2001AudiS4

I just setup a couple of 2 terabyte NAS's on my home network. I have them in the basement connected to the Uverse router currently. I am going to relocate them upstairs into the cubby that I have a second router on the network to get it away from the dust and soot from being just feet away from the furnace. My question is would it be beneficial to get gigabit switches? I will be using wireless almost exclusively for transferring. I am out of ports on the upstairs router, so I will have to get a switch either way. Just trying to figure out what will give the best performance, if there will be any difference at all. The wireless may be the limiting factor, and not the speed of the network.

stogie1020

If everything else is GB, then yes. If not, won't matter, so why bother. Only exception would be if you plan on upgrading the non GB equipment in the future, in which case, get a GB switch now and then you will be set.

Possible solution here though would be to get a new router for upstairs that has more than four LAN ports. Kill two birds with one stone...

#1 STUNNA

Might as well all pcs come with gigabit now a days and there's little no cost premium for gigabit anymore. You might not need it now but you might wish you had it sometime in the future

2001AudiS4

Well I can't replace the Uverse router, its an all in one router/modem. I do not believe I can disable DHCP on it and output to a secondary router to handle the IP's. I could be wrong. However, I might be able to use it for addressing and use all new gigabit equipment for everything else.

So the wireless will transfer at faster rates if everything else is upgraded to gigabit?

2001AudiS4

I would definitely like it now. I take a LOT of pictures and each picture straight out of the camera is roughly 18MB. After processing, the RAW files are something like 25 MB each. I sometimes come home with 500 plus shots on a card. I then convert most of those to Jpeg. So backing up the processed RAW's plus Jpegs takes quite a bit of time

stogie1020

Wireless speed has nothing to do with the hardwired speed (unless the hardwire speed is less than the capability of the wifi connection) but the wifi connection can be improved by having your clients closer to the AP (upstairs router) or having the AP in a better location in the room (higher up, corner of room, not near metal).

802.11N is 'supposed' to cap out at 300Mbps under ideal circumstances (none of us have these) if I am not mistaken, so you may be able to max out the connection speed by switching your wired interfaces to GB, but don't forget about the Ethernet cabling, that may need to be upgraded too.

2001AudiS4

I looked through the settings on the Uverse router. Its is B and G only, no N. That is what I figured. I don't see a way to disable DHCP on it, but I can turn off the wifi on it. I think I will pickup a new gigabit router and run it as the only AP in the house. The house is small and I never have to switch between the two. I just figured I would add that instead of a switch upstairs since I had the router anyway at the time. I am thinking about a Netgear Rangemax router. Any thoughts on them? I have had great luck with Netgear on jobs. Linksys is another story. Any other recommended brands I should look at?

#1 STUNNA

I've got net gear wndr3700 best router I've owned, I then put dd-wrt on it and made it even better! love it, long time

doopstr

Dang, only $107 for the WNDR3700 from Amazon now. I may have to finally retire my WRT54GL. Fantastic G router, will make me sad to lose it.

Update: Ordered, no reason not to have it for that price.

2001AudiS4

That's actually the router I was thinking about getting. It was either that or the 4000. I believe the 4000 is supposedly capable of even faster speeds, up to 450 Mbps. Not sure how likely that is and whether it is worth the extra money.

stogie1020

All I can say is DD-WRT.

Fo Realz.

nfnsquared

Wow. Very mixed reviews on Amazon (from Oct 2011), including a few that got sold reburbs as new...

doopstr

Yeah I saw that, but Stunna says it's good. I think I may call Netgear when I get mine to validate the warranty start date. BTW you can get a refurb for $55 from Ice Monkey. I have never dealt with Ice Monkey or even heard of them before today. I don't know what kind of warranty Netgear offers with refurbs. http://www.icemonkey.com/netgear-wnd...ed-connections

nfnsquared

Keep us updated, I'll be interested to see what happens when you try to register the serial #...

doopstr

Well I did the free shipping so maybe it will ship this week, and maybe it won't. But I will update.

#1 STUNNA

Put DD-WRT on that bih!

Download links here
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Netgear_WNDR3700

doopstr

Received today, looks new, serial number registered on the Netgear website. Website asked for serial number and then told me it's a WNDR3700v2.

I like how they rip off Apple by saying that it's "Designed by Netgear in California"

I'm going to load DD-WRT on it.

#1 STUNNA

stogie1020

You will be a better person.

doopstr

success. I won't have time to swap out my existing router for a couple weeks though.

doopstr

Finally got around to swapping out my wireless g router with the new one. Seems to be okay. Any idea why my wireless rate shows about 130 Mb/s instead of something closer to 300? I gave my 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz SSID the same name. How do I know if my client picked the 5Ghz or the 2.4Ghz? Should I give the 5Ghz a different name?

doopstr

FWIW, v3 of the WNDR3700 is now shipping. It has a Broadcom chipset instead of Atheros. Doesn't look like DD-WRT supports the new version yet.

doopstr

Just order another for $99 from Amazon. I'm going to put this one in my audio cabinet as a bridge so that everything in there can talk Wireless N

#1 STUNNA

You're going to bridge them using gigabit, right?

doopstr

I'm going to bridge my network over Wireless N.

Right now my A/V stuff each has separate G or N adapters. I will disable the G/N adapters and plug in wired ethernet to the router.

Various A/V stuff-->new N router-> (wireless N) -->other N router-->Interweb.

The new router will essentially be a pass through device. Everything will still be on the same subnet.

#1 STUNNA

I'd run gigabit if at all possible.

doopstr

FWIW I had to remove DD-WRT from one of my WNDR3700v2 as it would drop my laptop's wireless about twice a day. That was a major pain in the ass since I use the laptop for work and the VPN would drop. I did some research and it looks like a good DD-WRT build for this router hasn't been released since last June. http://svn.dd-wrt.com:8000/ticket/2313

I switched to OpenWRT and it hasn't dropped my laptop once. https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=27722

I was surprised to find that this router can't act as a real wireless bridge like my WRT54GL could. The Netgear supports some hacked up shit called WDS. For what I use it for it's fine but it's still annoying that I needed to setup a special WDS wireless SSID to support it. If my OCD gets the better of me I may swap out the second router for a Dlink wireless bridge or just run a damn wire across my house and put a small gig-e switch in my audio cabinet.