New Wi-Fi setup ?

[wurhur]

Hi, i am in the process of considering the purchase of 3 Isys EX Pro machines eplace my old desktops. Currently i have one PC linked to the internet via a Sky netgear unit and sky as an ISP. I would now like to give all the new PCs a good speed wireless access even if they are all on line at the same time and have the ability to transfer data between all machines when required. I have being told that i require a 802.11n system ??? could anyone recomend the best setup for both connecting to the phone line and into the PCs. Im will to spend a resonable amount if its worthwhile the extra cost

Cheers in advance :roll:

[NeilX90]

Hi,

I'm assuming firstly that you have an 8Mb/s connection working at half-speed giving you 4Mb/s downstream. If you have a poor broadband speed then 802.11n may not be worth the investment. However, assuming it is:

You will need 1 x 802.11n router/modem and 3 x 802.11n wireless cards or usb wireless sticks. If you elect to connect one machine via cable ethernet to the router, you can reduce the cards/sticks to 2. I'd recommend this as wired broadband is always faster than wireless in most situations, giving you one machine that is always high performance. And it will save you a few notes !

Both Windows XP and Vista will allow you to setup a network to enable data transfer between all machines. But... seeing as you have 3 old desktops, why not make one file server out of them ? Again, I'm making an assumption, that your old PCs have standard IDE drives, both optical and magnetic so.... remove the hard-drives from two machines and install them into the third, leaving the optical drive for software installation. You should be able to install 4 drives (1 optical, 3 magnetic) into one PC, use the existing wired LAN connection into the router (or fit a card if needed) and hey presto - you will have a cheap storage server using your existing components that can serve all your new Isys machines.

802.11n is a draft specification - this means it has not been fully adopted and standardised in the manner that 802.11a/b/g is. It may be possible to mix and match 802.11n networking gear from various manufacturers but there is no guarantee of inter-compatibility. I'd recommend all of your networking gear comes from one manufacturer.

So.. to sum up....

1 x router/modem, connected to the phone line : http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/spec ... ?EDM-6504N (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?EDM-6504N)

1 x Isys connected directly to the router via cable (free !)

2 x Isys connected via USB stick or PCI wireless card to the modem/router : http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/spec ... l?EDM-NPCI (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?EDM-NPCI) / http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/spec ... l?EDM-NUSB (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?EDM-NUSB)

1 x old deskptop PC configured with 3 HDs and 1 optical drive connected via cable to the router (free !)

Total cost: under 150 pounds.

Belkin and Netgear, as two further examples, also sell 802.11n gear, as do most of the major networking manufacturers. It can be very expensive and price is not always indicative of performance. Google reviews of the gear before you commit !


Regards

(Edit: 802.11g gear will give all your machines good internet speed - 802.11n will optimise that speed, but you can spec 11g gear a lot cheaper... depends what you need to do with the connection)

[wurhur]

Hi Neilx90,
Mmmmmmmmmm certainly some food for thought especially in regards to 11n vs 11g will most certainly google some reviews before proceeding. As for setting up the HD's great :mrgreen: that hadnt even occured to me but will certainly be looking into that now.

Thanks.

:lol:

[Jonny2Bad]

Only a couple of probs i can see with that, dont sky connections only allow its BB to connect through the provided router? The supplied router will act as the main router for all 3 machines so no real need to change it anyway, unless there are going to be massive files shared between each desktop. My home network has 3 pc's and 1 laptop all linked through a netgear router, just buy 3 usb wireless sticks and set up the network on each machine. And connect the file server via wire next to the router. It is so much easier than it sounds.

[NeilX90]

Yes, it could be as straightforward as simply plugging in 3 USB sticks, configuring one machine to act as the gateway and the other 2 connecting through it.

However, to maximise performance, having each machine connect directly to a wireless modem/router would be the best bet. It is not the cheapest option though. I don't know how the SKY ISP box works and if it can be replaced by any other router so this may or may not be possible. I have managed to connect 2 routers in series (a Belkin enhanced range router connected to a horrid BT-supplied thing) but it took the best part of day to get it working and I would find it hard to recommend going down this route.

Without *all* of the available information all we can do is offer generic advice. For example, my house - a 120 year old stone-built farmhouse - would not be suitable for a USB-stick solution; the 3 foot-thick stone walls block the signal very effectively ! For most houses, the sticks and wireless network would work great.

I kind of assumed that Wurhur uses his machines for a small business; very few people would upgrade 3 desktops at once in their home but, again, it's just a guess. The cost/performance ratio is very important if this is the case, which is why I suggested recycling the old desktops into a file server.

Cheers

[Jonny2Bad]

Thats what i meant to all connect through the router, no need to have a main gateway as they will all be linked through the router

[wurhur]

Hi Guys,
well thanks for the info and yes your correct NeilX90 it is used for a small business system as well as for the kids on an evening from 1 machine. Interesting views from the both of you especially the issue with having Sky broadband - i will look into this a little more in the forums before i go ahead with any setup.