Any need for Gigabit if i'll still be connecting via 802.11n?

[aphex]

Was looking at new routers and thought gigabit would be great, but then realized it would have limited applicability if only my server was connected via gigabit ethernet while all the clients will be 802.11n and 802.11g.

Am i correct?

 

[Markbnj]

You won't get much help from it in any configuration I can think of, save one: moving really big files between machines that are wired for gigabit all the way through. But if the price differential isn't great it won't hurt either. Bear in mind, though, that most people don't even have a hard drive capable of consistently exceeding 100 mbps, so there are all sorts of bottlenecks.

 

[Griffinhart]

IMHO don't waste your money on a 11n router that doesn't have a gigabit switch. There is a noticable difference in speeds. While your 11g machines wouldn't see any benefit your 11n machines would. Granted, it won't be anywhere near gigabit speeds, but it is still much faster than you will get with a 10/100 switch in your wireless router.

I regularly get wireless transfer speeds of 140 to 170 Mb over my network and the router isn't even on the same floor as my PC. Why intentionally bottleneck that down to 80 to 90Mb? Plus if you ever add more devices to your network directly to your router like NAS you will already have a nice Gigabit switch in place.

Hard drives easily out pace 100Mbps. Even my USB hard drive transfers files over 40MBps (note the big B)

 

[JackMDS]

The Giga is Not the Router, The Giga is the switch that is in the same plastic box as the Routing circuit. The Giga switch in or out of Router does nothing for and traffic concerning the Internet connection.

The using a Giga switch + Giga NIC on the computer would hence local file transfer by a factor of 2 to 3.

Actually at this stage a Good 802.11g Router with an external Giga Switch is a better solution.

A combo like this works very well.

Zyxel 550 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...181218&Tpk=zyxel%2b550

TrendNet Giga Switch - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817111480

 

[Markbnj]

Hard drives easily out pace 100Mbps. Even my USB hard drive transfers files over 40MBps (note the big B)

Mixed up my B's and b's. . I'm still not sure I see why 'N' supposedly justifies gigabit throughput though. I guess I can see it making sense at the switch. Bottom line is there probably isn't much cost differential anyway.

 

[drebo]

Wireless N is something like 108 Mbps standard throughput, but just like all other wireless technology, it's half-duplex...which means you're really only getting half.

Unless, of course, you're using MIMO...then it's pseudo-full-duplex.

 

[spidey07]

When N gets standardized throughput can and probably will be faster than what 100 Base-T can offer so that LAN interface will be the bottleneck.

 

[Griffinhart]

Originally posted by: drebo
Wireless N is something like 108 Mbps standard throughput, but just like all other wireless technology, it's half-duplex...which means you're really only getting half.

Unless, of course, you're using MIMO...then it's pseudo-full-duplex.

11n is MIMO by default. It has a top speed of 300Mbps the same way 11g has a top speed of 54Mbps. As I mentioned earlier, I get 150Mbps throughput on my wireless network on a regular basis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11-2007

Actually, I just did a test...

I am currently running two routers. My primary is a D-Link DIR-655 and my Media Center PC is attached to it Via Gigabit. My Second router is a Linksys A/G router that I use to Stream Recorded and Live TV to my X-Box 360. While watching TV on my 360 I copied a recorded TV show to my PC. It transfered all 4GB of the file at 140Mbps with no quality problems on the Live TV stream.

I moved my Media Center's network connection to the Linksys A/G router (10/100 port) and tried the same operation. The transfer rate dropped to about 80Mbps, but the Live TV show started to stutter and video quality dropped.

I then disconnected from my 11n router with this PC and connected to the 11g portion of the linksys. The transfer speed dropped to 12Mbps but the video quality didn't drop as much, but there were occasional drops in the quality.

If that's not a justified reason to use Gigabit when using 11n, I don't know what is.

 

[Griffinhart]

Originally posted by: JackMDS


Actually at this stage a Good 802.11g Router with an external Giga Switch is a better solution.

A combo like this works very well.

Zyxel 550 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...181218&Tpk=zyxel%2b550

TrendNet Giga Switch - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817111480

Total cost is
$114 with shipping through newegg. But there is $20 mail in rebate.

Alternatively the D-link DIR-655 is $124 shipped.

$10 difference before the rebate. I myself never have much luck with mail in rebates though. For me even at a price difference of $30 not having two boxes makes it worth the cost difference. One box, one power cord, all the same functions the addition to 11n and a much more capable router.

according to smallnetbuilder.com the x-550 can support a 64 maximum simultaneous connections compared to 200 on the DIR-655. If you do bit torrent that means something. the D-link's total simultaneous throughput is more than double that of the x-550's.

The Lan to Wan throughput speeds are much better on the DLink as well, but that really isn't an issue unless your ISP is giving you better than 91Mbps.

All in all, Convenience, features and performance make the DIR-655 a much better choice even if you never attach a single 11n device to it.