Gigabit Networking

[Wingy]

Hello,
A friend of mine, who runs a photography business, asked me if I could upgrade his network to gigabit speeds for him. Right now he's got a (Netgear I believe?) wireless router with a built in 4 or 5 port switch handling everything. I was wondering, how difficult would this be for somebody who doesn't know a whole ton about networking? Basically I know how to setup a basic home network with wireless, like he has now. Basically, would I be able to just get a gigabit switch, along with gigabit capable NICs (If he doesn't already have them)? How much confiiguration would need to be done?

Also, for any equipment I would need to get, do you have any recommendations? Nothing too crazy high end.

Thanks

 

[aaronearles]

Just pick up a decent gigabit switch, and some NICs, I cant make a recommendation on a switch, as I don't work with gigabit much, for the NICs, I recommend Intel cards, but that's also based on mostly 10/100 experience. You can connect the gigabit switch to one port on the router, and move the rest of the connections over to the switch. This way all of the computers are plugged in to the gig switch, and will communicate together at gig speeds, and will connect to the router at 100Mb, as his internet connection will not be bottlenecked by that amount of bandwidth.

 

[infamus]

seeing 1.0gb instead of 100mb is about the only difference he will notice. if hes moving massive files across the network then gigabit will be great but if its just daily internet and programs you cant really tell. also depends what he wants, faster dl/ul speeds or cross networking speed.

if he still wants to go with gigabit network get a good 8 or 16 port switch to allow for expandability then some cheapie nics.

cant go wrong with netgearor linksys for small business enviroment(5-20 users) i heard dell makes some ok switches but thats all talk i gots not experience with dells networking stuff

 

[Madwand]

Hello,
Also, for any equipment I would need to get, do you have any recommendations? Nothing too crazy high end.

D-Link DGS-2208. 8 ports. Cheap, fast, jumbo frames. Unmanaged. Consumer grade. 3-year limited warranty.

Intel NICs are cool. PCIe is to be preferred over PCI if possible. But IMO/IME, once a NIC is working properly (stable drivers, connections, etc.), it's unlikely that a typical desktop computer (not specifically tweaked, loaded up with RAID, etc.) will be able to see a significant difference in the performance of one NIC vs. another.

 

[BuGaLoU]

I recommend the Dell PowerConnect switches. The 16 port ones support jumbo frames too. These are cheap and good quality web-managed switches.

 

[Wingy]

seeing 1.0gb instead of 100mb is about the only difference he will notice. if hes moving massive files across the network then gigabit will be great but if its just daily internet and programs you cant really tell. also depends what he wants, faster dl/ul speeds or cross networking speed.

if he still wants to go with gigabit network get a good 8 or 16 port switch to allow for expandability then some cheapie nics.

cant go wrong with netgearor linksys for small business enviroment(5-20 users) i heard dell makes some ok switches but thats all talk i gots not experience with dells networking stuff

Its all about moving large amount of pretty good sized files across his network. Its nothing to do with internet. He ends up taking massive numbers of senior pictures, weddings.. etc. At high resolution. The idea being that to do the work they do, they have to be more efficient in thier labor hours, since the economy where we're from is awful, and the labor rate is starting to put a hurt on them. This is one of the many changes they're making.

Thank you for your suggestions. You guys helped alot.

 

[Wingy]

Also, I'm a system builder, but I don't usually have a chance anymore to stay crazy up to date, but I keep seeing 10/100/1000/2000 etc. I'm assuming that depending on the hardware in use, the maximum amount of bandwidth will try to be used, without a whole lot configuration at least.

But 2000 or 2 gigabit isn't supported by NICs, correct?

 

[Madwand]

The 100/200/1000/2000 business is mostly marketing nonsense, where the marketers decide that it's cool to count full duplex bandwidth in both directions and add up the figures. This nonsense just makes 'egg searching harder and less reliable.

 

[MrGuvernment]

I recommend the Dell PowerConnect switches. The 16 port ones support jumbo frames too. These are cheap and good quality web-managed switches.

2nd this, i do alot of raw photo work, raw files end up being 30MB + easily and with 200 pics at a time giga will be a nice move, i own a 16 port and an 8 port dell and they have been flawless.