Setup gigabit home network using 100mbps Router but Gigabit switches

[nuklep1]

Hi,

1) I want to setup my home network with gigabit speeds (I have gigabit lan on all computers) so that I can have fast file transfers.
2) But I do not wish to invest in a DRAFT-N router (all gigabit routers I've found so far have wireless draft N -> expensive).
3) I do need wireless connectivity a/b/g standards are fine for now.

I have dsl internet thorugh ATT/SBC

Can I just connect the wireless router(a/b/g) to the dsl modem and then connect 1 gigabit switch to one of routers lan ports. All my wired computers can go through this gigabit switch? Will I attain gigabit transfer speeds and still have the internet work?

Thanks

 

[dan_uk_1984]

Yes. - Short answer.

Long Answer:

PC
PC
PC - Gigabit Switch - Router - Modem - Internet
PC
PC

If you have any wireless clients obviously they will be constrained by 54mb anyway so the fact the router isnt on 1gb doesnt really matter.

I use:
http://www.netgear.co.uk/rangemaxnext_wirelessrouters_wnr854t.php
as well as a 10/100/1000 Switch, this means the wireless clients can stream @ upto 300mb and the gigabit line to the server can support that no problem...

 

[nuklep1]

sounds perfect. thanks!

 

[RaisinKain]

I am not sure I agree with that. If you are routing your DSL through the router first which is standard 10/100 mps than through Gigabit switch you are creating a bottleneck through the router. Your switch maybe showing 1 gbs to the computers but it is slowing to 100 mps through the internet connection.

 

[cantbesure1086]

It doesn't matter that the router is only rated for 10/100 because i doubt that his DSL is capable of 10mbs let alone 100mbs, so theres no real bottleneck there. The gigabit connections will only really help with transfers speeds between computers on the local network where they can readily exceed the 100mbs cap.

 

[sturm]

RaisinKain....
Computer to computer will be 1Gbs
Computer to internet will be max 100Mbs from switch to router and probably max 10Mbs router to modem and internet.

 

[antiacid]

@RaisinKain:

That's like saying you disagree with his ISP for "only" giving him sub 100mbps speeds on his internet connection

 

[jrode]

this isn't working for me. i have it setup like the above diagram. the 100mbit wireless router is assigning the ip's, not my gigabit switch (of course right?). it seems that data transfer is stepping down to 100mbit btwn PCs, going through the router. how do i make it bypass? also, when one of the PCs is not authenticated with the WEP on the wireless, it can't talk to the others at all.

 

[sturm]

Are all the pcs gigabit? If not that is why. Anytime you transfer to or from a 100Mbit pc the speed will drop to max 100Mbit.
If a pc is not authenticated it will not have network access.

 

[Guest]

Here is how my network is laid out. I think it is exactly what you're looking for, except I have some additional hardware installed. Heres the layout
I assume your set up will involve two routers or a 100Mbps router and a 1000Mbps switch/hub.

1)Cable/DSL router
2)Connect a cable to any port on the DSL/Cable Router
3)Take the gigabit router and plug the cable from step to into the WAN port
4)Determine the IP address the gigabit router receives from the Cable/DSL router, log into the Cable/DSL router and assign that IP address to the DMZ
5)Plug any additional gigabit hardware (hubs/switches) into the Gigabit router

What this does essentially, is sets up two networks. The first network being your connection to the Internet, only serves one "client" device, the gigabit router.

By adding it to the DMZ, you bypass any port forwarding needed on the router provided by your ISP. At this point, any port forwarding that would need to be configured would be on the gigabit router itself.

If both routers have wireless modules, you would want to disable the wireless module on the router provided by the ISP. Users that connect to the gigabit router would be able to see clients connected to the ISP router, but the clients on the ISP router would not see the clients on the gigabit router, which will cause frustration and headaches trying share data.


If using a 1000Mbps switch instead of a second router, just ignore the stuff about the WAN port and DMZ. Adding a switch is a fairly simple process and will allow anything that is plugged into the switch to function properly at 1000Mbps, assuming the clients drivers and settings are configured properly. Any clients connected to the ISP router would be limited by 100Mbps, or by wireless protocol a/b/g, depending on the clients connection.

I hope this was helpful.

 

[smenge]

Hi

I want just the same setup as noted in the initial post. But I have some more questions:

I want attach a Video/File-Server with Gigabit speed. I have some PCs with Gigabit and some streaming clients with 10/100Mb/s. I want to attach all to a (unmanaged) Gigabit switch, which sits behind a standard 10/100+WLAN+DSL Router. It is clear that the router, specifically DSL, is a bottleneck when accessing the internet.

But can I transfer big files between two PCs that have both Gigabit-LAN via the switch? Or would then go some traffic through the router which would then again be a bottleneck?

Also from the answers above: If there is one 10/100 Mbps device on the switch, will it force the _whole_ "bus" to that speed? Or would it be possible, that some devices communicate at max 1000Mbps and some at max 100Mbps at the same time ?

best, Sebastian

 

[MK19]

too bad we can't get this here:

http://au.billion.com/product/voip/bipac7404vnpx.php

wonder if it works on US ADSL?

 

[Kewlx25]

Netgear WNDR3700 has 5 gig ports (4 LAN + 1 WAN) and does ~500mbit WAN<->LAN NAT/SPI

Also, will soon have open wrt support which is Linux and will give it future upgradability since the linux port will support anything linux can do. It has 64MB of ram and a 680mhz mips cpu, so it'll be quick enough for quite a while. It should be A LOT faster as a generic IPv6 firewall than an IPv4 NAT, since it doesn't have to do table look ups for NAT connection states.

 

[rhicks20]

I am having the same problem. I want to get gigabit network between file/print server and my main. I have gigabit nics and cat 5 cables to a cisco 5 port gigabit switch. The dsl is connected to the switch. The connections on my main and my file/print server only connect at 100 Mbps. I have tried to go in and manually select 1000Mbps on both comps but it just restarts the cards and they connect back at 100Mbps. uggh!!! Why won't the switch connect at 1Gbps???

 

[eibgrad]

I am having the same problem. I want to get gigabit network between file/print server and my main. I have gigabit nics and cat 5 cables to a cisco 5 port gigabit switch. The dsl is connected to the switch. The connections on my main and my file/print server only connect at 100 Mbps. I have tried to go in and manually select 1000Mbps on both comps but it just restarts the cards and they connect back at 100Mbps. uggh!!! Why won't the switch connect at 1Gbps???

Well actually it must be CAT5e minimum, CAT5 won't work. (well it *might* work, but it's strongly discouraged and at best only for very short runs). CAT5e or CAT6 are your best choices.

 

[rhicks20]

We're only talking about 10-15 ft max. They are in the same room.

 

[MK19]

We're only talking about 10-15 ft max. They are in the same room.

Distance won't matter if you are running CAT5 (100 MHz), as CAT6 (truly called CAT6a) was designed for faster throughput in terms of frequency (500-550 MHz) for gigabit transfer speeds. CAT5e comes in at 350 MHz, which is sustainable for 1000MBps in theory, but CAT6 was made with gigabit in mind. There is even CAT7a, 1000 MHz, but we won't see that for a while. Go to monoprice.com and pick up some inexpensive CAT6 for your setup.

 

[eibgrad]

We're only talking about 10-15 ft max. They are in the same room.

Heck, grab a piece of CAT6 and see what happens. Worth a shot. You'll be kickin' yourself later if you find out that's all it was.

 

[rhicks20]

Ok, I'll hit the stores tomorrow and pick up a few pieces and see what happens.

Thx a bunch!!

 

[rhicks20]

Changed cables and it still connects as 100 Mbps.....not sure what to do ....

 

[Kewlx25]

Cat7 ftw. That's what I'll be using when I build a house.

 

[slowfiosrouter]

If the 100mpbs router is the dhcp server, would that limit the rest of my network speed (setup: router lan to gigabit switch lan to gigabit computers lan) to 100mpbs?

 

[nuklep1]

Changed cables and it still connects as 100 Mbps.....not sure what to do ....

My setups been working ever since i made that post. I even have cat5 cables mixed in there. For some time I had the same problem as you. Its been a while, but I think I ended up reinstalling NIC drivers. Maybe try changing the switch brand. I have a mixture of Airlink and Dlink switches and a Lynksis router.

If the 100mpbs router is the dhcp server, would that limit the rest of my network speed (setup: router lan to gigabit switch lan to gigabit computers lan) to 100mpbs?

It should not. My 100mbps router is the dhcp and my gigabit routers(edit: I mean switches) are working as expected.

Ofcourse make sure all the computers are connected to the switch and not the router. Only thing connected to the router should be the modem and the switch

 

[eyekanspele]

If you are transferring files between computers, to and from hard drives, 7200rpm drives will not be able to transfer faster than 100mbps. Some might be able to burst read and write faster than 100mbps but there is no way it can sustain it.

if you had some WD velociraptor drives or seagate cheeta drives in a stripped array of some sort or a high quality ssd hard drives, you might be able to sustain a read/write scenario past 100mbps. It is going to be the write speeds of the hard drive that will be the killer... note that both the sending and receiving computers would need these specialty hard drives.

since harddrives generally read faster, gigabit home networks are most beneficial when you have a media server that you save videos onto, and stream it to another computer, or media extender, as it will not actually be writing to the non-server computer's hard drive (it may get page filed, but that will be your OS choice).

its also may be beneficial if you say perhaps, you had several hard drives on a home server, and several computers were accessing the different drives (but not the same drive) on the server, then the connection between your server and your switch will not be (as) saturated.

 

[nuklep1]

If you are transferring files between computers, to and from hard drives, 7200rpm drives will not be able to transfer faster than 100mbps. Some might be able to burst read and write faster than 100mbps but there is no way it can sustain it.

if you had some WD velociraptor drives or seagate cheeta drives in a stripped array of some sort or a high quality ssd hard drives, you might be able to sustain a read/write scenario past 100mbps. It is going to be the write speeds of the hard drive that will be the killer... note that both the sending and receiving computers would need these specialty hard drives.

since harddrives generally read faster, gigabit home networks are most beneficial when you have a media server that you save videos onto, and stream it to another computer, or media extender, as it will not actually be writing to the non-server computer's hard drive (it may get page filed, but that will be your OS choice).

its also may be beneficial if you say perhaps, you had several hard drives on a home server, and several computers were accessing the different drives (but not the same drive) on the server, then the connection between your server and your switch will not be (as) saturated.

Believe me, 100mbps gets saturated in a jiffy with a single 5400rpm drive. You don't even need a 7200rpm. For example my 2TB 5400 rpm drive has Sustained avg read speed of 85MBps. 85MBps = 680mbps. I am guessing you are confused between mbps and MBps.

1 MBps = 8mbps