Gigabit networking

[EddieC]

Have any of you got any experience on switching an existing (small) Lan from 100Mbs to Gigabit?

Do I need to replace the existing Cat5 cabling? Should I go for a hub or a switch or a combination of both?

Also, I run a 100 Mbs ADSL router at the moment. Will that work OK with the faster environment or will it drag the rest of the network down to it's speed?

Thanks for any help/abuse/etc.

[Mordac]

>Do I need to replace the existing Cat5 cabling?

Depends. If it's fairly new and wired up properly, probably not. See: this link

>Should I go for a hub or a switch or a combination of both?

Switches all round. If you've got hubs at the moment, binning them will probably solve your network problems, meaning you don't need to go gigabit. Generally I wouldn't bother with gigabit except for servers - 100Mb to the desktop is ample.

>Also, I run a 100 Mbs ADSL router at the moment. Will that work OK with the faster environment or will it drag the rest of the network down to it's speed?

It won't slow down the network provided you run network traffic across a seperate switch, and your ADSL is probably only 1 or 2 MB anyway so there won't be any difference.

[EddieC]

Thanks for that Modac,

I wouldn't bother either, but I need to shift quite a lot of data around pretty quickly, and the prices don't seem too bad so I think I'll do it.

Yes, the router is only 2Mb ADSL, though I may switch to cable soon. Do you mean that I need two switches, one for the internet access and one for the network traffic?

Anyone know which switches/netcards to go for? I'll need a min of 16 ports.

[Mordac]

>Do you mean that I need two switches, one for the internet access and one for the network traffic?

Yes - your ADSL switch only runs at 100MB so you will need a gig switch for the network and a connection to the ADSL switch (in effect you'll only be using it as a router).

[NoddY]

You should consider a gigabit switch capable of jumbo frames.

Most modern switches will autosense the speed of the segment allowing you to mix 10/100/1000Mbit within the same LAN.

As for CAT5e cabling you should be OK.

[Mordac]

>As for CAT5e cabling you should be OK

As long as it's Cat5e (most post 1996-ish installations should be OK unless done on the cheap 'n nasty). Anything older is Cat5, which isn't going to work.