Suggestions on upgrading current setup..

[WickedDevils]

I was hoping to get some suggestions on upgrading my current setup for gigabit. Currently it goes as this..

2 pcs on the 2nd floor. One is ethernet one is wireless. (Awesome fry's special computers).

1 laptop and 1 server on the main floor where the cable modem comes in. A DLink wireless router is used on this floor.

2 laptops, 2 pcs, xbox, and TIVO in the basement.

Right now I have a dlink on the main floor. It runs ethernet to the 2nd floor and an ethernet to the basement (where it gets split by a switch). The bottlenecking isn't bad but now that I am home full time (I just graduated), I was hoping to increase the speeds to gigabit. The large files being transferred throughout the network constantly between the pcs and the main storage server can take a while sometimes. I was hoping to upgrade to gigabit but I am not sure exactly what routers are good for gigabit. I have a fry's right by my house and a tiger direct outlet store. I want to be able to purchase the ethernet cable in bulk (several hundred feet) and rerun the cables. I would prefer to stay away from linksys (I used to love linksys until I discovered all their crappy issues). Also what cards would be good to use?

Let me know what you think. It would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[fredweston]

If you really want to take maximum advantage of gigabit then your best bet is to buy a single gigabit switch with enough ports to connect all of your stuff. Put it on the main floor by the router. Take a patch cable from the router's LAN side and connect it to the switch. The 100mbps connection from the router won't make a difference here because neither the Internet nor the wireless are faster than 100mbps. From the switch, cable out to all the devices. If you want max bandwidth, don't daisy chain to other switches anywhere because that makes the devices on the daisy chained switch share the bandwidth of the single port connecting the two switches.