I do have a cable modem and a regular SOHO router...If I would add a CISCO 2500 to my network would that make it faster?

[adlep]

Maybe it is a silly question.
But I would add the CISCO 2500 series router (with 8 Mb of Flash and 16 Mb of DRAM) to my LAN, would it speed up my network?
I would say yes, because the 2500 could setup the routing tables so the communication between the outside world could be optimized even more, but am I right?
How would I connect the simple yet full blown CISCO router to the SOHO switch/router I do have right now?
Thanks,
Adam

 

[nightowl]

Chances are that it would not make it any faster if at all. The typical SOHO "routers" are highly optimized devices made to do NAT mainly which allows to have multiple computers use one public IP. There are not really any routing tables in your case. You just have a default route where everything not on your network is sent out the WAN interface. It is not like you have multiple networks (more than 2) coming together into the router. Also, you would have to run NAT on the Cisco router if you had more than 1 PC hooked up. So, really all you end up with is a really expensive SOHO router. If you are looking to gain experience with the Cisco equipment then great, but there is really not going to be any routing going on just NAT translations.

 

[spidey07]

probably not, in fact it would probably make it slower.

2500s are very old technolgy with very old processors. They have a hard time moving a few megabits/sec, through NAT into the mix and it is ever slower.

 

[adlep]

Well, right now the CISCO is just sitting here collecting dust, so I thought that at least for now it might be useful in my, small LAN...But I guess it wont make any diffrience...
Thanks!