Best way to setup home network using a dedicated wired router

[connexions]

Hi Gurus,

Currently I am using 4 pc devices (htpc, laptop, and 2 desktops) at home, which I want to bring all of them under common shared network using a wired ethernet connection. Currently these devices are connected through my wireless router and the data transfer rates tend to be pretty slow down when I try to transfer large media content over the network. Also the transfer rates are very slow as opposed to copying the data between 2 devices using external storage media such as portable harddrives or jumpdrives. In this juncture, I am planning to purchase a wired router and a gigabit switch to setup a LAN to connect these devices. When I plug in the ethernet cable coming from the switch to the devices, the network connection will be automatically switched to Local Area connection bypassing the wireless connection. So in this situation, I need to do the following. Select the Local area connection when I want to transfer files between the devices and use the wireless connection for browsing the web. Right now I can only think of this solution with my limited knowledge on networking. Please suggest if there's any better way to handle both wired and wireless connection at the same time and transfer large files over the network without consuming the internet bandwidth. Also I am looking for a suggestion on wired router models around $50-100 range.

 

[RealBeast]

What model is your "wireless" router? Does it have any Ethernet LAN ports on the back? If so, you can use that router for wired devices also, and if you have more devices than LAN ports you can just buy an inexpensive gigabit switch.

 

[connexions]

Thanks for the reply. Yes it has 4 ethernet ports on the back. However I am planning to use a switch for the ethernet connections just to ease off the load from the router. Here's the router I have currently.

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My question is how can I force the devices to use wired connection to transfer large media content and use the wireless network for the rest of the times.

 

[Alabalcho]

Your router has four wired LAN ports. Just connect your devices using Ethernet cables, and disable their WiFi adapters (or make them "forget" your WiFi network).

 

[jsmithepa]

You are over thinking it. With a gigabit ethernet you won't have problem doing both tasks simultaneously, unless you have multiple users doing this at the same time.

 

[connexions]

Your router has four wired LAN ports. Just connect your devices using Ethernet cables, and disable their WiFi adapters (or make them "forget" your WiFi network).

Thanks for the reply.

If I use the 4 LAN ports from the router to connect to 4 devices and while sharing a media content between them, will there be any drop in internet speed for other devices such as iphone, ipad etc. which are not using the wired connection?

 

[Alabalcho]

The internet speed is "divided" among router' clients, and it does not care whether they are wired or wireless. Of course, a wired client at 1gbps would be able to pull more data than a wireless client at 60mbps. But if your Internet is 1mbps, it does not matter 😉

 

[jsmithepa]

If I use the 4 LAN ports from the router to connect to 4 devices and while sharing a media content between them, will there be any drop in internet speed for other devices such as iphone, ipad etc. which are not using the wired connection?

You are over thinking it.

Try it first, and if indeed slows down your WIFI devices, all you have to do is to add a GIGABIT SWITCH downstream, which is very inexpensive these days and let the switch handles the wired traffic, freeing the WIFI router doing its wireless stuff.

 

[connexions]

Sure will give it a try and see how it goes

Thanks.