The Ideal...

[Anthony Thomas]

Re-write - Wireless or Power Line

I'm a bit disappointed and thought since all this work goes into this page that posting here might help me make a clear decision.

I'll just have to investigate on my own.

To that end, I have come up with three possible solutions to slow file transfer speeds over my current 802.11g network.

First some background -

I had previous used a Buffalo Wireless G MIMO Ethernet Converter (Bridge) to connect both my HTPC and my Sony Playstation 2 to 2Wire Router (and previous routers). This unit died a few months ago, I wanted to replace it with a newer version.

But then the idea of upgrading to 802.11n popped into my head. It really hit me to upgrade when I recently moved 15.9GB of video files from my HP laptop (Atheros AR285 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter) via the 2Wire Router (AT&T U-Verse 25-28Mbps connection) to my HTPC (Linksys Super G USB). This operation took 4+ hours to complete at a tire screeching 1.48Mbps. This can not be tolerated, especially while I'm considering adding a server to the network.

I recently bought a Hitachi 2TB drive and originally thought about adding it to my HTPC. But as I said, I'm considering building a server and don't want just add the drive to Windows Home Server and start moving things around before adding it to the storage pool.

So I am looking for the best way to get decent file transfer speeds, I have decided on -

Buffalo WHR-G300N ($40) and the previously mentioned converter ($61)

or

Brite-View LinkE 200Mbps Kit

I don't expect more than 50Mbps from any of these solutions and that's fine. That's still 4x the speed of the current G infrastructure with file transfer.

Instead of that, I could run (2) 75ft Cat5e cables from Monoprice ($7.62 each) but that seems messy and would take up three ports on the 4 port router when you add-in the server.

I should also mention I'm unemployed currently and my budget is somewhere below beer budget. I normally avoid used equipment though I might search CL for people that are unhappy with their wireless router performance in a crowded apartment building when I detect 5 networks in my area and all weaker (1-2 bars) than our own (5 bars at all times).

No problems with wireless here, all devices full bars.... (Laptops, G1, Iphone and HTPC)

Comments, Questions and Concerns are welcome.

 

[thiggins]

Sorry, but I can't follow what you are trying to do. Please provide rough before and after diagrams of your network.

 

[Anthony Thomas]

I added a diagram.

 

[Anthony Thomas]

Bump, no input? Why have a forum????

Thanks, this web site is full of good information.

I believe I have found out how I should go about this and I don't live in some brick/concrete building like what's generally found back east that plays havoc with wireless connections.

If I get full signal from U-Verse Router (and I do) than N should be just fine, 10-15ft from the router.

I thought about picking up a Buffalo N router today and bridge it to the U-Verse Router but I decided against it for the moment.

 

[stevech]

Sounded like you could run cat5. some work. But for HTPC and so on it's so preferable if viable.

ports on router - don't worry - add more ports with a $25 ethernet switch.

 

[Anthony Thomas]

But...

I don't want to run any cables. With the wireless technology where it is and power line technology is there's no reason to go up in the attic and get dirty, even if its the cheapest option roughly $50 including a Gigabit switch ($19).

In fact, I would rather connect my HTPC and my forthcoming WHS to a Gigabit switch, transfer what I need between them and put the server back on the wireless network.

Once I transfer the 1.76TB or so of data currently spread across six different hard drives, I doubt daily uploading to the server from HTPC to WHS (Recorded TV Archive) would be more than 2-3GB a day. At 40-60mbps it wouldn't take more than an hour to upload that content to the server, there's hardly any actively pass a certain time of day/evening.