- August 22, 2006
- 17
- 0
In my home, I have what you might call a hybrid network. I have two 54g access points, 100Mb switches, 1Gb switches, and a firewall/router/switch that has eight 100Mb ports plus the uplink port. The access points and switches plug directly into the switch on the router. The down-stream switches are daisy-chained, so that the second Gb switch plugs into the first Gb switch. It didn't make sense to me to have two Gb switches connected through a 100Mb switch (at the router). All of my computers that use media files are on the Gb switches. I currently have three computers storing media files: the main file server with about a terabyte of storage, a torrent machine with a 200GB storage disk that buffers media files until they can be moved to the file server, and I keep some media files on one of my Media Portal computers. Most of the network hardware is Netgear. The access points are Linksys. The file server is also an Active Directory domain controller, DNS server, and DHCP server.
I can confirm that I have seen the network drop-outs using the wireless. These will show up on Net Stumbler reports. I cannot confirm any problems with the 1Gb network--it seems to work fine. So too does the 100Mb network. However, I can assure you that moving large media files from one computer to another is much faster using the 1Gb network.
I am having problems though. Some of the videos don't render smoothly--they'll show a few seconds then skip a few seconds. I don't think that is a network problem. It's probably either inadequate hardware or a codec problem. I'm still trying to figure that out. Another problem I'm having is with out-of-sync audio. I doubt that that is network related either.
Anyway, that's a lot of explanation to say that network storage should work just fine. I wouldn't advise spending $200 on a switch. I've bought most of my network hardware from eBay. My 8-port Gb switch was less than $20, as was my firewall and just about everything else. Good cabling is very important. I run Cat5e or Cat6 cable through my house from a central point where my DSL modem, firewall, and switches are all easily accessible (a star topology). I have a small rack where I can easily switch any line from one switch to another. I do have a few small switches at endpoints when I want to add more devices before I have the time to run a new cable. In general, however, each network device has it's own cable to the central switches.
I can confirm that I have seen the network drop-outs using the wireless. These will show up on Net Stumbler reports. I cannot confirm any problems with the 1Gb network--it seems to work fine. So too does the 100Mb network. However, I can assure you that moving large media files from one computer to another is much faster using the 1Gb network.
I am having problems though. Some of the videos don't render smoothly--they'll show a few seconds then skip a few seconds. I don't think that is a network problem. It's probably either inadequate hardware or a codec problem. I'm still trying to figure that out. Another problem I'm having is with out-of-sync audio. I doubt that that is network related either.
Anyway, that's a lot of explanation to say that network storage should work just fine. I wouldn't advise spending $200 on a switch. I've bought most of my network hardware from eBay. My 8-port Gb switch was less than $20, as was my firewall and just about everything else. Good cabling is very important. I run Cat5e or Cat6 cable through my house from a central point where my DSL modem, firewall, and switches are all easily accessible (a star topology). I have a small rack where I can easily switch any line from one switch to another. I do have a few small switches at endpoints when I want to add more devices before I have the time to run a new cable. In general, however, each network device has it's own cable to the central switches.