Upgrade To Gigabit Ethernet

Being an absolute fan of wireless connectivity, the truth is I run most of my important network services at home over the wired Ethernet. Surely I have wired DSL connection. Theoretically 3.5G HSPA should be at least as fast as my 1 Mbps fixed line. In bulk asynchronous file transfers - probably it is comparable, but the latency of plain old DSL is an order of magnitude less. And latency matters when using synchronous protocols. My wireless LAN is 802.11g. I tried a number of 802.11n setups, but the interoperability and stability was simply unacceptable. Actually of all 802.11n access points I tried, only the Apple Airport was successfully connecting to my Lenovo X200s. And even the Airport was temporarily interrupting the transmission of big data chunks.

For usual Web activities the LAN speed usually does not matter. Even the 802.11g is at least 10 times faster than most DSL lines. But along Web browsing we use more and more multimedia over LAN. Most of you are probably familiar with my multimedia setup - the ReadyNAS NV+ network attached storage server, running DLNA streaming service and the Sony Playstation PS3 as a DLNA client. PS3 (I am speaking about the old, classic one) has very poor WiFi - not sure exactly what kind of chipset they use, but neither the range nor the speed shine. Actually the PS3 was the first device I had a need to connect over 100 Mbps wired Ethernet. Both video streaming and photo slide shows perform way better over the wired network.

I also have satellite set-top boxes, using them to record certain shows and events (like collecting every Formula One race). The satellite box records using its on-board hard drive. Then it takes a small fix, using the VideoReDo application to convert the recorded TS (transport stream) to either MPEG2 (for SD) or H.264 (for HD) playable by the PS3. The conversion is done on my laptop, and the resulting file has to be moved to the NAS server. The files are fairly large. Standard definition is 4GB on average and high definition is around 10GB. Transferring such file to a network share over WiFi would take a whole night (Samba is really slow over WiFi). So I usually use wired connection. At 100 Mbps Fast-Ethernet speeds the time was reasonable - around half an hour.

But then I realized my 100 Mbps wired LAN is simply old and slow. When I looked at the cost of upgrading it to 1 Gbps, the only thought I had was "why so late?"... As most of you do, I have already had CAT5 quad twisted pair cables in my walls. The LAN port in my laptop is 1 Gbps. The Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ is 1 Gbps too. And an 8-port 1 Gbps switch like the Netgear GS-108 is $40. 40 dollars to upgrade the network from 100 Mbps to 1000 Mbps? No brainer... Obviously the next day I installed the gigabit switch and suddenly everything seemed almost instant. Copy an image of a CD to the NAS - 20 seconds. Transferring a DVD worth of content to the NAS takes 5 minutes. While not exactly 10 times faster than over 100 Mbps, it is still substantially faster.

Soon I realized most of my other hardware is 1 Gbps already. Like the Sheevas. PS3 is gigabit too. I only wonder why at the office we still run at 100 Mbps... Well... may be business applications are not worth speeding up for $40?