Want to Build a Gigabit & draft-n Network

My router died and I'm shopping for a new one. Looks like a lot has changed since I bought the last one in 2001

In my research for a new router I was quickly comparing these:
Linksys WRT54GL
D-Link DIR-655
WRT300N
WRT350N

What should I buy? Where do I get started? Should I get a separate router and switch, or an all-in-one like the ones above?

My current needs/wants are:

• Uber fast home LAN (1Gb or is 10Gb practical yet?)
• Excellent wireless range and speed (draft-n?)
• Integrated firewall
• Media server to stream audio and/or video (can draft-n wireless handle this?)
• high speed file copies and central backups

Here are my planned nodes and their use:

• desktop (file/media/backup server, wired - should I use 2 NICs on this one?)
• desktop HTPC (like to use wireless, but I can run a cable if that's the only way to get the most)
• 4 laptops (draft-n)

So, I bought a D-Link DIR 655 to give it a try. One thing that I'm concerned about is the entire network defaulting to the lowest network connection.

I want the connection between the desktops to be Gigabit, but obviously the wireless devices cannot be gigabit. The fastest I can get for them is draft-n. Ok, now my question - do the wireless connections (draft-n or g or whatever I use) lower the speed between the two wired desktops? It sounds like some devices do not support two speeds, but some do. How can you know which do this?

Also, could I increase the speed of Gigabit LAN (basically the connection between the two desktops) by getting something like these?:
D-Link 2Gb Switch DGS 2208
D-Link 2Gb NIC

If I did that I could maybe even get away with the WRT54GL for the wireless connection until draft-n is ratified, or at least 5GHz models come out. hmmm

Wireless clients won't affect transmission rates between wired clients. You will only be transmitting as fast as the wireless to/from a wired client, but that's all the effect that has.

Getting full-duplex Gbit equipment is up to you. Gbit is already transmitting at a max of 125MBps max, so if you have the capability to read/write that fast at your disk subsytems (for all PCs - simultaneously), then maybe you will have a use for full-duplex Gbit. Otherwise, it will be pointless and go grossly underutilized.

Jon said:

Getting full-duplex Gbit equipment is up to you. Gbit is already transmitting at a max of 125MBps max, so if you have the capability to read/write that fast at your disk subsytems (for all PCs - simultaneously), then maybe you will have a use for full-duplex Gbit. Otherwise, it will be pointless and go grossly underutilized.

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IMO using 100 Mb/s or wireless transfers for large files, given that any consumer drive can much exceed this speed, and considering how cheap gigabit is currently, is the bigger waste.

You're not likely to saturate gigabit, regardless of hardware. But you can easily do 2-3x maximum 100 Mb/s performance with cheap consumer gigabit, so if you transfer large amounts of files/data (e.g. during backups) -- why not?

Madwand said:

IMO using 100 Mb/s or wireless transfers for large files, given that any consumer drive can much exceed this speed, and considering how cheap gigabit is currently, is the bigger waste.

You're not likely to saturate gigabit, regardless of hardware. But you can easily do 2-3x maximum 100 Mb/s performance with cheap consumer gigabit, so if you transfer large amounts of files/data (e.g. during backups) -- why not?

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Right. I was explaining the waste of full-duplex Gbit over half-duplex Gbit (1000Mbps vs. 2000Mbps). 100Mb LAN, to me, is ancient history.

Full duplex gigabit is pretty much a given these days. I think half-duplex died with hubs. To saturate gigabit even in one direction over TCP, you'd need a fairly decent bandwidth in the opposite direction just for the ACKs.

So I think this bit about marketing "2000 Mb/s" gigabit as if it was a new and great thing beyond standard "1000 Mb/s" is just misleading marketing / hype that does nothing more than confuse potential users.

For one, as I say above, you can't really saturate 1000 Mb/s without having decent bandwidth in the opposite direction. Saturating gigabit in one direction is hard enough, getting full duplex saturated is next to impossible. For two, a PCI NIC claiming 2000 Mb/s is blatantly false advertising -- standard PCI just doesn't have that bandwidth. For three, gigabit is full duplex by definition / standard, and all the commonly-available products are full duplex even if they only advertise "1000 Mb/s", as they should.

I'm just a bit ticked that advertisers/marketers confuse the users/buyers this way. Gigabit is a good thing, and something we should be pleased to have as it is, and as affordably as it is.