From wifi, over homeline, to gigabit wired

[lama]

Here is a little real life comparison of techs. I purchased a house 4 years ago, and setup wired network in 3 rooms. Between them bridges. Due to structural constraints it went like this.

As a first solution, I set up a wireless bridge, 802.11g. It used the same wireless network that other devices used too. With this setup I got around 1-2 MB/s sustained datarates.

The I moved the bridge to a separate band, and switched to 802.11n, but still on 2.4ghz. I was getting 3-4 MB/s.

Reading reviews of powerline, and a local sale made me switch to 500mbps powerlink adapters from TP-Link. This gave me 7-8 MB/s. Enough to stream Full HD video content.

Finally I bit the bullet, and invested in crimping gear, cat6 cables, and proper tools to wire the cables. Now there is cat6 cables, linking 3 gigabit switches, and only mobiles and ipad etc is using wireless. I now download from NAS to PC with >70 MB/s. Likely restricted by Nas disks, not the network.

I regret now spending so much time on wireless and powerline techs. Gigabit is so much better! And crimping and punching down cat6 is nowhere as hard as some forums suggest. Being a complete novice, I used 2-3 plugs per successful crimp. Punching down is even easier.

 

[azazel1024]

Glad you are happy. There is no real replacement for wired ethernet (except for things like wired infiniband).

Depending on the NAS, you are probably limited by the performance of the NAS CPU. A resonably recent HDD should easily saturate a gigabit ethernet link (>110MB/sec). My wireless is darned fast, especially now that I've moved to an AC1750 router (though my AP is still only N600). I can get >50MB/sec over wireless to my laptop and >40MB/sec from my laptop to my server. Very nice, especially for wireless, but if I plug it in, I still get >110MB/sec from the gigabit port, both directions at ONCE.

Or a worse comparison, with my desktop and 2GbE...I get >235MB/sec, both directions at once (though my HDD RAID0 array in the server can't handle that, but if there is some RAM caching going on, it absolutely can).

Though not really the 10x speed up you saw from powerline to gigabit.

 

[fistv]

You bought the wrong crimper, they make one that the wires go all the way through the tip and it crimps and cuts on the same 'squeeze'.

 

[lama]

@fistv : I get your point, but aligning the wires was not an issue. Rather the wires would be pierced sligtly off. On visual inspection I would discard and try again. 5 plugs for 2 crimps. Ordinary crimper, plugs with wireguide.

@azazel1024 : Wow those are impressive numbers for wireless. I assume 5GHz, what kind of rates do you get thru one or two walls?
About cpu vs disk for datarates. You are most likely right, since my NAS is an older marvell based device (Qnap ts-219p). When I upgrade to a 4+ bay NAS, I definitely will go for something with a better cpu.

 

[azazel1024]

Yes, 5GHz, 11ac. Through a single wall and around 15ft, my numbers drop from 52-55MB/sec Rx and 42-45MB/sec Tx to 44-45MB/sec Rx and 36-38MB/sec Tx. Where my router is located it is hard to do a two wall test as it is in my basement and to increase from one wall, you jump to 3 walls and at an oblique through them. Which, other side of the basement, 3 walls, at an oblique angle and around 35ft of distance it drops to around 25MB/sec or so Rx and around 20MB/sec Tx.

2x4 walls all.

On 2.4GHz same room it is about 28/25MB/sec Rx/Tx, a room over about 25/20MB/sec and the 3 walls, oblique and 35ft is around 20/18MB/sec Rx/Tx. Up on the top floor at about the same location, so just adding a floor at an oblique, 5GHz pretty much disconnects (have to move a little closer on the 1st floor to get a 5GHz connection) and around 9MB/sec Rx and 8MB/sec Tx with 2.4GHz (all of this is 40MHz for 2.4GHz). At "extreme" range with another 15ft and a 4ft thick masonry fireplace, the performance drops to about 3MB/sec Rx and Tx on 2.4GHz (can't even see 5GHz anymore at this point).