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Looking to move my network to .11n/gigE. Decisions, decisions.

T

Tu13erhead

Diamond Member
I've held out on upgrading to .11n and am looking to move to it in the near future. I don't currently do much heavy streaming/file transfer over the LAN so had no real use for it. I'm looking to put most of my storage on a NAS, however, so that will change.

Current setup:

- Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 .11g router running Tomato (used DD-WRT in the past)
- 3 Macs, 1 iPhone, 1 iTouch that connect wirelessly
- PS3, 360, TiVo, wired to the router via 10/100 switch

I picked up an 8 port gigabit switch the other day at a yard sale for $5 (!).

So I guess my two options would be:

- Replace my current router with one that does .11n, and connect that router to the GigE switch.
- Keep my current router and add a .11n WAP. Connect the WAP to the GigE switch (which connects to my router).

I think I'm leaning towards the first option because it'll give me a little more flexibility. However, I'll need one that does GigE, otherwise my GigE switch will be mostly pointless, yes? Also, it seems that with .11n, to really take advantage of the added transfer speeds, you either need a mostly clear 2.4ghz spectrum, or a device that does the 5ghz band. It seems that a lot of .11n routers only do the 2.4ghz band. Any thoughts on this?

Any other thoughts would be appreciated.
 
1. i doubt you will ever saturate 100mbit through 802.11n - if you live anywhere metro. i'm happy to see 65mbps stable all day long without dropouts.
2. most of your traffic will switch at gigabit and never make it to the router if you are on one subnet.
3. your isp probably doesn't sell >100mbit service yet.

routers are far more reliable as a WAP than a router.

so good idea to separate switching , routing, and access point - you will get the highest reliability.
 
GigE is wired. Although it can make some difference at the high end, wireless will not often benefit from wired gigabit. If you're concerned about LAN transfer speed, you should be thinking in terms of wired gigabit, not wireless.

The switch you got is all you need for wired gigabit -- connect that to your router, and all your wired gigabit devices to that (including the file server of course), and you're good to go.
 
Emulex said:
1. i doubt you will ever saturate 100mbit through 802.11n - if you live anywhere metro. i'm happy to see 65mbps stable all day long without dropouts.
2. most of your traffic will switch at gigabit and never make it to the router if you are on one subnet.
3. your isp probably doesn't sell >100mbit service yet.

routers are far more reliable as a WAP than a router.

so good idea to separate switching , routing, and access point - you will get the highest reliability.
Click to expand...

1. I'm not in a metro area. I'll be moving soon, but probably somewhere even more suburban. Probably 50-100 feet between houses at least.

2. At this point, most of my traffic is wireless, though some of it is wired and more will be once I have my NAS. If I'm not going to break 100Mbps, then I suppose it's not a huge issue, but I'd like to be able to get at least that much throughput.

3. Right.

So it sounds like you're saying to keep my .11g router as basically a router only, and buy a .11n router and use it as a WAP? If I do this, should I still bother looking for something that can run DD-WRT/Tomato, or is what's running as the router really what counts?
 
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Connect the computers with the wired Giga NIC Computer NIC to the Giga switch, and be done with.

From your description of your system and its usage, it does not seem that you need any thing else.


😎
 
JackMDS said:
Connect the computers with the wired Giga NIC Computer NIC to the Giga switch, and be done with.

From your description of your system and its usage, it does not seem that you need any thing else.


😎
Click to expand...

All the computers that connect to my LAN do so via wireless. My PS3, 360, and TiVo connect via wired to the LAN. I'll likely have some sort of NAS that does so as well somewhat soon.

Given this setup, you don't think .11n is worth upgrading to?
 
So, if I understand this correctly you want to upgrade your LAN to gig but leave all the important clients on wireless? If I'm reading that right the gig upgrade is a waste of time.
 
Pheran said:
So, if I understand this correctly you want to upgrade your LAN to gig but leave all the important clients on wireless? If I'm reading that right the gig upgrade is a waste of time.
Click to expand...

I've essentially already upgraded my LAN to gig via a $5 switch I picked up this weekend at a yard sale.

I'm more concerned with whether I should:
- buy a .11n WAP and keep my .11g router
- buy a .11n router and use it as a WAP, keeping my .11g router
- buy a .11n router and use it for everything

With any of the above cases, I'm not sure if I should buy something that uses GigE ports so that everything between my LAN and WLAN can talk at least as fast as I can get over .11n. It seems silly to buy a .11n wap/router and have it talking to my LAN at 100Mbps, right?
 
Tu13erhead said:
I've essentially already upgraded my LAN to gig via a $5 switch I picked up this weekend at a yard sale.

I'm more concerned with whether I should:
- buy a .11n WAP and keep my .11g router
- buy a .11n router and use it as a WAP, keeping my .11g router
- buy a .11n router and use it for everything

With any of the above cases, I'm not sure if I should buy something that uses GigE ports so that everything between my LAN and WLAN can talk at least as fast as I can get over .11n. It seems silly to buy a .11n wap/router and have it talking to my LAN at 100Mbps, right?
Click to expand...

As Emulex already pointed out, the fallacy here is thinking that 802.11n is going to get you >100 Mbps, which is highly unlikely despite whatever the spec/marketing numbers say.

As for the other question, it's a tradeoff between manageability and flexibility. Personally for home use I would just replace the G-router with an N-router.
 
Pheran said:
As Emulex already pointed out, the fallacy here is thinking that 802.11n is going to get you >100 Mbps, which is highly unlikely despite whatever the spec/marketing numbers say.

As for the other question, it's a tradeoff between manageability and flexibility. Personally for home use I would just replace the G-router with an N-router.
Click to expand...

Fair enough.

What are your thoughts between a 2.4ghz-only .n router versus a dual-band one? I'd be fine with even a 5ghz band only router and use my current router for .11g, but it seems the majority are 2.4 only.
 
WAPs are more expensive than Wireless Routers, in your case there is No reason to buy a stand alone WAP.

In addition you are mixing two things that are Nor directly related, Wire Giga, and Wireless.

You have a Giga switch, use it it has nothing to do with the Wireless.

One draft-N Router would not work better than the Buffalo HP.

If the Buffalo does not provide you with the coverage needed you can get a second Wireless router and use it as an Access Point.

Using a Wireless Router as a switch with an Access Point - http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html

What Router should you get?

If you need to stream HD for short distance, get an Inexpensive Draft_N.

Otherwise get a second Buffalo and use it as an Access Point.


😎
 
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