.

[Demoder]

Add to this the fact that wifi will never catch up to these speeds, so the only place it would be relevant is between devices that are both wired.

Actually, not true. Wifi has improved significantly over the past couple of years. You'll get 100Mbps+ per client over wifi (best case scenario), and well.. with multiple clients, you can still choke that 100Mbps link even if they're restricted to, let's say, 50 Mbps.

My main point is this: Save a few bucks (less than $5, at least in Norway) now and get a 10/100 switch, then buy a 10/100/1000 later when improving your home network; Or just pay the extra $5 (or less) right now, and not have to upgrade the switch when adding more devices?

I'm of course talking about the local network here.

[solcv2]

I have to say im with Demoder on this one. Spend the extra few coin and get a GB switch. Not only has it the chance to improve your throughput now, it also futureproofs the network.

As for a NAS, either use a Raspberry Pi, as Trypt said, or for a few more coin you can get something along the lines of a WD MyBook.

I have a GB switch at home, and 2 wireless APs. They sit alongside 2 MyBook Lives, my Pi and 2 linux boxes. That is the core of my network.

Going for a 10/100 switch would just be a waste, spent the extra few coin and geta 1k switch.

Mark

[sannz]

Also: if we're talking little embedded arm/linux boxes, then frack RPi. Sure, it's nice and all that. If you time travel 2 years back.

Get a ODROID-U3 (don't forget the eMMC module) for a few extra € and be so much more happy about it.


:edit: And it's barely a few minutes after this post that I learn about the BananaPi, the followup of the RPi. Might actually be interesting again, considering the pins layout and useage seems to have stayed the same, it got 2 cores, 1GB ram, Gbit LAN and - very nice indeed - a SATA port. That thing just got a whole lot more interesting

[Malosar]

I can't believe people actually advise to just go for 10/100 over gigabit? What?

My network consists of 3 HTPCs, 3 gaming desktops, 2 laptops, 1 12Tb WHS, wireless-n over gigabit switches running on cat6. When I'm transferring a 40Gb BDRIP I want 80-100mb/sec transfer rate, not 8-10. And comcast HD served by my Ceton or HDHomeRun can sometimes push 25mbit and when you're talking about multiple streams at once sometimes, you don't want any bandwidth limitations.

My wireless connects at 130Mbit, there are AC wireless routers that can go over 1Gbit now. Wifi is definitely catching up.

As stated, given the price nowadays, there's absolutely no reason to go anything less than gigabit to at least futureproof yourself.

[jorricane]

I can't believe people actually advise to just go for 10/100 over gigabit? What?

My network consists of 3 HTPCs, 3 gaming desktops, 2 laptops, 1 12Tb WHS, wireless-n over gigabit switches running on cat6. When I'm transferring a 40Gb BDRIP I want 80-100mb/sec transfer rate, not 8-10. And comcast HD served by my Ceton or HDHomeRun can sometimes push 25mbit and when you're talking about multiple streams at once sometimes, you don't want any bandwidth limitations.

My wireless connects at 130Mbit, there are AC wireless routers that can go over 1Gbit now. Wifi is definitely catching up.

As stated, given the price nowadays, there's absolutely no reason to go anything less than gigabit to at least futureproof yourself.

As I said, given that you can find commercial grade off-lease switches for less than $5 a piece, and they will in many cases still outperform a consumer grade gigabit switch for 4-5x the price, in my opinion, in the name of frugality, it is not worth it for a typical user to purchase a gigabit switch. Now, this choice is undoubtedly up to the end user - but the OP made it sound like money was tight, and I know how that feels.

Gigabit Ethernet is simply a nominal standard, not a measurement of the actual speed of a piece of networking hardware is basically what I'm trying to say - a cheap Gigabit switch will most likely deliver less performance that a high quality 10/100, and will still technically conform to the Gigabit standard as it is theoretically capable of Gigabit throughput, even if such throughput requires that it be supercooled with liquid nitrogen, connected via solid gold cables, covered in WD40, sent into orbit, and measured by a 22 year old housecat standing on its head.

I still deny that a 300% price difference is minor, and if cost is truly a factor, my lack of money is still on buying what's cheap, and what works.

[Demoder]

As I said, given that you can find commercial grade off-lease switches for less than $5 a piece, and they will in many cases still outperform a consumer grade gigabit switch for 4-5x the price, in my opinion, in the name of frugality, it is not worth it for a typical user to purchase a gigabit switch. Now, this choice is undoubtedly up to the end user - but the OP made it sound like money was tight, and I know how that feels.

Gigabit Ethernet is simply a nominal standard, not a measurement of the actual speed of a piece of networking hardware is basically what I'm trying to say - a cheap Gigabit switch will most likely deliver less performance that a high quality 10/100, and will still technically conform to the Gigabit standard as it is theoretically capable of Gigabit throughput, even if such throughput requires that it be supercooled with liquid nitrogen, connected via solid gold cables, covered in WD40, sent into orbit, and measured by a 22 year old housecat standing on its head.

I still deny that a 300% price difference is minor, and if cost is truly a factor, my lack of money is still on buying what's cheap, and what works.

First off: You may get high-quality 10/100 switches dirt cheap if you buy them used; but this argument is also valid for high-quality 1Gbps switches. Used is always cheaper than new, unless it's a collectible.

I've used many cheap consumer-grade gigabit switches over the years; think in the price range of $18 or so including VAT when new. The worst of them were able to push a minimum of 600 Mbps in one direction, and about 500Mbps + 300 Mbps when doing bi-directional transfers. Even when doing transfers between multiple clients (port 1 to/from port 2, port 3 to/from port 4).

I'm not sure what kind of 1Gbps switches you have stumbled across which can't even push 100Mbps between all its ports at the same time. Maybe you were using some d-link switches or something? Yeah, don't do that.

[Sephiroth56]

As I said, given that you can find commercial grade off-lease switches for less than $5 a piece, and they will in many cases still outperform a consumer grade gigabit switch for 4-5x the price, in my opinion, in the name of frugality, it is not worth it for a typical user to purchase a gigabit switch. Now, this choice is undoubtedly up to the end user - but the OP made it sound like money was tight, and I know how that feels.

Gigabit Ethernet is simply a nominal standard, not a measurement of the actual speed of a piece of networking hardware is basically what I'm trying to say - a cheap Gigabit switch will most likely deliver less performance that a high quality 10/100, and will still technically conform to the Gigabit standard as it is theoretically capable of Gigabit throughput, even if such throughput requires that it be supercooled with liquid nitrogen, connected via solid gold cables, covered in WD40, sent into orbit, and measured by a 22 year old housecat standing on its head.

I still deny that a 300% price difference is minor, and if cost is truly a factor, my lack of money is still on buying what's cheap, and what works.

Even with oversubscription (which I'm sure is a term that goes straight over your head as you run off to google to cover your poor attempts of trying to appear technical), there's nothing to indicate a "good" 10/100 being better than gigabit.

You're basically saying OP should buy a used PS2, since they're so cheap, when the question was where to buy a PS4. You've basically been digging a hole during these last posts. Go gigabit.

[solcv2]

Even with oversubscription (which I'm sure is a term that goes straight over your head as you run off to google to cover your poor attempts of trying to appear technical), there's nothing to indicate a "good" 10/100 being better than gigabit.

You're basically saying OP should buy a used PS2, since they're so cheap, when the question was where to buy a PS4. You've basically been digging a hole during these last posts. Go gigabit.

This made me laugh, and pretty much hit the nail on the head. Its like saying 'well, I can play games on a PS4, which is £400. I can play games on a used PS2 with is £40. Ill get the PS2 since they bth do the same thing.

[jorricane]

Even with oversubscription (which I'm sure is a term that goes straight over your head as you run off to google to cover your poor attempts of trying to appear technical), there's nothing to indicate a "good" 10/100 being better than gigabit.

You're basically saying OP should buy a used PS2, since they're so cheap, when the question was where to buy a PS4. You've basically been digging a hole during these last posts. Go gigabit.

I am speaking only from experience - no technical knowledge in excess of a normal user.

I purchased some Cisco/Linksys consumer grade Gigabit products at my local Microcenter.

I used them to replace my older Nortel/Baystack products.

I replaced all cabling, and yes, I used google to help troubleshoot.

My HD streaming stuttered.

My file transfers were identical in speed, with an occasional failure.

I returned and replaced the Linksys equipment.

The problems were still present.

After 3 days of troubleshooting, replacing ethernet adapters, etc., I looked at a few reviews on Gigabit products - one of them included a lovely article on how nominal speeds are different than actual speeds.

I returned to using my 10/100 equipment, and obtained a refund for the new equipment. (edit: I might add that the Cisco help line continually reiterated that 1gbp/s is the theoretical maximum, and they in no way guarantee that it will be faster than any previous Cisco/Linksys hardware)

I speak ONLY from personal experience, except for noting the difference in nominal and actual speed.

Personally, yes, if I had the money, I would upgrade to some high-end Gigabit equipment. If I had a house fire and had to rebuild my network on the cheap, I would buy used business equipment, the same as I have been doing, rather than hit up Walmart or Best Buy for some low-end schlock.

If money is your PRIMARY concern, you shop around, and you learn what's best for you, for the amount you have to spend.

My recommendation is based on honest experience, and I did not phrase my posts as an attack on any other poster or point of view. I simply say that from personal experience, on a cost/performance basis, I know what I would choose.

I consider everyone in the AO forums as a sort of "Good Guy", in that we are kindred spirits, whether we agree or not. I offer them advice as I would offer a real life friend advice - based on personal experience and with their best value in mind.

Once again, LET ME REITERATE. I do not recommend 10/100 IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY to get high end equipment. However, if you are going to get bargain-bin Gigabit, you may as well get high end 10/100. It will treat you better, IN MY OPINION.

Edit: If all the games you actually want are on the PS2....why the hell would you buy a PS4? The analogy is also incorrect in that the OP did not ask for a recommendation which GIGABIT equipment to get, the OP asked what equipment in general to purchase.