Homeplug questions and limitations ???

steveo · 26 Dec 2011 at 13:41

Hello everyone am looking at getting some home plugs for my house and am needing some help and advice, first of all i will tell you what am needing, i have 2 rooms in my house that need connections the first in my office/games room the second is the living room, the office has a selection of macs and 2 consoles now all of these are wireless enabled and working fine what am wondering is that if a put a home plug in this room would i be able to set up my apple time machine to it and then have the time machine connected to everything else for easy/fast transfer between machines, the living room has a new smart bluray and a skyhd that both need internet connection for extra features like bbc iplayer/youtube on the bluray and more sky on demand.

whats the best way of doing all this

tals · 26 Dec 2011 at 22:34

If the apple machine has a network connection then yes - you could put a cheap hub/switch from the plug which would mean you could have multiple devices go through it. Butnif they are working fine on wifi why would you do this - you won't get any additional functionality

steveo · 26 Dec 2011 at 22:40

am transferring 8Gb+ home made movie files between my iMac and mac mini and the transfer speeds are to high to work right and properly, i ordered a tp-link gigabit ethernet 8 port switch with the tp link home plugs even had to order the cat6 cables should be with me this week from ocuk

tals · 26 Dec 2011 at 22:49

The home plugs - assuming you have the 200mb ones will get you around 100mb. If you have the gb ones they need to be on the same circuit as far as I understand it.

I use the net gear 200mb home plugs, very happy with them

Stu · 28 Dec 2011 at 11:29

I have the TP-Link 200Mb and Devolo 200Mb homeplugs, which work together without issue. Performance is the same for both brands, and give me 39-65 Mb/s transfer speeds depending on which room I am sending to (closest plug is 65, farthest is 39).

steveo · 28 Dec 2011 at 11:42

you guys have me wondering now so i have to ask this, am just getting the twin pack home plugs so i can sort out my office first all the macs and consoles will be put on the gigabit switch connected with cat6 cables the home plug will be connected downstairs at the routers location, now with the macs and consoles all been on the same switch will i get higher speeds of a gigabit connection

i swear that made sense when i was typing it

tals · 28 Dec 2011 at 12:03

It depends where the twin is located. If it's on the same fuse circuit - ie if you did the small circuit trip then they both would go out then yes I believe gb will be possible. If it's on another circuit then I don't believe the gb crosses over that. A typical example would be if you had both home plugs on the downstairs plugs then yes but no if one is upstairs and one is down. It also needs to be a gb one todo this which I believe is still a standard being developed. I like them because where I am in the house they give me a more stable connection than wireless did and the throughout at 80mb+ is better

On the upstairs downstairs - 200mb then if it's a home plug av you should get the speeds I gave, not gb though as av is not the gb standard afaik

Stu · 29 Dec 2011 at 10:15

steveo said:
you guys have me wondering now so i have to ask this, am just getting the twin pack home plugs so i can sort out my office first all the macs and consoles will be put on the gigabit switch connected with cat6 cables the home plug will be connected downstairs at the routers location, now with the macs and consoles all been on the same switch will i get higher speeds of a gigabit connection

i swear that made sense when i was typing it

I believe that all the kit connected to the 1Gb switch will operate at 1GB if capable, but the link between the homeplugs will be 100Mb (ie 200Mb half-duplex). I do not believe that connecting the 100Mb homeplug to the switch will cause the switch to force everything to 100Mb (ie the lowest common speed), but I am not 100% certain as I have little experience with switches.

steveo · 29 Dec 2011 at 10:26

Stu said:
I believe that all the kit connected to the 1Gb switch will operate at 1GB if capable, but the link between the homeplugs will be 100Mb (ie 200Mb half-duplex). I do not believe that connecting the 100Mb homeplug to the switch will cause the switch to force everything to 100Mb (ie the lowest common speed), but I am not 100% certain as I have little experience with switches.

cheers for that its good to now, the kit should be here today but am at work soon so the setting up it will have to wait

steveo · 29 Dec 2011 at 20:45

just a quick update for you guys interested, got the iMac and mac mini connected and transferring a 4Gb AVCHD file from the iMac to the mac minis internal drive i get about 45Mb out of the box, when i transferred the same file to the firewire drive on the mini i get 75Mb so its the hard drives letting me down for now

mranderson · 30 Dec 2011 at 21:52

Don't think it is the drive. It might be the limit of your power network. You might want to try transfering the files with the homeplugs in the same room.