Cheapest way to set up a small gigabit network

[JonJ678]

I'm looking to improve upon my current layout, which is three or four computers wired into a cheap "Azure Wave" 10/100 router, which has the "internet" port connected to a uni network. Specifically I'd like to move data between the computers around my little network more swiftly, preferably with decreased latency when using vnc et al.

I have a few ideas, but I will try to keep this OP brief. Four computers plugged into gigabit switch, which is plugged into 10/100 router, do they communicate at gigabit speeds or at the speeds the router works at?

Is it possible to do away with the router completely, and press my "nas" into service as a gigabit router? It's an amd dual core which I imagine has more powerful hardware inside than a router a student can sensibly afford, so if I set up the software competently and plug a number of gigabit pci cards into it, will I then have a faster network than option A (assuming I don't turn said nas/server off)?

Finally do discrete cards significantly outperform onboard ethernet? I ask mainly because the built in gigabit ports on my UD5 have a charming habit of disappearing until I do a cmos reset, and better performance is a more appealing reason to use a card than laziness.

Thank you for your patience

 

[paradigm]

I have a few ideas, but I will try to keep this OP brief. Four computers plugged into gigabit switch, which is plugged into 10/100 router, do they communicate at gigabit speeds or at the speeds the router works at?

They will run at gigabit between the hosts, and share 100Mb out into the router.

Is it possible to do away with the router completely, and press my "nas" into service as a gigabit router? It's an amd dual core which I imagine has more powerful hardware inside than a router a student can sensibly afford, so if I set up the software competently and plug a number of gigabit pci cards into it, will I then have a faster network than option A (assuming I don't turn said nas/server off)?

That would depend on the software installed on your NAS? Yes, you could configure the box as both a NAS and a Router/NAT device, but it would possibly involve either flattening it and reinstalling a routing OS (such as PFSense), or splitting it into two VM's one with a router appliance, and one a SAN/NAS appliance.

Finally do discrete cards significantly outperform onboard ethernet?

Completely depends on the chipsets used in both the onboard and the discreet cards. The Intel PRO/1000 on my Intel DX38BT motherboard is pretty decent, the Realtek 1000BaseT stuff on my Abit IP35-PRO is bobbins.

 

[BlueMhz]

If you decide to buy some gigabit nics, would suggest you look around for cheap second hand Intel dual port nics. The Intel nics are well supported in most operating systems and generally good performers.

Also if your nas box has spare PCI express slots, then maybe look into buying a PCI express NIC (though they are more expensive) rather than PCI ones, as PCI has maximum bandwidth of 133MB/s. Though depends if your nas can deliver that sort of throughput.

 

[JonJ678]

Cheers guys.

I shall look into the relative costs of gigabit nics and switch and make my decision based on this. Second hand intel cards with two ports per card sound spot on. I do indeed have space pci-e slots so will probably use those.

Don't remember what the NAS is running, it's either debian or ubuntu server. They look pretty similar over ssh. I'm sure the os is capable of doing both tasks at once, and it'll keep me amused for a while trying to work out how.

Interested though unsurprised to hear that all nics are not created equal. I shall go and research this further.

Thank you

 

[Zarf]

I've played around with this before, using my Windows 2k3 NAS and an extra NIC. I ran IPCop in a VMWare VM and the rest was just setting the NIC assignments up right.
It ran really nicely, overkill for my current needs though so i'm just using a normal cheap wifi router.

In your case you'd set up something similar and get a gigabit switch for the green side. Since you're running Linux you could probably skip the whole virtual machines and ipcop method and just set NAT up manually.

 

[Demon]

It sounds like your current idea is as good as it's going to get..

All the PC's plugged into your Gigabit switch will send/received data between them at gigabit speeds, so presuming you buy any relatively cheap gigabit NIC's, that sounds fine.

The Router to your Uni network (and presumably internet), would be presumably more then up to the job of things if your connection is very much less then 100mbit? so moving the routing into the NAS is pretty much redundant? unless you want gigabit access onto the uni network? Which it sounds like you don't.

Am I misunderstanding this? What every has said is accurate, I just don't think you need to do anything regarding the router as what little extra performance you may be able to get is by far offset by the hassle of setting up your NAS as a router..

 

[BlueMhz]

As already said, getting rid of your router won't speed things up to your uni network, unless that's also a 1Gb connection too.

But if you wanted to get rid of the router (one less device to leave on etc), then you could plug your uni connection into an ethernet port on your debian server, but you'd also need configure ip masquarading on it and posibly other services like dhcp etc.

 

[JonJ678]

I've been very tempted by ipcop et al in virtualbox, but in truth my firewall needs are met quite adequately by iptables. Still, something I should get around to playing with one of these days.

@Demon I don't yet have a switch, and my 10/100 router seems to be a touch unreliable so it's likely to be thrown out soon. This leaves me with no networking hardware besides onboard (one machine has two unreliable gigabit nics, but the rest are single 100mb), so I'm pretty much going from scratch. The uni network (internet is indeed via this) is 10mbit, which is a shame but not unreasonable. I'm under no delusion that putting a gigabit router on my side of the connection will let me download things faster.

I think I'll get a couple of cheap nics and see if I can get the software behaving itself, then look to replace the cards as and when appropriate second hand ones turn up.