Network Improvement Questions (/custom build advice?)

[PhantmShado]

Hello, I'm looking for some help in improving my home network.

I recently discovered that, when connected through my ddwrt Linksys E3000 to my home's 100mbit connection, enabling any form of QoS tanks my speed to 50/20. Meanwhile, with QoS off, it can hit 85/71. Plugging my computer straight into my modem I get 85/75. I also noted that my ping measured 4ms straight into the modem and 5ms with the router in the chain (with or without QoS). All numbers were gathered with speedtest.net.

Browsing the ddwrt forums seemed to indicate that no consumer router (running ddwrt at least) could QoS a 100mbit connection without degrading the speed. This just stands to suggest how utterly hopeless it would be to try to run a gigabit connection through any home router at all, but doing that is something my home provider aims to let me try once they have their infrastructure up, and I'd like mine to be ready.

Therefore, I am thinking the thing to do would be to put together a *nix router of my own, but having 0 knowledge of the area, I have a set of initial points/questions that I'd be very greatful for some insight on:

1. Can someone set me straight on what falls under the router definition just to make sure I am using the right terminology? I assume it is the piece with the firewall (and therefore the port forwarding), the dhcp server, and the QoS. And the ethernet ports fall under the separate component of the switch.

2. I have no need for the main router to have wireless. I assume I can drop wireless access points on the network to fuel the areas that need them, all that feed back to the main router (are there concerns about this thought?). My main power users should be connected by wire.

3. I want to effectively manage gaming, torrents, and streaming across up to three computers doing at least two of the three at once while affecting the network capabilities as little as possible (very much unlike my current solution).

4. I'd like to keep the hardware as small as possible, though it's going in a closet that should have some leeway if need be.

5. I have seen the dual ethernet port atom boards such as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153240 (picked arbitrarily, no idea if there's anything terribly wrong with it) pointed out as a much greater router architecture than is found in home routers.
5a. Would something like that be able to handle my demand (up to a gigabit of high demand, assume I just fill it with torrent traffic, would it take it? I very much plan not to do that, but I would still like that as the benchmark)?
5b. If so, how much ram/what kind of ram would I want to go with it?
5c. Can I really just hook one of the ports into a gigabit switch and connect the other wires through there? Does the processing demand mainly sit on the router and therefore allow this? What switches would be recommended if this was the case? Would that recommendation change if there were other switches on the other side of some of the ports (which would be the case)? If not, how should I set up all the splits I need in my network?

6. What are the better distros in terms of user friendliness for a project like this, if deemed feasible.

7. Finally, if a good idea, are there complete build guides of liked components for a project like this?

Thanks VERY much for anyone who took the time to read this and can respond to any part.

 

[Jesse B]

1. Can someone set me straight on what falls under the router definition just to make sure I am using the right terminology? I assume it is the piece with the firewall (and therefore the port forwarding), the dhcp server, and the QoS. And the ethernet ports fall under the separate component of the switch.

The basic function of a router is basically to hand our internal IP addresses, so usually a DHCP server. However, the vast majority of routers have built-in firewalls, and some have advanced features such as QoS. Generally routers with multiple ports have an internal switch.

2. I have no need for the main router to have wireless. I assume I can drop wireless access points on the network to fuel the areas that need them, all that feed back to the main router (are there concerns about this thought?). My main power users should be connected by wire.

This is fine. You can connect a WAP directly to the router or to a switch.

3. I want to effectively manage gaming, torrents, and streaming across up to three computers doing at least two of the three at once while affecting the network capabilities as little as possible (very much unlike my current solution).

QoS!

4. I'd like to keep the hardware as small as possible, though it's going in a closet that should have some leeway if need be.

If you're planning on buying a pre-built unit, most small-business solutions are quite small. If you want to build your own, you can set up a mITX box, either running a (newer) Atom or a standard CPU (such as an i3).

5. I have seen the dual ethernet port atom boards such as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153240 (picked arbitrarily, no idea if there's anything terribly wrong with it) pointed out as a much greater router architecture than is found in home routers.
5a. Would something like that be able to handle my demand (up to a gigabit of high demand, assume I just fill it with torrent traffic, would it take it? I very much plan not to do that, but I would still like that as the benchmark)?
5b. If so, how much ram/what kind of ram would I want to go with it?
5c. Can I really just hook one of the ports into a gigabit switch and connect the other wires through there? Does the processing demand mainly sit on the router and therefore allow this? What switches would be recommended if this was the case? Would that recommendation change if there were other switches on the other side of some of the ports (which would be the case)? If not, how should I set up all the splits I need in my network?

For a connection like yours, an atom system should suffice, though you may want to consider a low-end pentium or i3. If you do go for an Atom board, I'd check out the Supermicro units just because they use Intel NICs.
I'd say 1 or 2GB would be plenty, but 2 or 4GB wouldn't hurt. RAM is so cheap, you may as well load up on it.
You would connect one ethernet port to your modem, then then the other port can go into a switch. From that point on, anything connected to the switch should work just fine!

6. What are the better distros in terms of user friendliness for a project like this, if deemed feasible.

pfSense is quite popular.

7. Finally, if a good idea, are there complete build guides of liked components for a project like this?

There's a few around here, search pfSense in the networking forum!


Good luck!

 

[PhantmShado]

Thanks very much for the info. Before searching up some pfsense, I do have that whole questions into more questions thing:

Would there still be no penalty for daisy chaining switches? So if I had a gigabit switch on the other end of the computer with two of the ports going into two other switches with a computer on every one of their ports, this shouldn't degrade quality? Is there any marked difference in quality of gigabit switches I should look out for?

Thanks again!

 

[Jesse B]

Daisy chaining switches shouldn't significantly degrade performance. You may see a small drop in transfer speed, but it shouldn't be anything significant.

As far as switches go, if it's just a plan ol' unmanaged switch, it shouldn't make a huge difference. If you want more advanced features such as NIC aggregation or VLAN's, then you'll want to look into a managed switch. HP, Dell, Cisco, Netgear, etc. make decent switches.

 

[/usr/home]

Look into Mikrotik.