Upgrading my home network to Gigabit, Switch ?

pumaz

pumaz

pumaz

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I want to replace my 2 x Netgear 10/100mb 5 port switches with 2 x TP-Link 5 Port 10/100/1000 Desktop Switch.

Apart from the price (£15 vs £30) is there any difference between these and the Netgear GS605 5-Port Gigabit Switch?

Thanks
 
What benefits will the ProSafe GS105 give me over the TP-Link other than lifetime warranty?

Sorry no way am i going to spend that sort of money on 2 x HP Procurve 1800-8G!!!

My home network consists of 2 x PC's and XBOX 360 connected to one Switch which is then connected to D-Link DIR-615 Router.

Also Connected to the Router along with my main rig (sig), another XBOX 360 is another Switch which as a Acer Revo Nettop working as a HTPC/NAS and PS3 on it.

I basicly need to shift data round as fast and cheaply as possible :)


Looks like i might need a new router as well, thought it was a Gigabit :(
 
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I have a TP Link el cheapo jobby, max'd out the hard drives while transferring from my PC to the HTPC, can't complain for the money.
 
The TP-Link 5 or 8 port switch are good. They are unmanaged,work out the box and are cheap.

All my friends use them so do people on here.
 
Would the TP-Link Wireless N DSL 4-port Gigabit Router be a good replacement for the D-Link DIR-615 Router or am i being too cheap?
 
TP-Link switches are fine if you have literally no expectations of performance. It will certainly do more than 100mbps but I'd be surprised if you could max out 2 ports @ gigabit speeds.

You get what you pay for really, although I have no trouble recommending the Netgear stuff for casual users.

I use the HP-1800-8G and 1810-24G at home with my other routers and bits.
 
Sp00n said:
You don't need to replace your router if I understand what you are doing correctly.
Click to expand...
The Router I have is 10/100 and it sits in between my main Rig and my Revo/NAS where I'll be transferring most of my data

What would folk recommend as a good home network setup (Router + 2 Switches) on a budget of around £120?
 
Yamahahahahaha said:
TP-Link switches are fine if you have literally no expectations of performance. It will certainly do more than 100mbps but I'd be surprised if you could max out 2 ports @ gigabit speeds.

You get what you pay for really, although I have no trouble recommending the Netgear stuff for casual users.

I use the HP-1800-8G and 1810-24G at home with my other routers and bits.
Click to expand...


Can you post pics of your Hp-switch doing 1gig speeds please :)
 
I was just about to ask a similar question to pumaz'

I have a 10/100 router, a gigabit NAS drive and a couple of PCs with gigabit network ports.

Now, am I right in thinking I only need a £15 switch plugged into the router and then the NAS and pcs plugged into the switch?

I have read that CAT5E is suitable for gigabit (but not sure). I think I have one or two cables that are cat5e but have no idea how I can test (I'd hope the NAS came with cat5e)
 
Chicken #16 said:
I was just about to ask a similar question to pumaz'

I have a 10/100 router, a gigabit NAS drive and a couple of PCs with gigabit network ports.

Now, am I right in thinking I only need a £15 switch plugged into the router and then the NAS and pcs plugged into the switch?

I have read that CAT5E is suitable for gigabit (but not sure). I think I have one or two cables that are cat5e but have no idea how I can test (I'd hope the NAS came with cat5e)
Click to expand...

Most cables these days are Cat5e. Yes you are right about just needing to change the switch although how much a new reasonable Gbit switch will cost I have no idea.

Yes you are right in saying you just need to plug everything in to the new switch and as long as both endpoints and any points you are linking them with (i.e. the switch) are all Gbit then you should be able to get over Mbit connection speeds (all things being configured ok).

If you are getting a transfer rate of over 12.5MB/s then you are most likely on Gigabit. Gbit has a theoretical max of 125MB/s although you are unlikely to hit that due to equipment quality, overheads of the networking protocol and line interference (running next to power cables is not good). I have it 90MB/s and can average 60->70 but am also limited by the cheap switch and hard drive speed. Just waiting for delivery of my Procurve 1810-24G.

RB
 
deuse said:
Can you post pics of your Hp-switch doing 1gig speeds please :)
Click to expand...
MMGC9.png

That's going from a relatively ancient desktop machine (AMD 2500+, 1GB RAM, Intel Pro/1000 GT) to a new Acer 5742.

I'd say the connection was more bottlenecked by the network cards, but still. 8 Connections seemed the optimal amount, either side produced lower overall throughput.

From the desktop to the WHS it usually pushes 90MB/s happily, which is in line with the disk's performance (Cheapo Hitachi 1TB 7K1000.B's).
With the newer WD Greens you'll see 110MB/s+.

Anyway, back OT: Maybe you could get one HP or Netgear switch for the main 'server', and a TP Link for the access devices. There isn't much irl that needs so much consistent bandwidth.
 
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deuse said:
The TP-Link 5 or 8 port switch are good. They are unmanaged,work out the box and are cheap.

All my friends use them so do people on here.
Click to expand...

Yeah, TP-Link gear i've had in the past has been fine.
Nothing wrong with cheap unmanaged gigabit switches anyway, I've got a couple of Asus 8 ports that were only £20 each which haven't missed a beat in the 4 or 5 years I've owned them. I get close to 100MB/s on Windows file transfers, and that's held back by the Onboard realtec nic.
 
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Well, you've pointed out something important - these are two different ranges of products.
The TP-Link is simply an L2 Switch, nothing more.

The HP and Netgear switches we're talking about are Smart switches.
They give you a bit more control over what your switch does. VLANs, Port Mirroring, Rudimentry Trunking, LACP, Port powering features.
LLDP is useful for more advanced users.

You can also power the 8-port 1800 series HP switches using PoE, meaning you don't need to have a plug socket nearby. This is useful if you only want to run one cable to each room and power the switch through that cable.

At the end of the day, if you really don't think you'll benefit from any of these, buy the TP-Link's!
 
pumaz said:
My home network consists of 2 x PC's and XBOX 360 connected to one Switch which is then connected to D-Link DIR-615 Router.

Also Connected to the Router along with my main rig (sig), another XBOX 360 is another Switch which as a Acer Revo Nettop working as a HTPC/NAS and PS3 on it.
Click to expand...

pumaz said:
The Router I have is 10/100 and it sits in between my main Rig and my Revo/NAS where I'll be transferring most of my data
Click to expand...

If I'm reading you right, most of your data is moving between your main rig and the NAS and they're on the same switch?

If you're not too fussed about getting Gb speeds between those and the other machines, all you need to upgrade is that switch... and the cheapy one should do fine :)
 
Just to show that Cheapy switches have no problem with throughput -
8streamsiperf2.png


That's going Realtec Onboard NIC-> Asus GigaX 1108N -> Second Asus GigaX 1108N -> Broadcom PCI-E NIC
 
Zarf said:
Just to show that Cheapy switches have no problem with throughput -

That's going Realtec Onboard NIC-> Asus GigaX 1108N -> Second Asus GigaX 1108N -> Broadcom PCI-E NIC
Click to expand...

Out of interest, what hardware is behind that setup on both ends (disk spec/ raid or not etc) ?.

If I have been running a machine on torrent duty for a few days then my transfers slow to around 50-60MB/s. Once the switch is reset then they raise to 70-80MB/s. The switch is a midrange (G-series) Netgear switch. I believe most home switches will have the same issues. Hopefully my HP Procurve 1810 will have a big enough address space to avoid this issue although my new network plan is routing the torrent box away from the main switch for a direct internet route.

RB
 
Doug said:
If I'm reading you right, most of your data is moving between your main rig and the NAS and they're on the same switch?
Click to expand...

Spot on :)

Doug said:
If you're not too fussed about getting Gb speeds between those and the other machines, all you need to upgrade is that switch... and the cheapy one should do fine :)
Click to expand...

I would consider it half a job if i did'nt go the whole hog ;)

I've already purchased and should be getting delivery tomorrow of :-

TP-Link Wireless N DSL 4-port Gigabit Router, 3x3 MIMO, up to 300M with detachable antennas (TL-WR1043ND)

TP-Link 5 Port 10/100/1000 Desktop Switch (TL-SG1005D) x 2

And a

OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G)

But that's a topic for a new thread me thinks ;)

I thought for a combined total of just over £70 it's worth a go, If it's not good enough i can always flog it and get something better. Googling around did bring up some positives about the router as apparently i can flash it with a better firmware.

I'll post back with results...
 
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