Network upgrade

[GTFO. TommyBoy]

I'm looking to upgrade my home network to gigabit, i need a router and a switch. Currently got the choices narrowed down to these. Any thoughts?

Router:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002 ... ROKL5A1OLE

or

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Linksys-E3000-P ... 757&sr=1-1

Switch:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-Gigabit ... 859&sr=1-1

or

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Linksys-5-Port- ... 59&sr=1-19

There is a big difference in price, but not sure if it will reflect in the performance/reliability? They all have good reviews.

[GTFO. Ragostini]

I'd go for the linksys M8,
I just bought a cheapy gigabit switch to replace my linksys one (which had been playing up), worked fine, until I tried streaming to the xbox and PS3, complete no - go.
I've since changed the faulty caps in the linksys one, and all is well again.
If you just want to connect PC's, the the cheaper ones are fine, but do some research if you intend doing any media streaming, or just get the linksys switch.

[GTFO. TommyBoy]

Cheers mate. Yeah I need to stream to my media box as well as run an itunes server, photo station, file transfers etc etc so i want something reliable. Will go for the cisco router and switch then

[r3loaded]

Linksys for the router certainly. For a switch, I use some cheap brand gigabit thingy and that works perfectly for me, but go with the Linksys if you're not comfortable doing so.

[GTFO. kk20]

TP link make reasonable APs, I have about 6 at work now to cover non critical "gaps" in our wireless coverage. Not had any issues with them and not needed to reboot. I was a bit sussed about them (due to the price) but I didnt need them to be perfect. At home I run edimax kit (AP, gigabit and router) no issues with that either.

[GTFO. Ragostini]

Did come across this:
http://www.tp-link.com/en/article/?id=153

The Switches I got were branded Tenda, and everything is cabled, XBox was visible to the PC, but the PC was inaccessible from the XBox, PS3 and BluRay player, the print server also dropped out of sight, now have the Linksys switch handling these, with the Tenda switch doing the kid's PC's, and all works well.

As for the router I'm stuck with the shitty locked sky one.

[GTFO. TommyBoy]

Think I'll go for the linksys gear. I had a look at the edimax routers KK, but there isn't much difference in price between those and linksys for similar specced boxes.

[GTFO. TommyBoy]

UPDATE

Received the Cisco E3000 and Cisco 5 port switch ES2500 today.
Set it all up, switch works fine, router finds everything apart from my NAS Google turns up some nasty forum posts from unhappy E3000 owners, shame the fucking idiots didn't think to mention these problemss when reviewing the fucking thing! Long and short of all the problems, the firmware is fucking shit and the software engineers know there are problems but dont know how to fix them, they openly admit it. So, do i send back my shiny new router because it doesn't work properly? No, I head over to dd-wrt and flash it with some proper firmware, hey presto, all functions now work as they should - blisteringly fast transfer speeds to and from my NAS, a mixed wireless AP for older stuff that only uses 2.4ghz, and a totally separate 5ghz AP for shiny new devices like the iPad 2. Took me a while to get this set up as I want it, would have taken less if cisco employed dd-wrt enthusiasts. Very happy with the end result, not happy with getting there.

[GTFO. kk20]

I forgot about dd-wrt. My asus G32 runs the same. Cracking firmware.

[GTFO. TommyBoy]

I forgot about dd-wrt. My asus G32 runs the same. Cracking firmware.

I was running dd-wrt on my old linksys WRT54G for the last 6 years, it never once needed a reset, the only time it was switched off was to move it. I would have stayed with that router if i didn't need to upgrade to gigabit.

[GTFO. TommyBoy]

Speed tests for large and small files between NAS and PC

Large file from NAS to PC

Large file from PC to NAS

Small files from NAS to PC

Small files from PC to NAS

Not too shabby considering I was getting between 2 and 7mb/s on my old setup