Gigabit Networking

[sandiegoislandboy]

Ok, i want to run Gigabit ethernet in my house.

Currently I have a Linksys cable modem and a Linksys 54G Wireless Router. I have 2 desktops and a laptop on the network. One desktop has a built in Gigabit ethernet but the other only has 10/100, and so does the laptop. I know I will need to buy a PCI ethernet card for the desktop and the laptop might just be phased out.

My question is, do I have to buy a new router that has Gigabit built in (such as the Linksys Wireless N that states it has Gigabit ethernet ports) or can I just buy a Gigabit switch, connect that to the router and connect all computers and network printer thru that switch?

Also does Cat6 cables any better/worse than Cat5e?

Any advice is grateful. Thanks.

 

[jlazzaro]

Originally posted by: islandtech
do I have to buy a new router that has Gigabit built in (such as the Linksys Wireless N that states it has Gigabit ethernet ports)

no

Originally posted by: islandtech
can I just buy a Gigabit switch, connect that to the router and connect all computers and network printer thru that switch?

yes

Originally posted by: islandtech
Also does Cat6 cables any better/worse than Cat5e?

cat5e will run gigabit just fine. if you're doing infrastructure runs (inside walls, etc) go cat6 for future proofing. anything else, cat5e will serve your purpose.

 

[JackMDS]

And read this too.

Home Giga Network: http://www.ezlan.net/giga.html

Giga networking - http://www.ezlan.net/giga_net.html

 

[sandiegoislandboy]

Next question, any recommendations on a good gigabit ethernet switch?

 

[sandiegoislandboy]

Ok, I just read the above links and the amount of approvement is not worth money to be spent into the upgrade (I like to brag but at the same time very practical).

What would you suggest in upgrading (hardware-wise) in order to make a file server transfer better?

Dont have a file server yet but going to build one within the month (a new pc with maybe RAID 5, if not just a networked drive for the time being).

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: islandtech
Ok, I just read the above links and the amount of approvement is not worth money to be spent into the upgrade (I like to brag but at the same time very practical).

What would you suggest in upgrading (hardware-wise) in order to make a file server transfer better?

Easy, assuming reasonably modern hardware, go to gigabit networking. If you don't go to gigabit, you're stuck with 100 Mb/s networking, and anything should be able to do that, so the question of how to make a file server "transfer better" has no meaningful answer.

Around 30 MB/s large file transfers is commonly achievable with modern desktop hardware.

 

[m1ldslide1]

Gigabit will buy you virtually nothing outside of medium to large enterprise environments.

People argue against this, but people also buy that killer-gaming-NIC thing. If you have the funds to drop and want to make sure that in 5+ years your SOHO grade switch won't be a bottleneck, then go for it.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: m1ldslide1
Gigabit will buy you virtually nothing outside of medium to large enterprise environments.

People argue against this, but people also buy that killer-gaming-NIC thing. If you have the funds to drop and want to make sure that in 5+ years your SOHO grade switch won't be a bottleneck, then go for it.

It buys you 3-4 times the performance when transferring files. It's a no brainer. It's cheap and offers a very huge performance boost.

In fact, you don't see it very much except for servers in the enterprise world because the switches are so expensive. In the SOHO world, they're dirt cheap.