Gigabit Routers with Wireless abilities

[BlueTsunami]

Anyone know of any good Gigabit (Speed) Routers? I would like one with Wireless...but if not...I'll just get a Gigabit Router with a regular Access Point.

What raised my interest was this...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815201208

I don't know if its good or not (For USB 2.0, Firewire and a Gigabit NIC connection....at $55.....hmmmm). I read the review...but with only one, its hard to gauge how good it is. Do you think its a card that is a Jack of all trades but is mediocre at all of them?

I need a Firewire port for my fathers new Sony Handycam and seeing this, it makes me want to go Gigabit.I'm setting up a file server (Both in home network and outside, with different multimedia and installers) and i'm going to be beefing it up....this speed increase (From 100Mbit) really, really appeals to me.

 

[Guden Oden]

That multifunction card doesn't look bad at all, one thing you may want to note is that since it's a PCI card, you won't get all the speed your gigabit connection is capable of, but then again your harddrive(s) likely wouldn't keep up anyway so that hardly matters.

If you're lucky you could plug in that card and not have to install a single driver if windows supports the network chip out of the box. The reference drivers will detect the USB and firewire ports for you without you even having to lift a finger...

 

[PC-Engine]

That multifunction card doesn't look bad at all, one thing you may want to note is that since it's a PCI card, you won't get all the speed your gigabit connection is capable of, but then again your harddrive(s) likely wouldn't keep up anyway so that hardly matters.

Huh? Ultra ATA133 PCI controller cards have been available for years. Same with serial ATA 150 PCI cards.

 

[swaaye]

Hard drives have problems transferring more than 50MB/s continuously, and they can only manage that in straight-line sequential reads on a defragged drive usually.

Burst reads aren't very beneficial most of the time and that's the ONLY time a drive can max out its interface. Bursts come from the cache.

 

[BlueTsunami]

This is the router I've been having my eye on...

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...SRCCODE=PRICEGRABBER&CMP=OTC-PRICEGRABBER

Its a D-Link. Even though I want to stay with a Linksys setup....that router seems to be the only one I can find.

But..oh man...I just looked at the new Belkin Pre-N Router...what their claiming is crazy....heres a link to the a review of the router on cnet

http://reviews.cnet.com/Belkin_Wireless_Pre_N_router/4505-3319_7-30993672.html

That seems like a really good router...bit pricey...I just wish it had physical Gigabit ports on it...oh well..

 

[PC-Engine]

Hard drives have problems transferring more than 50MB/s continuously, and they can only manage that in straight-line sequential reads on a defragged drive usually.

Burst reads aren't very beneficial most of the time and that's the ONLY time a drive can max out its interface. Bursts come from the cache.

Sure but it still needs that full PCI bandwidth for the times when it will use it. Gigabit uses less bandwidth than what PCI offers. That was my point. Of course if you're using all of the ports all at the same time on that multifunction PCI card then yeah you might be able to saturate the PCI bandwidth.

 

[BlueTsunami]

Hard drives have problems transferring more than 50MB/s continuously, and they can only manage that in straight-line sequential reads on a defragged drive usually.

Burst reads aren't very beneficial most of the time and that's the ONLY time a drive can max out its interface. Bursts come from the cache.

Sure but it still needs that full PCI bandwidth for the times when it will use it. Gigabit uses less bandwidth than what PCI offers. That was my point. Of course if you're using all of the ports all at the same time on that multifunction PCI card then yeah you might be able to saturate the PCI bandwidth.

Thats true, but I don't think there will be an occasion will I'll be heavly using all of them at once (2 Externel USB 2.0 and Fireware Ports - 1 USB/Fireware Internel and a Gigabit connection). I love it because my Motherboard doesn't have USB 2.0, Fireware or a Gigabit connection. I'm going to buy it next time I get payed...which isn't till next week

 

[PC-Engine]

What's sad is you can buy a whole motherboard with all of that plus video and sound for around $15 more than that card.

 

[Albuquerque]

Full duplex gigabit ethernet connection can, at maximum capacity, can almost DOUBLE the bandwidth of your PCI bus. Go looking for an Intel technology called the "CSA Bus", which was purposely developed on the 865 and later chipsets specifically for gigabit network connections.

That being said, you'd have to feed that connection at such a rate in order for it to saturate your bus, which means the bottleneck will almost always be the machine you're connecting to rather than your network link. Which comes right back to spindle speed on YOUR disks as well as the disks on the "server".

 

[BlueTsunami]

What's sad is you can buy a whole motherboard with all of that plus video and sound for around $15 more than that card.

Thats a very valid point...I guess I want to rush to get a firewire port (Since my motherboard doesn't support it). I'm planning on upgrading my system in the future...but I want to upgrade everything to really new equipment.

I figure if I do that (Get the new motherboard, CPU, RAM..yada yada yada)...than I can install this card and my old motherboard on my Server so It will also have a Gigabit connection...

 

[Albuquerque]

The question I have is, what kind of work are you doing that requires a gigabit link? A full duplex 100mbit link can sustain somewhere around 550-600mb/min of one-way transfer rate if you're using TCP/IP. If you're broadcasting or streaming UDP, you can exceed 700mb/min.

In reality, I've done Ghost multicasts using a halfway decent Dell GX260 as the "server" and a ton of IBM Thinkpad X30's as "clients" on a 100mbit switched network (Linksys off-the-shelf consumer-grade 24-port switch)and have seen transfer rates around 675mb/min on a ~4gb uncompressed image.

A gigabit link isn't going to get you much faster in reality. Our gigabit imaging network at the office usually hits the wall (when doing Ghost multicasts again) around 850-900mb/min on an uncompressed image. A theoretical 10x increase in bandwidth nets us about 25% more throughput -- not really such a big deal.

 

[BlueTsunami]

Through a couple of days of searching...i've come the realization that there aren't alot of Wireless Gigabit Routers (Gigabit Ports). I guess the demand isn't there yet for more speed. I'm probably going to go with a Gigabit Router with an access point connected to it, type of setup (I love how Cat5 cables are fully compatible with Gigabit speed connections). I'll end up selling my Linksys WRTG online or to a family member or something. I'll probably get the card too....but after this is all said and done...I could probably upgrade my system with the amount of money being spent.

...damn...what should I choose... :?

The question I have is, what kind of work are you doing that requires a gigabit link? A full duplex 100mbit link can sustain somewhere around 550-600mb/min of one-way transfer rate if you're using TCP/IP. If you're broadcasting or streaming UDP, you can exceed 700mb/min.

In reality, I've done Ghost multicasts using a halfway decent Dell GX260 as the "server" and a ton of IBM Thinkpad X30's as "clients" on a 100mbit switched network (Linksys off-the-shelf consumer-grade 24-port switch)and have seen transfer rates around 675mb/min on a ~4gb uncompressed image.

A gigabit link isn't going to get you much faster in reality. Our gigabit imaging network at the office usually hits the wall (when doing Ghost multicasts again) around 850-900mb/min on an uncompressed image. A theoretical 10x increase in bandwidth nets us about 25% more throughput -- not really such a big deal.

Funny that you bring that up . I plan on turning my Server at home into a personal Ghost Cast Server....don't ask where I got the software . I have a fairly big harddrive..and I want to archive images for my computer and the Dell D600's that I have . I also use Ghost Casting at my Job (I work at a websites main office). I also hit that wall (Ghost Casting speed).

Af far as what i will be using the server for, mainly the Ghost Images, DVD's that i'm keeping digitally, Installers (I like to keep all the stuff in software form..Photoshop, Macromedia...etc..etc), Music and other misc things. The drive with all these shares are on my main PC that I use all the time...but I want to put it on a remote PC that consumes less power and could be on constantly (My main PC has a 500W PSU, compared to the 200W PSU that on the computer that I want to use as the server). Having all those shares on there I'm going to be constantly updloading and getting files constantly...so I want the fastes connection I can get.

 

[Albuquerque]

No need to sell your WRTG...

Just connect one LAN port of your WRT54G to one of the ports on your new switch. Your wireless router will now act as the DHCP server for your gigabit "network", and anything you need/want connected at gigabit speeds you simply need to make sure to plug into the gigabit switch. Your wireless lan will have access to any device on your gigabit switch just like it would've had access to any device on your 100mbit ports of the WRTG as well. Not difficult

My aging DLINK 10/100 802.11b Wireless router is essentially the "hub" for four different VLAN's I have plugged into it. I've got a 10mbit hub for my old stuff, two 100mbit switches for my new stuff, and another wired router all plugged into it.

 

[BlueTsunami]

No need to sell your WRTG...

Just connect one LAN port of your WRT54G to one of the ports on your new switch. Your wireless router will now act as the DHCP server for your gigabit "network", and anything you need/want connected at gigabit speeds you simply need to make sure to plug into the gigabit switch. Your wireless lan will have access to any device on your gigabit switch just like it would've had access to any device on your 100mbit ports of the WRTG as well. Not difficult

My aging DLINK 10/100 802.11b Wireless router is essentially the "hub" for four different VLAN's I have plugged into it. I've got a 10mbit hub for my old stuff, two 100mbit switches for my new stuff, and another wired router all plugged into it.

I was thinking about that same setup....but I was wondering if the Linksys router would affect the overal connection of the Gigabit setup. If thats the case...then a gigabit switch does sound like the best solution. Thanks for that!

 

[Albuquerque]

Nope, won't affect anything at all. The only limitation in a situation like that is data will only travel as fast as the slowest connection it must go through. If you're passing data from your gig network to your wireless, your data transmission is going to be bottlenecked by your 54mbit connection. If data must pass through one of the 100mbit wired ports on your Linksys to something on your gig network, you're bottlenecked down to a max of 100mbit.

But if data is coming from AND going to different ports on your gig switch, your maximum network capacity will be the full gig.

 

[BlueTsunami]

Nope, won't affect anything at all. The only limitation in a situation like that is data will only travel as fast as the slowest connection it must go through. If you're passing data from your gig network to your wireless, your data transmission is going to be bottlenecked by your 54mbit connection. If data must pass through one of the 100mbit wired ports on your Linksys to something on your gig network, you're bottlenecked down to a max of 100mbit.

But if data is coming from AND going to different ports on your gig switch, your maximum network capacity will be the full gig.

Cool, thats how I figured it would be anyways. I was reading reviews off of NewEgg and was looking at a NetGear Gigabit Switch ($99.99) and on of the posters stated that it took about 32 Seconds to transfer a 667MB file. He/She then goes on to state that he/she found out that the download speed was HardDrive bound and that you get faster speeds with a good HardDisk.

I also saw one for $55, sounds similar...I may get the lower priced one.

So the || Cable Modem --> Wireless Router --> Switch --> PC's ||setup sounds like the best choice..and its going to be the one I implement.

 

[Guden Oden]

Sorry for the off-topic post, I just wanted to straighten out this misconception.

Sure but it still needs that full PCI bandwidth for the times when it will use it. Gigabit uses less bandwidth than what PCI offers. That was my point.

It's unfortunately not a correct point, not even in theory. Gigabit ethernet is full duplex, so aggregate theoretical bandwidth is 250MB/s. Even with single-directional transfers, gigabit cards on PCI bus suffers because of PCI's poor efficiency and ancient technology. It's rare that PCI reaches above 90MB/s on anything but very large sequential data transfers, and this simply doesn't happen with network packets even if disk I/O could keep up (which it won't, not without a striped RAID array).

Gigabit ethernet can easily transfer faster than PCI can supply the data - just check out some comparative reviews of ethernet cards that sit on PCI or PCIe or dedicated motherboard channels (i8xx chipset series; I believe the ethernet channel was removed in 9xx, since there's PCIe in that chipset that essentially makes dedicated stuff redundant).

Harddrives - regardless of interface capacity like ATA133, serial ATA150 etc - don't peak much more than roughly 60MB/s in actual transfer rates for IDE units and I think, 80-ish for top of the line (and very expensive) SCSI units. That's just at the outer edge of the disks by the way. It drops more or less linearly as one progresses inwards to around half speed at the innermost zone for 3.5" drives; this is depending on the diameter of the platters. 7200rpm 3.5" drives lose the most, and 2" 15000 rpm drives the least.

Of course if you're using all of the ports all at the same time on that multifunction PCI card then yeah you might be able to saturate the PCI bandwidth.

It doesn't matter if those multiple functions sit on one card or several different ones as PCI bus bandwidth is shared amongst all slots... Besides, it doesn't really take much to saturate PCI. Firewire is 50MB/s and USB2 is 60 (peak). Already we're near theoretical PCI b/w, and we've already well passed actual bandwidth...

Let's not forget - PCI is 10 years old these days. It's basically ancient history, and as such, fairly crap really. Just because it is supposed to give 133MB/s doesn't mean it does. Because, well, it DOESN'T.

 

[BlueTsunami]

Sorry for the off-topic post, I just wanted to straighten out this misconception.

Sure but it still needs that full PCI bandwidth for the times when it will use it. Gigabit uses less bandwidth than what PCI offers. That was my point.

It's unfortunately not a correct point, not even in theory. Gigabit ethernet is full duplex, so aggregate theoretical bandwidth is 250MB/s. Even with single-directional transfers, gigabit cards on PCI bus suffers because of PCI's poor efficiency and ancient technology. It's rare that PCI reaches above 90MB/s on anything but very large sequential data transfers, and this simply doesn't happen with network packets even if disk I/O could keep up (which it won't, not without a striped RAID array).

Gigabit ethernet can easily transfer faster than PCI can supply the data - just check out some comparative reviews of ethernet cards that sit on PCI or PCIe or dedicated motherboard channels (i8xx chipset series; I believe the ethernet channel was removed in 9xx, since there's PCIe in that chipset that essentially makes dedicated stuff redundant).

Harddrives - regardless of interface capacity like ATA133, serial ATA150 etc - don't peak much more than roughly 60MB/s in actual transfer rates for IDE units and I think, 80-ish for top of the line (and very expensive) SCSI units. That's just at the outer edge of the disks by the way. It drops more or less linearly as one progresses inwards to around half speed at the innermost zone for 3.5" drives; this is depending on the diameter of the platters. 7200rpm 3.5" drives lose the most, and 2" 15000 rpm drives the least.

Of course if you're using all of the ports all at the same time on that multifunction PCI card then yeah you might be able to saturate the PCI bandwidth.

It doesn't matter if those multiple functions sit on one card or several different ones as PCI bus bandwidth is shared amongst all slots... Besides, it doesn't really take much to saturate PCI. Firewire is 50MB/s and USB2 is 60 (peak). Already we're near theoretical PCI b/w, and we've already well passed actual bandwidth...

Let's not forget - PCI is 10 years old these days. It's basically ancient history, and as such, fairly crap really. Just because it is supposed to give 133MB/s doesn't mean it does. Because, well, it DOESN'T.

It makes me want to see a benchmark for a system equipped with a good HardDisk, PCIe and a Gigabit NIC PCIe Card...

I was weary about getting a Gigabit card in the first place because I didn't understand how PCI could handle it.....so I guess my question would be...is the gains from a PCI Gigabit NIC over a regular 100Mbit (which I have onboard) connection worth the purchase of this card?

Also...I was comparing Gigabit Switches...and these are the two I came down to. I was comparing them...I was wondering if I could get your guys opinions on them....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...6833122111,N82E16833122140&SubCategory=30

One cost $55, the other $99. I think i'll like the switch setup..

Edit: The $99 one has auto uplink...that could be usefull

 

[Albuquerque]

Not that anyone reads my posts but as I had outlined before, the BEST case scenario I'm able to provide from a 100mbit FDX connection to a 1000mbit FDX connection is about a 25-30% increase in throughput.

This is a server with a RAID5 of 15K RPM disks, a dual-gig connection to a fiber backbone, one virtual router hop away from a pile of gig-connected Dell GX280's.

100mbit = ~700mb/min
1000mbit = ~900mb/min

 

[Guden Oden]

I can only assume you have a very crappy 1000mbit network, Alber... You should get MUCH faster transfer speeds than that! Gigabit ethernet easily transfers 90+ megabytes PER SECOND. That's more than seven times theoretical peak of 100mbit ether.

As for Blue's question if it's worth the money, well it sort of depends really. Do you regularly transfer hundreds of megabytes back and forth? Because if you don't, well unless you get gigabit with a new mobo, it probably is a waste of money, considering you need 2 gigabit cards and realistically a switch inbetween them. That will be a stack of money no matter which way you count it. And gigabit router with wifi in it, why? Wifi doesn't even come near of saturating 100mbit, so why not have a separate wifi access point? Will be easier to keep up-to-date also, as there seems to be a new wifi standard out every month.