Any need for gigabit in SOHO?

[stevok]

I'm adding a terastation 1Tb NAS to my home network because my digital photo files are getting out of hand. My home network currently consists of 3 computers, a wireless router and a cable modem.
Is there any advantage to adding a gigabit hub into the network to speed up fiel transfers between the terastation and my computer?

 

[James Bond]

Are the computers hard-lined? What's your setup like

 

[Madwand1]

Yes, almost anyone can benefit from relatively inexpensive gigabit hardware when transferring files between computers. Single IDE to single IDE, I've measure 30 MB/s transfers on consumer gigabit (without jumbo frames), and this is about 3x higher than what you can do at 100 Mb/s fast ethernet, and also close to the transfer rates of these drives within the same computer. Considering how inexpensive consumer gigabit is, it's quite good performance/price.

Beware of cheap NAS's. From what I've seen, their performance can be limited, even with gigabit and jumbo frames, some of them struggle to give 30 MB/s.

Edit: For clarity. I have no idea how Terastation performs at this time, so don't conclude that I'm calling it "cheap" offhand. In addition, even if you get only 15-20 MB/s, that's still a fair bit more than fast ethernet, so a minor cost outlay could be justified.

 

[JackMDS]

It is a matter of simple math, and the value of your time.

If you do heavy network transfer and its Boggs your system for long period of time it worth while.

Home/SOHO Giga transfers ?Speed? is about 2.5 times faster then 100Mb/sec.

If your transfer time per day is low it would not matter, but if it is few hour a day you can save a lot of time.

Peer to Peer Giga Networks

Setting a Home/SOHO Giga network.

:sun:

 

[stevok]

Thanks for the replies. FYI I have two machines hard wired and a laptop that's WIFI.
If I understand it correctly, I can get a 5 port gigbit switch for less than $80 and that's all I need to add to my setup.???. Do I put the switch before or after the wireless router? The terastation get plugged into the switch. Is that right? Or do I need to add something else?

EDIT: Jack, I checked out your links and got my answers, thanks.

 

[Goosemaster]

Honestly, probably not.

Yes, gigabits ability to free up the network is good and all, but the reviews for the terrastation were pretty bad so it won't make much a difference....

 

[skisteven1]

is cat6 required for gigabit performance? Or is it all just a big marketing scheme?

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: skisteven1
is cat6 required for gigabit performance? Or is it all just a big marketing scheme?

it's definitely a step up, but most peoples' machine aren't fast enough to get near the theoretical 125MB/s

 

[TiziteLayinLow]

cat5e is all that is required for gig... cat6 would be better but not required