Hey folks

My computer: Dell 1500 Draft 802.11n
NAS: 2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure - DNS-323 by D-Link
Current Router: D-Link DI-524 High Speed 2.4GHz (802.11g) Wireless Router
Bro's PC: intel wireless 10/100 ve


So after a while of trying to juggle available storage on my notebook, i've given up and bought a pair of 320gb drives for my DLink NAS (specs above)


I've put them in a mirror raid array and am moving songs from my bro's computer (where i stored them) to this NAS. In the process of messing around I'm realizing how much wireless networking speeds suck.

At best, i'm getting about 15mb/s (so my wireless card says, but i'm not 100% sure i believe it). Anyways, moral of the story is thats lame. Now reading up, the NAS has a gigabit nic, and my wireless card has wireless N capabilities, so the limiting factor is my router (wireless g 54mb/s at best) which i was lookin to replace anyways due to it lacking VPN capabilities.

Anyways, i see wireless N go's up to a rated 248mb/s. Problem is I currenlty know jack about wireless N. I realize this will make no difference to my bro's 10/100 connection, or any other non wireless n/gigabit connections, but i'm only worried about myself here.

Question is, who has what experience with this wireless N? I see they have like 17 (exagerated) different types of wireless n: wireless n, wireless n rangebooster and wireless n xtreme (according to dlink). Is there a difference? is is it all distance/range?


On my current wireless G router (upstairs), even when i'm downstairs i generally get an excellent signal (good at worst). So i'm not really worried about range. Is there anything to else to know? I'd somewhat like to stick with DLink just due to previous bad luck with Linksys, but I'm open to ideas if one is more phenomenal than the other.

Someone please educate me, and thank you.

 

Hey man i may be still a noob at Car Audio but i have my own computer business so i can help you hear. If you are big into gaming and i mean really big or transfer a huge amount of files between computers then Wireless N is for you. It will give you longer range and faster transfer times but if your looking to speed up your net its not going to help any. Even T3(10mb/s or higher) only uses 20% of the wireless G's router signal sending capability. Wireless N was developed for business's who share a huge amount of large files between co-workers but for the average human being G works perfectly fine. Also N is still in the development stage even though linksys and other companies are selling it. It still has stability bugs and such but is still a really good router. I still recommend a linksys over a Dlink because i have seen far to many D-Link routers spontaneously die while i have yet to see a problem with linksys but hey it could be the humidity or weather in Sask so if D-link works for you stick with the saying if it aint broke, dont fix it.

 

I don't think your average human being would go out and buy huge network drives to piddle around with gaming.

15mbps sounds about right for wireless G.

802.11g isn't quite what it's cracked up to be. It might have an advertised max transfer rate of 54mbps, but constant throughput is less than 20. Comparing Base-T network medium to wireless is like comparing USB2 to Firewire, or IDE to SCSI.

You've spent the money for network drives. You want fast internal network speed? Stick with hard-wired internal networking for your NAS, drill holes through your floors and buy some nice shiny gigabit router goodness.

i.e;
RVS4000 - Canada : Linksys 4-Port Gigabit Security Router with VPN RVS4000

 

Ahem...

You'll probably be better for now sticking with even 100Base-T connection.

Don't let router companies confuse you with what "different types" of Wireless N dazzle your mind.

Dell has great support. They'll take that card back with little fuss.

 

As mentioned, this is all for file transfer. Larger video files, music etc etc. Sure 15 mbit/s works and I can wait 10 minutes to copy all the songs needed for a cd. But I'm impatient in that respect. If I can spend another $100 and have this done in 2 minutes each time, I'll happily do so.

I realize hardwire is the best way to go, but that doesn't help when i pick my notebook when I wanna go lounge on the couch. So, granted I can transfer at 99mbit/s hardwire and as awesome as that is, it's still requires having cables which isn't totally doable on my couch.

That being said, I went and bought a wireless N router yesterday to test with. Was picking between the two they had, Dlink wireless n extreme and Linksys DIR-300. In windows, it lists a max transfer speed of 130mbit/s although i get about 32mbit/s. About double what I got on wireless g, but nothing great, still sadly not even comparable to hardwire. Seeing ratings up to 248mbit/s, I was hoping for at least double this.

Granted VPN works like a charm on this router, wireless speeds are fairly disappointing. Not worth the current $170. If a person was to go out and purchase the matching wireless n pc/notebook adapter from the matching manufacturer, would the speeds show that much of an increase?



Off topic, the Linksys DNS-323 is very very cool. Not only has it given me a small file server, it also acts as a fairly simple FTP server among other things. Fairly slick (although i'm not sure my ISP will agree in a short time).

 

Nope.

Again, 248mbps is a max, never a constant.
Who knows if the router needs tweaking or N technology has to improve to get faster than in the 30's for you now, but it likely won't ever pass 70.

 

For anyone that cares.


Tried the top end Linksys router and a usb linksys card, and got about 40mbit/s. Not worth $300 or what not, and definitely not 200+mbit/s. That being said, I also tried hardwire and I could only get 130mbit/s on the gigabit lan.

Returning that, I went back to what I originally looked at which was the top end Dlink Wireless N Extreme. This router is a bit picky with it's security settings, but hasn't dropped the connection at all which many of the others did a bit. VPN works great, and i'm getting up to 65mbit/s wirelessly.

Overall, it's a lot cheaper than Linksys modems and i'm fairly happy with DLink yet again. This DLink was only $139 vs $200 for the high end Linksys.

Anywho, props to both the DLink Wireless N Extreme, and DNS-323 devices.

 

I have a Macbook with the Wireless N Airport card, and I noticed a big difference in speed when I switched from my WRT54G to my D-Link N router (can't remember model number). Large transfer's between networked computers is sooooo much faster than G. I also did notice a slightly faster fetch time for webpages (probably around .5s). One thing I also like about N is the range is alot better, even with my WRT54G loaded up with DD-WRT and spewing wifi at the max power, my new N router broadcast much farther, no more blank spots on my property!
I personally think it is worth it, the throughput is quite a bit better.

 

what kind of throughput speeds are you getting when transferring files with the wireless n?

 

If your just doing Ramdon downloads which involves alot of time i just go Cat5Or Cat 6.