Replies interleaved. On Nov 17, 2012, at 9:38 AM, Neil Laubenthal wrote:
> Hi; I wonder if anybody has made a similar transition to what I'm thinking > about…and if so was there any increase in overall throughput. > > My wife and I live in an RV and are thus dependent on either wifi from the > campground or our Verizon air card for external internet access. I can't > really do anything about that but most of our usage is internally between our > iPhone 4's (not 4s), two original iPads, and two MBP (one Retina and one > unibody) > > My current network uses a WiFi Ranger as the router and this can't really be > easily changed as it provides the ability to failover between wifi and the > air card as required. The WiFi Ranger has 10/100 ethernet. > > I currently have a 10/100 Linksys switch downstream of the WiFi Ranger and > all internal devices are hooked up to it. These include an Intel Mac Mini > (file server) with gigabit ethernet and an original Airport Extreme 802.11n > First Generation that only has 10/100 ethernet connections. The Airport is in > bridge mode with the router set as it's gateway. The two iPhone 4, two > original iPads, and two MBPs all connect via the Airport which is set in > 802.11n (802.11b/g compatible) mode. > > I did a speed check for file transfer from one of the MBPs to the Mini and > throughput is about 9.8 MB/sec…this compares pretty well with the 12.5 MB/sec > maximum for a 10/100 switch; so clearly I'm being limited by the switches and > not by the wifi throughput. > > I'm considering replacing the existing Airport with the latest version which > includes gigabit ethernet dual band (since the iPhones only do 2.4 GHz and I > don't know whether the iPad 1's do 2.4 only or have 5 GHz as well)…along with > this I would replace the switch with a gigabit switch. My thinking is that > this would give us much better throughput between the MBPs and the server > (Time Machine takes forever backing up to the Mini); obviously external > connectivity won't be helped by this but that's fixed depending on how we're > connecting at a particular parking spot. > > I have a couple of questions about this. As a long time Mac Consultant I'm > surprised that I never actually did this upgrade for any of my clients before > we went on the road full time…but I didn't…I'm not adverse to spending money > if it will help but would hate to spend 300 bucks upgrading only to find out > it doesn't make any difference. > > 1. Am I likely to see significantly better throughput internally to our LAN > if I make the above changes or am I just fighting physics? The architecture of your in-house switch/wifi/router will easily affect your traffic rates inside the RV. Obviously, it won't do anything for access to the greater internet. Sounds like you know this. > 2. Does the 10/100 router really make any difference for internal > communications? I'm thinking no since all of the internal connections are via > Bonjour anyway and since the gigabit switch that everything is connected to > would handle all of the internal traffic, only going to the port connected to > the router if it's an external internet request. By router, I assume you mean the WiFi Ranger. As long as you keep all traffic out of the Ranger that isn't going outside the RV, it won't have a chance to slow you down. And for the record, Bonjour is a DNS facility, not a routing or transport facility, so it won't affect traffic speeds either positively or negatively. > 3. If my idea won't really give me any better service; is there anything else > I can do to improve performance? I suppose I could switch the Airport to n > only mode at 2.4 GHz but I don't think the b/g compatible mode really affects > throughput, or does it? My wife also has a g only Dell box she uses for her > part time job, but I can always turn on the g wifi in the WiFi Ranger and > have two internal networks, the Airport for all of the Apple devices at n > speed and the WiFi Ranger at g speed for the Windows machine. > > 4. If I do the dual wifi arrangement in 3 above; is there any way to keep all > of my Apple devices from seeing the g network from the WiFI Ranger? The only > way I can think of is to turn SSID broadcast off and then manually put the > SSID of the network into the Dell instead of letting it automatically acquire. I have never played with a WiFi Ranger. Most SOHO wifi routers allow you to turn the radio totally off. If not, just give it a name like "do not use" and a long garbage password, and keep it on an unpopular channel (which you may have to change, depending on each campground). > Essentially what I'm trying to do is improve internal throughput for Time > Machine backups and file opening/saving to the Mini file server; I agree entirely. It's worth setting up a good network architecture to do that. > with the side benefit of making sure that all external internet traffic is > limited by the external link connection speed and not by anything internal to > my LAN. The 10/100 in the WiFi Ranger is clearly enough to keep up with > anything on the internet end I might be connected to. $300 is a scary figure. Turns out, if you're not married to Apple gear, you can do everything you want with the following $75 box: http://routerboard.com/RB751G-2HnD Five gigabit ports and a 802.11b/g/n radio (1W!) with internal antennas. Their simple configurator (Quick Set) will allow you to set it up as a standard SOHO router with one screen, but the product is really made so you can crawl under the canned stuff and set it up any way you like (in your case, as a switch box with builtin AP and no DHCP). Mikrotiks are ass-kicking devices. I bought my first one in 2007, and it's been sitting at the top of a windmill in an unventilated metal box in the Sonoran Desert outback routing packets for five years without a break. If you like this idea but are daunted by the learning curve, I'll be happy to whip up the initial configuration file you need and email it to you. -- Macs R We -- Personal Macintosh Service and Support in the Wickenburg and far Northwest Valley Areas. http://macsrwe.com _______________________________________________ MacOSX-talk mailing list MacOSX-talk@omnigroup.com http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
