Router suggestions

[Enormous]

I'm considering upgrading my home network to Gigabit speeds. Does anyone have suggestions for a good Gb router? If at all possible, I would also like to have the ability to do 802.11g wireless, but so far I haven't seen a router with a combination of the two...

[waynedunham]

Do you really need a Gigabit Router? I upgraded my wired house to Gigabit without replacing my old reliable 10/100 router.

I just unplugged my old 16 port 10/100 switch (which then goes to the patch panel and out to all the outlets in the house) and swapped in a new gigabit 16 port switch. I then had instant Gigabit to all my outlets for any device that could use it.
The changeover was absolutely painless, and had no hiccups from my gigabit equipment (3 PC's and a Laptop) talking to my legacy 10/100 equipment (2 ReplayTV's, MediaREADY 5000, Hauppauge MediaMVP).

So everything within the house that's hardwired has access to gigabit speeds which drop down to 10/100 outside the home. (I don't think there's anything in the "home" arena for internet access that can yet overwhelm a 10/100 router)

I had been wanting to do it for a while, and between the new Sage machine and my new gaming machine which both had built in gigabit, plus seeing a nice 16 port gigabit switch on sale at NewEgg I bit the bullet.

I just recently added an 802.11G WAP (Wireless Access Point) and just plugged it in. I added this for those times when I don't feel like being hard-wired with the laptop and just need a quick connection to grab a small file or surf the net. If I need a speedy gigabit connection (to transfer large files, like say a 2 hour movie off the Sage machine) I just plug the laptop into of my my lan jacks.

I wanted to go whole gigabit starting at the router, but gigabit routers were (are?) WAY too expensive and at the time I wasn't even looking for wireless.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Enormous

I'm considering upgrading my home network to Gigabit speeds. Does anyone have suggestions for a good Gb router? If at all possible, I would also like to have the ability to do 802.11g wireless, but so far I haven't seen a router with a combination of the two...

Don't think you'll find one either-or one that's cheap. Your fastest connection to the Internet won't come close to saturating a 10/100 router. Like Wayne said, your gigabit speed is on the LAN. Get yourself a 8 or 16 port Gig switch and plug it into the router. Upgrade your router for the wireless G or N or MIMO or whatever you feel comfortable with. I stuck an 8 port Gigabit switch on the network and have the Sage server, Media server and PC clients all plugged into it.

Gerry

[Enormous]

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback! It had never occurred to me to use a switch instead of a router! It's as easy as plugging the switch into the router? And then I assume you just plug all of the computers you want to have Gigabit into the switch as well?

[ke6guj]

Yup, plug all your gigabit capable computers into the gig-switch and you are all set. Not that only your gig'ed computers can use it, but if you only have a 5-port gig-switch, like me, then you don't want to waste ports on stuff that only runs at 10/100.

[lotusvball]

I concur with everyone else. I did exactly that. Got a 10/100 rounter from netgear (love it) and added a 1 gb switch also from netgear (love it too) and now have a gb network for under $100.

[Dekard]

Yup.. thats what I did too.. I've got my pc's on the gig side and the sage server, voip, print server and router on the 100 side. Works like a charm.

[gplasky]

Any reason why you didn't throw a gig nic in the linux server also? I would think streaming videos to the clients would benefit that. Gentoo should support it. Just curious. I'm not a linux guru by any means.

Gerry

[Dekard]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Any reason why you didn't throw a gig nic in the linux server also? I would think streaming videos to the clients would benefit that. Gentoo should support it. Just curious. I'm not a linux guru by any means.

Gerry

Linux would indeed support it but there is really no need. The data rates of even high definition would not require gig speeds untill you had quite a few streams going at one time.

[bcjenkins]

I just picked up a DLink DGL-4100 which is a wired home router sporting GB LAN ports. It also has optimizations for packet prioritization. It is replacing a quite old Netgear router in preparation for a faster ISP connection. Who would have thought you'd need faster than a 10mb WAN port!

B

[dagar]

I vote for M0n0 wall. Otherwise go with a Cisco 7600 series with redundant Sup7203BXLs. M0n0 will support those requirements and is easy to setup for typical SOHO useage. Radius and VPNs are not typical SOHO M0n0 will take multiport 100bT cards, GbE, and can do interVLAN routing and dot1q trunking (supposedly). But I run mine home network as a 'router on a stick' from my Alcatel switch.

Too many [crappy] SOHO routers. Not going back. I lump them all in to the "they have low quality ASICs and even lower quality buffers. I don't like to reboot my network gear. SOHO gear may as well have XPE on them (some do)

Networks uber alles!!!! Ahem, er uh yeah -- long night designing datacenters

[Dekard]

I'll probably pick up one of these to replace my old lynksys.

[dagar]

So you're buying non-standard wireless hardware when the draft spec is still having troubles getting ratified? Caveat emptor!