do i need a router ? , and some other network Q's

[weebroonieuk]

currently i connect my laptop to the internet via my main pc usieng its onboard lan (nf7s v2) and the internet goes to the main pc via a network card
will i get more speed from a router setup as in file transfers etc ?

im about to build my mum a pc which is nforce 2 based to that will be connecting to the net at some point aswell no doubt so i suppose i will need a router
i also want gigabit if possible as a recent driver update to my onboard lan brings up the opton of gigabit connection ! if not i wll just by pci cards for gigabit

plan is ....

storage server in loft where all data will be kept
my pc in room
laptop
and mums pc

i wont be able to upgrade the laptops lan so it will only be 10/100

can routers get by this by allowing gigabit connection to gigabit equiped pc's and allow me to connect my laptop at its slower speed without slowing down the whole network ?

i like belkin cables for the network should i get cat 5e or cat 6 ? cat 6 seems to have better sheilding and better values which should help a little
and do i get crossover or patch cables to connect to a router ? , i know crossover is for direct pc connection

[Paul Adams]

currently i connect my laptop to the internet via my main pc usieng its onboard lan (nf7s v2) and the internet goes to the main pc via a network card
will i get more speed from a router setup as in file transfers etc ?

No, the Internet connection will be your bottleneck.

im about to build my mum a pc which is nforce 2 based to that will be connecting to the net at some point aswell no doubt so i suppose i will need a router

A router is the most convenient way to share an Internet connection without relying on one machine being on all the time, yes.
Alternatively you could just get a switch and use your "main PC" as a gateway for all of the clients, in the same way I assume your laptop is right now?

i also want gigabit if possible as a recent driver update to my onboard lan brings up the opton of gigabit connection ! if not i wll just by pci cards for gigabit

I don't think gigabit-enabled routers are common, so you'd probably be looking at a gigabit switch for your LAN, and either hook up a router to it, or have the main PC sharing the Internet connection as above.

plan is ....

storage server in loft where all data will be kept
my pc in room
laptop
and mums pc

i wont be able to upgrade the laptops lan so it will only be 10/100

can routers get by this by allowing gigabit connection to gigabit equiped pc's and allow me to connect my laptop at its slower speed without slowing down the whole network ?

In a switched environment there isn't a bottleneck caused by other devices, the speed of communication between 2 nodes is determined by the slower of them.
e.g.
Your PC to your mum's PC would communicate at 1Gbps
Your PC to the laptop would communicate at 100Mbps

i like belkin cables for the network should i get cat 5e or cat 6 ? cat 6 seems to have better sheilding and better values which should help a little
and do i get crossover or patch cables to connect to a router ? , i know crossover is for direct pc connection

In my experience, you can use Cat5e cables for a hell of a long distance before you would require Cat6.
Your network will probably not be busy or big enough to warrant the extra cost of Cat6.

From your clients to a switch or router, use patch cables.
If you have a separate switch and router, connect those using a crossover cable unless one or both devices can detect the media type and set the port accordingly.


A note about (copper) gigabit:
Do not expect to get 10x the speed of your Fast Ethernet connetion by using gigabit, especially if you end up using a PCI gigabit NIC.

In practice, people generally observe a 100%-200% increase over the speed of Fast Ethernet when using gigabit adapters (200-300Mbps).
There is a tiny difference if you use a crossover cable to eliminate the switch, but nothing worth the hassle.

One of the issues with gigabit speeds is the maximum standard MTU size for Ethernet - 1514 bytes - which creates a bottleneck at very high speed.
There is the concept of "jumbo" packet sizes (e.g. 4,6,9 or 16x the standard) so that more data is sent in one chunk, but be warned that not all gigabit switches support this.

Another issue is the PCI bus speed and the fact that it might be shared with other devices.
And then there is the possibility that your hard disk simply can't read or write the data fast enough to cope with the incoming data at very high speed.

So before you go out and spend wads of cash on gigabit-capable devices, think about how much and how often you shift data around your LAN.

[weebroonieuk]

i dont mean will i speed up my internet file transfers with a router i was meaning would transfers from each of my computers be quicker with a deicated router or switch ?
i will shift alot of data but not often but im building for the future hopefully as the media and files and apps we use are getting bigger all the time

i just like things done and done quickly !

anyways thanks for that very informative answer

[Paul Adams]

i dont mean will i speed up my internet file transfers with a router i was meaning would transfers from each of my computers be quicker with a deicated router or switch ?

Confused... there is no faster way to connect 2 PCs than with a crossover cable, and for 3 or more machines to network in the same subnet you need a switch.
You won't gain speed by adding another device in between the clients, but you won't notice any degradation in the speed either.

i will shift alot of data but not often but im building for the future hopefully as the media and files and apps we use are getting bigger all the time

If it's about streaming media files over a network, then you can achieve that with much, much slower speeds than even Fast Ethernet.

If it's about copying files, I just tend to do time-intensive operations overnight or when I'm out - that's why I have never been bothered about getting a 4,000x DVD rewriter so I can write DVDs in 0.1s rather than 15 minutes