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Home networking opinion

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by daw1cb

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In my home I currently have 6 desktops, a laptop, and an xbox 360 I am using a WRT54G with 2 computers and an HP C6180 Photosmart and one cable running to the far and of the house into a Linksys EZXS55W 5 port switch for the 360 and the 3 remaining desktops. All cables are currently Cat6. I have a significant volume of data transfer within the network and as far as cost vs benefit would it be worth it to upgrade to gigabit hardware? Would I see a significant difference as I work with cad, catia, and E cabinets software.

6 replies

by muppetgrinder

The question is : how time critical is your data transfer? is saving time enough of a benefit on it's own to offset the cost? only you can realy answer this. will you notice a significant difference in time taken to transfer files? yes is the short answer. as soon as you start shifting files over 45Mb over the network you are enterering into Gigabit terretory. pre 45MB the file will transfer fast enough over a regular network for it not to be at all worth transfering. I have limited knowledge of CAD but I am led to belive that some of the files used can be several hundered meg in size and thus you would save a good bit of time if you transfer allot of these files on a regular basis.

My opinion would be to upgrade. If you can't justify the cost, do it in stages. Replace the switch first and see how much of a difference you get transfering between the 2 PC's hooked up to it, if it seems worth it, blow out on a Gb Access Point with the new full duplex wirless to boot :)
go on....you know you want to ;D

by robo_dev

The latency of GBE versus 10/100 is a little better, but not anything earth shattering.

For large file transfers, you would notice a difference, but the differnce in real throughput is like 6-10MB sec (megabytes) on fast ethernet and more like 30-50MB sec on gig.

by lukes_weatherlight

Unless you are frequently transferring lots of files it won't be worth it.

Certainly your internet speeds won't increase.

Gigabit is a bit too expensive IMHO.

~ Lukas.

by troykshafer

I do quite a bit of stuff with media files. When i moved my wired connections over too a Cisco 3560 GigE i noticed a huge difference. But all of my Dell computers have GigE nic's. if you feel you're waiting abnormally long to open files, save data, copy/move data then it might be for you.

i have more than a few files that are 100mb+

by deadly ernest

and noticed a noticeable improvement in the transfer of large files and media files between computers on the system, and a major improvement in performance of LAN games. However there was absolutely no improvement on Internet access as even 10/100 mbps system was much more speed than the ADSL connection provided. I upgraded simply because the old switch died and the 1 GB switch was only an extra $25.00 and most of the systems already had built in 10/100/1000 NICS. The I only bought a few new NICs as I was happy to leave some of the old computers on the old 10/100, like the Internet Gateway.

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