Reply With QuoteI'm probably stating the obvious here, but the GigE rating will only apply to the wired part of your network regardless of the solution you go with.
So the PCs in the house all have Gigabit Ethernet, but my router is good old 10/100. Does Gigabit Ethernet really pay off with moving files around on a home LAN? I move some large movie files to my second PC so I can render them there, and if I had a really fast network I could try the network render support in Vegas.
Anyway, if gigabit Ethernet does really help with local files, anyone have any recommendations for a wireless router? Needs:
1) Gigabit Ethernet
2) Works with Xbox Live and games
3) 802.11G. Pre-N's fine but not necessary; my notebook only has G.
Alternately, can I just toss in some kind of gigabit switch/hub and run my existing router into that?
I'm probably stating the obvious here, but the GigE rating will only apply to the wired part of your network regardless of the solution you go with.
Yep. I'm mostly interested in transfer of video files between the main PC and the home theater PC that I also use for rendering jobs... That's a wired connection. The 360's also on the wired connection, which is why I'm concerned about XBL compatibility.Originally Posted by dermot
Gigabit will help, but your HDD will run out of puff before the network interface will. Gigabit is also the only sane interface to have on a 802.11n access point, given that you don't want to bottleneck your throughput on the wired side.
Personally, I'd wait for 802.11n to be ratified, or perhaps just use separate components, but that's because I hate the idea of buying a soon-to-be superseded model of something when there's something better around the corner.
Network switches these days are auto-sensing, so you don't have to worry about device compatibility.
Yeah, most of these ports are 10/100/1000Mb so you probably don't have to worry about not being able to plug your 360's 10/100 port into a GigE switch. Note that that's not always the case but I would be very surprised if a SoHo device doesn't have an interface that does all three.
D-Link DGL-4300
Yes, you can patch a small gigabit switch into your existing router, and then plug all wired devices, whether they support 10/100 or 1000 mbps, into the switch. Cheapest, simplest solution.
Seconded.
Thirded
Quad-damaged.
The D-Link DGL-4300 is great, but he can get a 5-port gigabit switch for a third of the price and accomplish the file transfer speed goal.
Yeah, but who wants two boxes, with two sets of cables, and two wall-warts.. it's simpler and better to have one router that does it all. The DGL-4300 is sweet.
The file transfers will vary wildly, but you won't get full gigabit transfers with
current network cards (plain PCI) even if you have a monster RAID at each end.
My transfers between two computers vary from 5MB/s (what I expect from half-duplex 100Mbit!)
to 40MB/s. That's what performance testers tell me is my network's raw transfer peak speed.
If you're trying to do it on the cheap and don't mind the extra wires, a gigabit switch is the way to go. Otherwise, I'll recommend the DGL-4300 as well.
Just thought I'd mention that Frys has the DGL-4300 on sale for $75 with free shipping this week.
Wasn't "quad damage" only 3x damage in Quake 2 and 3?
I would recommend against a DGL-4300. I have one myself, and need to reboot it once to twice a week depending on how much data I've pulled down. Get a solid wireless router and a separate gigabit switch.
Unless you'd like to buy my DGL-4300...;)
Hmm, I've never had to reboot mine. Ever. I've downloaded quite a few torrents in my time, too.
I like mine so much, thanks to that sale, I just bought a second one for office use.
Maybe I got a bad one. What firmware are you guys running?
I was onboard the DGL-4300 until the last firmware update (1.8), which made my Xbox wireless adapter (also a D-Link) go on the fritz. Also, although I am not home, it seems the wireless has gone down on my router, despite it working before. And it needs to be rebooted every week or so. It's darn close to being awesome, but I may have to replace mine when I get home, too.
Sold. Or bought, as the case may be. Thanks for the heads-up on the Fry's sale!
Before I saw Joel's message... Hope it's more reliable.
I've had some D-Link equipment that's great and some that's flaky. Let's hope this one doesn't turn out flaky.
Last edited by DennyA; 06-01-2007 at 09:50 PM.
I'm running 1.4 apparantly. I think I'll increment up one version monthly and go from there. If 1.8 is as bad as Joel makes it, that means 1.5, 1.6, or 1.7 might be better than what I've got.
I stopped updating it at 1.7 and have had no problems as Joel describes. I'd recommend that you save all the update files so that if you need to roll it back a version you have it. Why Joel hasn't done that yet is beyond me.
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