Networking Rating Confusion

[Hippo08]

Hey there everyone,

So I keep finding all sorts of different answers about all of this and I thought I would try to outline my questions so I can get an answer that might make sense to me. My question stems from the ratings 10/100/1000. As far as I know these refer to the bandwidth of the cable/connection and they are measured in Megabits. Is this correct?

First, if I have a 10/100/1000 router going to a 10/100 switch, does this completely negate any gigabit connection that was made and will only operate at a maximum of 100 Megabits through the switch.

Second, supposedly cat5e is rated somewhere in the 300-400 Megabits bandwidth capacity, but I have seen so many people saying it will carry a Gigabit connection just fine. What gives?

Third, most internet connections I have ever seen don't download much faster than 1.5 MegaBYTES per second, but isnt that somewhere close to like a 12 Megabit connection? Which is SUBSTANTIALLY slower than any 100/1000 connections that are outlined by our routers/switches?

Sorry if my questions are confusing, but I myself am confused!

Thank you in advance,

Hippo

[EzyStvy]

You also need to factor in that the eithernet card on the pc must be rated 10/100/1000 to get the 1000-gigabite speeds....

[Hippo08]

Right, so we have solved one problem. No matter what connection is going into your computer, if your computer is not rated for it, it will only go as fast as the connection at the PC will go.

Keep the info coming! It turns out a lot of people seem to be confused by this, haha!

Thank you guys again for the continued help,

Hippo

[glc]

The only reason to use Gigabit is to increase the data transfer speeds between the computers on your LAN. It won't help you one bit out to the Internet.

If you have Gigabit adapters in your computers and a Gigabit router, and you run out of ports on the router, you can use a Gigabit switch.

CAT 6 cables recommended for Gigabit.

[Hippo08]

So, basically, the internet connection coming into the router and then through the switch and then finally to our computers probably never even comes close to the 100/1000 mark. It is only how the computers/peripherals specifically talk to each other on the network that are going at the 100/1000 bandwidth specification?

So unless I am doing some major data transfer between computers(which we hardly do any at all), the 1000(gigabit) transfer speed probably doesn't mean much to me.

Is this the correct way to think about it?

[strollin]

Yup, if you are transferring many large files between computers on your network then you want 1G but if just for internet, 10/100M is plenty.

[David M]

The internet is not even close to that speed unless you are willing to pay some serious dollars..

[Hippo08]

Awesome, thank you so much! So yeah, we don't do very much transferring files between computers. I got another quick question. We are running a fractional T1 Line for right now and it is unbearably slow. But soon, we are going to get a cable line to come into the office to speed the internet up. So I was looking at Dual Wan routers. But what I want is a Dual Wan Router with wireless, but this doesn't seem to exist. Can I plug that Dual Wan router to a wireless router and also to a switch for all of the physical connections? Or does having two routers not exactly get along very well?

Also, can I mix and match companies? Like Netgear/Belkin/CiscoLinksys?

[glc]

2 routers do not get along well, what you need is a wireless access point. However, wireless routers can be "neutered" into being just a wireless access point. With some of them this capability is directly built in, others take some tweaking to convert.

In this case, you can mix and match. If you have coverage issues where you need multiple access points, here is where you need to match exactly.

[Hippo08]

I am really glad I asked this. I wish there was an all-in-one dual Wan gigabit router with wireless N. Who knows how much that machine would cost though, lol!

Does the switch matter if it matches companies with the routers? In any case, I will see what I can do and see what I can match up.

Thank you again guys, I will let you know what I buy and if its successful at all!

[glc]

Brand of switch does not matter one bit. Brand of WAP does not have to match anything either.

For the price, this looks like a good WAP:

Newegg.com - TP-LINK TL-WA801ND 300Mbps Wireless N Access Point

How many ports do you need on your switch?

[Hippo08]

Hey guys,

Here is what I was thinking of glc,

Router - Cisco Small Business RV042 Dual WAN VPN Router - Newegg.com - Cisco Small Business RV042 Dual WAN VPN Router

WAP - Cisco Small Business WAP4410N - Newegg.com - Cisco Small Business WAP4410N 802.11b/g/n Wireless Access Point up to 300Mbps/ PoEe/ Advanced Security

Switch - D-Link DES-1026G 10/100Mbps + 1000Mbps Unmanaged - Newegg.com - D-Link DES-1026G 10/100Mbps + 1000Mbps Unmanaged Layer 2 Switch 24 Port 10/100Mbps plus (2) Port 10/100/1000Mbps 8,000 MAC Address Table

Any ideas/suggestions? I got the D-Link because it had an uplink port so I can truly route those 24 connections from the switch to the 24 port patch panel instead of ending up one short!

Thank you guys again,

Hippo

[glc]

That switch only has two Gigabit ports. The WAP is fine if you want to spend that kind of money, I don't think it's necessary. The specs aren't any better than the TP-Link.

True 24 port Gigabit switch:

Newegg.com - D-Link DGS-1024D 10/100/1000Mbps 24-Port Green Technology Rackmountable Switch 24 x RJ45 8K MAC Address Table On ship: 500KB Buffer Memory per Device Buffer Memory

If you need all 24 ports, just get one of these too:

Newegg.com - TRENDnet TEG-S50G 10/100/1000Mbps GREENnet Switch 5 x RJ45 104KBytes Buffer Memory

Your other option is use one of the router ports to the patch panel - pick an outlet that will not have a computer with a Gigabit adapter.

[Hippo08]

I don't really know if they need the gigabit. The only thing they do is light internet use as well as retail system and phones. So basically everything goes through the internet and almost zero transfer of files between computers.

Why do they not have up-link ports on switches? Is it really that much more expensive to have a true 24 port switch with 1 extra port for an uplink?

UPDATE: Yeah glc, I really wanted to get the cheaper WAP, but the people I'm working for are kind of those people that are like "You get what you pay for, so buy the more expensive one." Thank you for the advice on the switch change, I did get those 2 models and I will see how it works!