[Vanity] Suggestions for a Wireless N home mediaserver ROUTER

underwater basket weaving undergrad | mar 16 2009 | JerseyHighlander

[JerseyHighlander]

Hello Freepers, This is a vanity. I was asked to set up a wireless N wireless home office router that can be used with a soon to be bought/built media server or network storage device. I have no experience with Wireless N, nor with home media servers.

So I have a two part question: 1. What is the best router out there for the price? The home will have 2 wired PCs, a wireless printer, some WiFi/bluetooth PDAs, and several laptops.

2. There is also an old P4 conroe PC that I can use as a media server, but only EIDE HDDs. So are there cost effective media servers out there that can hold about 1.5TB of media? Would I do better using the slower P4 Conroe? If the machine would be running 24/7, would it cost less over time to buy a dedicated network media storage device?

3. What current set up do Freepers have up and running? Pros and Cons of these set ups?

(late addition, is WiFi N or Bluetooth faster when using a PDA with a wireless router?)

[JerseyHighlander]

I do not post vanities often, I am on a time frame it has to be done by Friday. Cost is a consideration but if a solution is low power consumption and will last 5 years (barring the introduction of all 720P or higher movies into the house, with the increased HDD reqs), what would Freepers out there suggest?

[TomGuy]

A couple of How-2 articles give some good info:

http://www.geekgirls.com/windowsxp_home_network.htm

http://performit.co.uk/network/setup_network.php

I use the Belkin g to shoot wireless Internet from my main pc/Internet cable to a laptop. Belkin setup was relatively easy.

[ConservativeMind]

Are you going to have an Ethernet or USB-based storage device? If speed of access is important, then you may want a wireless router that supports 1 Gbps connections, as many wired Ethernet ports on systems can support that. However, make sure your storage device supports the higher speed to get the most out of it. You don't want an Ethernet-based storage option to be stuck at 100 Mbps.

If you are looking at many devices over a large area, then be sure to get a device which can support wireless data at up to (and sometimes over) 300 Mbps. Most of these characteristically have three antennas

I'd start by looking at these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2052810145%201132821052%201140021051&bop=And&Order=PRICE

[Leo Carpathian]

check D-link DIR 825 for about $127 at Amazon

[JerseyHighlander]

Looks like I’ll be going with a new pc for the server, with a wired connection to the router. Will also use a wired connection to the set top box for the main TV. They have old pc parts, monitor/keyboard/case/etc so just need cpu/mobo/ram/cpu-cooler.

So I’m down to selecting a Linux media server distro.

That leaves me looking for a wireless N router with 100T ethernet passthrough at the best bitrate possible. Works with Linux, windows XP, Windows Vista, RIMM PDA WiFi, needs a VPN, needs secure FTP with external connection. Should be able to run a VoIP connection. That’s a growing list as I talk them through this.

thanks for the help.

[ConservativeMind]

If you are getting new motherboards, you will likely find most have 1Gbps Ethernet already on them.

You might want to still consider 1Gbps connection options with the router.

[GasMan2k]

Suggest: Linksys brand. I flashed mine using dd-wrt and its very stable.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv3/index.php

Cheers

Fred

[Billthedrill]

Cisco doesn't have a home product or I'd recommend them. I've had very good luck with a pair of their subsidiary LinkSys's boxes, one a G, one an N. Had a bad experience with a Belkin N but that's only a sample size of one so take it with a big bucket of salt. Belkins generally are $5-10 less feature for feature, sometimes more than that, at least in my area.

Just one plea - PLEASE change the default administrative account and password! Every hacker in the world knows the defaults.

[Future Snake Eater]

I just bought one of these. It's pretty nice, very easy to setup.

[Billthedrill]

LOL! Yeah, and I have a neighbor who thought “p@ssword” was the cleverest ruse in the universe. (Sobbing...)

[hnorris]

Wireless video (media) streaming sucks (like from a pc to a PS3), it will prove quite frustrating to you when you sit down to watch a movie. I have a PS3, PC (media center) and a popcorn hour that I copy movies to.

I suggest that you plug a popcornhour or PS3 (or a media center pc's) into a wireless router that acts as a bridge to another wireless router. That way you can transfer files to and from it via the wireless network. But when you play movies, on whatever device, that media, streaming or not, comes thru on a wire. I have a USR router in bridged mode next to my tv. I have another USR router next to my PC in my office. All devices plug into those by wire.

In terms of media center software, I can recommend Media Portal and Boxee. You can use the Microsoft solution, but eventually it will drive you crazy and you will get rid of it. At present, I use the Boxee (love boxee) alpha on Ubuntu Ultimate a popcornhour (love my PCH) and my PS3 (for bluray's from netflix - love it too) and am very happy. Hulu is nice for the kids who need their network crap tv shows.

Have fun, but realize that you are still an early adopter. As in my case, I'd love one device to do the work of all three, but that does not exist yet.
:-D

[ShadowAce]

[ShadowAce]

Cisco doesn't have a home product or I'd recommend them.

Actually, they do. They use the Linksys brand as their home version. Cisco bought them out a few years ago.

[Billthedrill]

Well, not really. Still separate manufacturing facilities. Toyota owns both Lexus and the Corolla line but they're not made in the same places nor are they the same quality.

Mind you, I'm a bit of a LinkSys fan and obviously so is somebody at Cisco... ;-)

[martin_fierro]

It's a router! It's a vase!

[papasmurf]

Bluetooth 1.2 is 1Mbit.sec, Bluetooth 2.0 is 4 Mbit/sec. The new WiMedia Alliance, which includes a second radio called Ultra Wide Band, will boost it to 480 Mbit/sec.



Wireless LAN Throughput by IEEE Standard

IEEE WLAN Standard	Over-the-Air (OTA) Estimates	Media Access Control Layer, Service Access Point (MAC SAP) Estimates
802.11b	11 Mbps	5 Mbps
802.11g	54 Mbps	25 Mbps (when .11b is not present)
802.11a	54 Mbps	25 Mbps
802.11n	200+ Mbps	100 Mbps

(Source: Intel Labs)

While it appears that Bluetooth may come to have an advantage, the reality is WiFi is a more mature technology with many more ways to improve, even more.

Bluetooth is much more limited in range, and adding more radios requires more and more power.

For my money, I'll stick to WiFi in my networking, and use Bluetooth for pairing devices.

[pctech]

I haven’t had any luck with Linksys, even after Cisco bought them out, but I’ve had good luck with D-Link and Netgear. I got a Netgear now, with both ports and wireless connections, and I like it.

[Unlikely Hero]

I may not even be accurate her as I am techno-challenged, but I got a Netgear from Best Buy for about $99 that is great. Easy to set up too.

[antiRepublicrat]

There are a lot of routers that are basically the same, and there are already some good suggestions here. But for any of the routers make sure you get one that is compatible with the free (for consumer use) DD-WRT firmware. Doing this will leave serious options open in case the included firmware does not meet your needs. DD-WRT can be configured to do almost anything, and it supports most of the best hardware (supported hardware link at site).