Request for advice: upgrading to gigabit

[DavidHB]

Some history to explain things. When I had my house rebuilt (and therefore rewired) some 5 years ago, I took the opportunity to put in Ethernet cabling, a good move. What was less good is that the design of the house had to change a bit after the cabling was put in at first fix, such that the area where my home office was to be (which was therefore the fixed switch/router location) actually turned into an under stairs cupboard.

No real worries; I had an additional network cable run to socket in the new office location, and connected my ADSL router (Netgear DG834 v2) to that point. I run my two office desktops, also connected to the router, at that point, and the wires to the cupboard all go to an unmanaged 10/100 switch. The connection points elsewhere in the house are used for various laptops which come and go with the family members who have them (and I control security for everyone!). The system works well.

I would now like to install a gigabit NAS. I was assured by the electrician that the cabling is to Cat 6 standard, so that is OK, but my router and switch are 10/100. I have the following options:

1. link the desktops to the NAS through a gigabit switch which is in turn connected to the router; this is the easiest, and probably messiest, option; it leaves the 'house' cabling at 10/100, which is probably not a major problem;
   
2. replace the existing router and switch with gigabit equivalents; this appears expensive, and gigabit ADSL routers are remarkably hard to find;
   
3. move the router to replace the existing switch (because of the history, the master phone socket is actually in the understairs cupboard), and put a gigabit switch where the router is now; this is a tidier version of Option 1, but involves more work.

As the moment, I am inclined to go for option 1, and maybe move to option 3, with the same kit, later. My questions are:

• With the layouts proposed, will the connections at least between the two desktops (both of which have gigabit Ethernet) at the NAS run at 1000 speed, even when the rest of the network runs at 10/100?
  
• Can anyone recommend a cost-effective gigabit switch (they seem to be much more expensive than their 10/100 counterparts)?

Thanks for any help.

David

[blitzmagoo]

im hard pressed to imagine that the files transferred between your desktops could seriously benefit from such a change. also if you were inclined to be satisfied with simply 10 (i doubt your dsl is any faster) you could add phone using existing wire

[DavidHB]

Originally Posted by blitzmagoo

im hard pressed to imagine that the files transferred between your desktops could seriously benefit from such a change.

Depends on the volume of data. I would use the NAS (among other things) to store image files. These days, each RAW image file from a DSLR camera will be 12MB to 20MB in size, and photographers like me have thousands of them. That's a lot of data to move around. As I understand it, gigabit networking will get you significantly closer to the sort of speed you would expect from an internally connected SATA II drive.

Originally Posted by blitzmagoo

also if you were inclined to be satisfied with simply 10 (i doubt your dsl is any faster) you could add phone using existing wire

I agree that my proposed upgrade would have little or no impact on internet speeds. 10/100 (autosensing) is, I think, the customary way to describe the speed I have now (which, as I have indicated, seems to be limited by the router and switch). If this were operating at '10', I would not be a happy bunny at all, but the system is operating at '100' (the real speed will, of course, be a bit less than this).

Hope this explains things.

David

[clyde123]

Hi David
I've just finished putting in a Gigabit Cat 6 network at a customer, working in conjunction with existing 10/100 Cat 5 network.
Your Option 1 sounds the way to go. Assuming your 2 desktops and the NAS are the only devices you need the gigabit speed for. Even if the cabling was only Cat 5E it should still be ok for 1000.
So, so long as all the devices, the cabling, and the switch are Gigabit you'll be ok.
Then any other devices in the house will be 10/100 or 10/100/1000 depending on what network card is installed in each.
Don't worry at all about the router, that's not going to affect your network speed, just the internet, and as blitzmagoo says that'll not be that fast.
As far as the switch is concerned, I got a good used one off ebay. I needed a Managed Switch, and didn't want to pay hundreds of pounds.
How many ports do you need ? The TPLink 16 port switch is good value, if you don't need Managed. (Hint - I've got a virtually unused one going at clearance :-) )

[johnwill]

The actual transfer speed you get with the gigabit NAS will depend heavily on the specific NAS make/model. I've seen several NAS units that have gigabit ports, but don't have the processing capability to even saturate a 100mbit connection. Unless you move upscale in NAS units, you'll be disappointed in the throughput.

FWIW, I have gigabit all around, and the D-Link DNS-323, it manages to transfer in the 15-16mbyte/sec range using gigabit connections, but several Buffalo NAS units that I had here from a customer couldn't manage more than 9-10mbyte/sec in the same environment.

It's VERY doubtful that you'll see anything like internal SATA speeds from any network connected drive.

[DavidHB]

First: thanks to clyde and johnwill for helpful advice. Clyde: sorry, but 16 ports is overkill for any likely application I may have. 5 will do me fine.

Originally Posted by johnwill

The actual transfer speed you get with the gigabit NAS will depend heavily on the specific NAS make/model. I've seen several NAS units that have gigabit ports, but don't have the processing capability to even saturate a 100mbit connection. Unless you move upscale in NAS units, you'll be disappointed in the throughput.

I was aware of this issue, but not that the speeds could be so disappointing. Clearly, the budget will have to take this issue into account.

Originally Posted by johnwill

FWIW, I have gigabit all around ... the D-Link DNS-323 ... manages to transfer in the 15-16mbyte/sec range using gigabit connections, but several Buffalo NAS units that I had here from a customer couldn't manage more than 9-10mbyte/sec in the same environment.

I've read something similar about the Buffalo units, but even the D-Link is a long way from 1000Mbps. Have you been happy with the reliability of your D-Link unit? I've read rather mixed reviews, though a firmware upgrade seems to have resolved some problems.

Originally Posted by johnwill

It's VERY doubtful that you'll see anything like internal SATA speeds from any network connected drive.

For me it was an issue of 'closer' rather than 'anything like', but I was clearly being a bit optimistic. Maybe the way forward is just to put in the gigabit switch and extra internal drives, to provide as much storage as possible and the means of shifting data between the computers as quickly as possible. A rethink is probably needed, and I'm grateful to you for prompting it.

David

[johnwill]

My DNS-323 has been running here for about 9 months, except for a couple of times I've turned it off intentionally, it's been on 100% of the time and never had an issue. Can't ask much more than that.

There are faster units, but they'll be considerably more expensive. You need to decide on the performance you really need and budget accordingly.

You need a real server O/S for even internal drives to give you the kind of bandwidth you're looking for, workstation O/S versions typically will be much slower.

[DavidHB]

Thanks, johwill.

Originally Posted by johnwill

My DNS-323 has been running here for about 9 months, except for a couple of times I've turned it off intentionally, it's been on 100% of the time and never had an issue. Can't ask much more than that.

Indeed.

Originally Posted by johnwill

There are faster units, but they'll be considerably more expensive. You need to decide on the performance you really need and budget accordingly.

Duly noted.

Originally Posted by johnwill

You need a real server O/S for even internal drives to give you the kind of bandwidth you're looking for, workstation O/S versions typically will be much slower.

This is new information to me, and very useful; thank you. Does Linux count as a server OS for this purpose? Presumably it would need significant configuration.

David

[johnwill]

You can use Linux as a server, and there are even server versions available. Note that if you are not a Linux person, you may have significant difficulties managing the configuration. Another point here is for simple file sharing, the NAS will consume FAR less power, and so the cost of ownership will be much less as time goes on. 100 watts 24/7 adds up to real money before too long. At 10 cents a kw/hr, it would cost $87/year to run that server, and that's assuming a minimal configuration. The NAS will cost a small fraction of that, mine pulls about 10 watts in standby, and it sometimes hits 25 watts running with two disks running.