# Redoing my home network.



## Intel_man (Jul 22, 2016)

Ok... maybe the networking guys can help me out here. I'm looking at revamping my entire home network to maximize the performance of my NAS and for faster internet services in the future.

*Current Configuration*

Currently with my ISP, I am using their modem/router duo (https://community.shaw.ca/docs/DOC-2563) with my Asustor AS5002T hooked up to it using 2 Ethernet ports (I doubt the link aggregation right now is working).

Most devices are connecting to the modem/router in wireless mode, with the exception of 2 PC's being connected via powerline (D-Link DHP-501AV). Direct Ethernet connection is not possible for these PC's as the modem/router is on the 1st floor, and the 2 PC's are on the upper floor. I've tried a wireless bridge for the two PC's connecting to the main router, and the data transfer performance to the NAS is roughly the same as the powerline connection. (I get around 2.5mb/s read which is hopelessly bad) My PC is one of the PC's on the 2nd floor. The powerline adapters are peaking at around 25mbps on average with the occasional spikes that reach 30mbps depending on the power usage around the house.

I'll have to check what I get through Ethernet to the NAS though to see if its a network issue or a NAS settings issue.

=========================

Now, with all that being said, I'm thinking about contacting my ISP to set the modem to bridge mode so I can hook up my own router to it for more configurations and possibly go to Wireless AC. There's a lot of different routers out there, but I am not looking for the "budget" $50 ones that won't give me much of an upgrade over what I have now.

If I were to have a wireless bridge setup on the 2nd floor to link with the main router, what would be the best ones out there? I was looking at all those tri-band, quad-band stuff which looks fine and dandy, as I can maintain a dedicated wireless bridge on one of the bands, and leave a 2.4 and a 5.0 band for the other wireless devices in the household. I would really like to have a dedicated band just for my PC as I'm the heaviest user in the house when it comes to the internet usage in general.

Anyone have any ideas how I should set this up? I don't have a maximum budget at this moment yet, as I am gathering info on how much should I be looking at to get something that will give me the max performance. Just don't recommend those business spec'd stuff that costs thousands of dollars per equipment to purchase.

Ask more questions if needed.


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## C4C (Jul 22, 2016)

ASUS and Netgear both have some great "gaming-optimized" routers. I personally own the Nighthawk AC1900 from Netgear and it works great. It's two bands, with an optional guest band setup for both 2.4 and 5GHz (that makes it quad band?).

My port forward guide is written based off it so you can easily setup a FTP or game server from your home 

There are newer options such as the ASUS RT-AC5300 (on the high end) that looks like it's straight out of a SyFy movie http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16833320244

Here's the bigger Nighthawk version, and people seem to like it a lot: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122818&cm_re=router-_-33-122-818-_-Product


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## Intel_man (Jul 22, 2016)

I've done my research on whats the latest and greatest for the top end consumer routers. Reviews and tests are great and all, but I was wondering if anyone here had real world usages of them, understanding their long term and short term strengths and weaknesses, especially on what I'm trying to achieve.

As well as if it's worth it to run a wireless bridge (same as the main router, or can be a cheaper model), or if I should just look for a pci-e AC adapter.



C4C said:


> My port forward guide is written based off it so you can easily setup a FTP or game server from your home


I have no problems with port forwarding and hosting a game server is not on my list of things to do.


Basically in short, I would like to get near gigabit speed connections within my network (as much as possible) wirelessly via wireless bridge (not a repeater).


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## Laquer Head (Jul 22, 2016)

I use an Asus RT-AC3200 router, pretty slick unit, feature rich, and stable. I got a 1TB attached storage on it and that is enough of a home 'cloud'.

I'm by no means a networking guy, I got the most basic of home setups, just really fast.


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## Intel_man (Jul 22, 2016)

Laquer Head said:


> I use an Asus RT-AC3200 router, pretty slick unit, feature rich, and stable. I got a 1TB attached storage on it and that is enough of a home 'cloud'.
> 
> I'm by no means a networking guy, I got the most basic of home setups, just really fast.


On a wireless connection, what kind of transfer speeds were you getting when pulling data off the NAS?

My Asustor AS5002T is pretty powerful (haven't really dived into the whole thing yet to figure out all the features, but I will in time...).


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## Laquer Head (Jul 22, 2016)

my setup is not a true NAS though and only by USB storage port on the router,.  so basically 22-25MB/s


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## Intel_man (Jul 22, 2016)

That's alright. My asustor claims speeds of up to like 110 mb/s read on Ethernet, but I suspect they're running link aggregation and on SSD's.

But currently, I get around 2-3 mb/s but that's due to my powerline limitation atm being capped at around 30mbps. Which is why I want to overhaul the network system I have right now.


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## Intel_man (Jul 26, 2016)

No one else wants to chime in on this? @beers, @voyagerfan99, @Geoff ??????


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## beers (Jul 26, 2016)

Intel_man said:


> No one else wants to chime in on this? @beers, @voyagerfan99, @Geoff ??????


Not until you run a wired uplink


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## voyagerfan99 (Jul 26, 2016)

My opinion isn't cheap 

Standalone modem
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite
UniFi UAP-AC Pro (one or two depending on how much wireless coverage you need)

Then I'd get a cheap Gigabit switch as needed.


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## Intel_man (Jul 26, 2016)

beers said:


> Not until you run a wired uplink


My networking knowledge kind of stops beyond regular consumer stuff and even at that it's more basic than what I would like to admit. 



voyagerfan99 said:


> My opinion isn't cheap
> 
> Standalone modem
> Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite
> ...


I will have to research how all that works together.


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## Geoff (Jul 26, 2016)

With your current wireless router, go to where your desktop PC's are and get the signal level in dBm using free WiFi analyzer apps on your phone.  Also make note if it's on the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band.  If you are only getting 2.5Mbps, that is worse than the first iteration of WiFi.


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## Intel_man (Jul 26, 2016)

Oh I'm getting around 30Mbps on wifi max... which is roughly 3~ish mb/s. I normally average around 2.5 mb/s which is roughly 20 Mbps.


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## Geoff (Jul 26, 2016)

Intel_man said:


> Oh I'm getting around 30Mbps on wifi max... which is roughly 3~ish mb/s. I normally average around 2.5 mb/s which is roughly 20 Mbps.


Ah, I think you meant 2.5MBps, not 2.5Mbps.  That's a bit better, but still far below 802.11n speeds, let alone ac speeds.


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## beers (Jul 26, 2016)

What's preventing you from doing a wired drop ?

I'd definitely do some seppuku if I was limited to 2.5 MB/sec, I even get impatient sometimes with large full gigabit SMB transfers at 110 MB/sec


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## Geoff (Jul 26, 2016)

beers said:


> What's preventing you from doing a wired drop ?
> 
> I'd definitely do some seppuku if I was limited to 2.5 MB/sec, I even get impatient sometimes with large full gigabit SMB transfers at 110 MB/sec


Ugh, tell me about it.  A 1Gbps link is killer when transferring files to my NAS.  I can't wait until multi-gig hits a more affordable price point for residential installs.


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## Intel_man (Jul 26, 2016)

Geoff said:


> Ah, I think you meant 2.5MBps, not 2.5Mbps.  That's a bit better, but still far below 802.11n speeds, let alone ac speeds.


That's how much I get from my ISP. Which I may be upgrading to 60mbps plan later. I'll see if they are doing any promos on their 150mbps plan. But I still want to maximize speeds within the network itself.


beers said:


> What's preventing you from doing a wired drop ?
> 
> I'd definitely do some seppuku if I was limited to 2.5 MB/sec, I even get impatient sometimes with large full gigabit SMB transfers at 110 MB/sec


Lol seppuku. I can't run an Ethernet cable from where my modem is to my room upstairs because well... it's through a floor and I'm on the other side of the building. It's a really long run and the house isn't mine. 


Geoff said:


> Ugh, tell me about it.  A 1Gbps link is killer when transferring files to my NAS.  I can't wait until multi-gig hits a more affordable price point for residential installs.


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## beers (Jul 26, 2016)

Intel_man said:


> and the house isn't mine.


Ah, damn.  We have a rental currently but they used Cat5e for the phone jacks.  I replaced the wallplate with an ethernet keystone on each end and now have a wired uplink to the basement from our office upstairs, maybe you have a similar situation?

You should be getting LAN speeds independent of your ISP package since none of that traffic will make it out to the modem


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## Intel_man (Jul 26, 2016)

The house is well over 20 years old... I'm not sure how the phone jacks are wired in the house.


My LAN speeds are terrible right now with my PC as I'm currently using a powerline adapter. The modem's currently in a really bad blindspot corner in a room somewhere. I'm going to be moving it somewhere else where it's just more "open" to boost signals.

Apart from those "enterprise" solutions... would just having 2 wireless AC routers, 1 hooked up to modem, and the other connected via wireless bridge be sufficient?


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## Geoff (Jul 26, 2016)

Intel_man said:


> The house is well over 20 years old... I'm not sure how the phone jacks are wired in the house.
> 
> 
> My LAN speeds are terrible right now with my PC as I'm currently using a powerline adapter. The modem's currently in a really bad blindspot corner in a room somewhere. I'm going to be moving it somewhere else where it's just more "open" to boost signals.
> ...


Connecting an AP to your network via wireless bridge (in this limited, consumer sense) is not a good solution.  Even if you dedicate one band, speed is going to be impacted.  If you use 2.4GHz as the link between the AP and your wireless router, your much faster 5GHz wireless radio will be limited by the much slower speeds of 2.4GHz.  And vice versa if you use 5GHz but have clients connect at 2.4GHz.  Also, it means you will only be able to use one band for clients.  You want the wireless link between the AP and your wireless router to be the only device on that network for optimal performance, once you start adding other devices performance will suffer greatly.

Just run an ethernet cable between the two


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## Intel_man (Jul 26, 2016)

Geoff said:


> Just run an ethernet cable between the two


If it was that easy... I wouldn't have to make a thread on it. 

What about those AC routers with those quad band stuff (3 5ghz bands, 1 2.4ghz band)? If everyone is either on Ethernet, or through the 5ghz bands, how would that work.

What are my options outside of those "consumer" wireless connectivity?

Priority wise, I want to maximize my PC's network speed to the main modem/router which is where my NAS is connected. Direct Ethernet cable from my PC to the modem is not an option. I still would like to provide wireless options for my other devices around the house (Does not need to have maximum performance in this area).

tl;dr, I would like the fastest connection for my PC to my modem wirelessly. Other devices can take a back seat.


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## Geoff (Jul 26, 2016)

Then move your wireless router and modem more centrally in your house, and get a decent 802.11ac wireless card for your desktop with an external antenna.  If its a small to medium size house, it should be no problem getting a quality 5GHz signal up a single floor.


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## Intel_man (Jul 26, 2016)

But... But... I was thinking about putting my network printer upstairs with my PC.


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## beers (Jul 26, 2016)

Intel_man said:


> But... But... I was thinking about putting my network printer upstairs with my PC.


You can do some rigged shenanigans like bridge wired and wifi adapters to add your wired printer into that broadcast domain.


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## Intel_man (Jul 26, 2016)

I guess I could.


Man... that Asus PCE-AC88 looks sweet.


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## Laquer Head (Jul 26, 2016)

Intel_man said:


> I guess I could.
> 
> 
> Man... that* Asus PCE-AC88* looks sweet.



I know, right!


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## Intel_man (Jul 26, 2016)

Laquer Head said:


> I know, right!


Buy it! 


Told you I'll find a way to spend your money.


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## Laquer Head (Jul 26, 2016)

Is it even out here yet?

And, shut up..I already got an AC router and adapter!


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## Intel_man (Jul 26, 2016)

It's available... somewhat. It's on Amazon.com

Ships to Canada for like $20.


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## Intel_man (Sep 3, 2016)

Well, I ended up grabbing the Asus RT-AC88U and the PCE-AC88 for my main computer. Getting 1.6gbps connection to the router wirelessly. Sweet jesus.

Wireless range/signal around the house pretty much doubled. In previous areas where my wireless N router was having trouble reaching, the AC88U is getting there without any troubles.

I'm getting about 105 mb/s transfer rates to my NAS right now, which is around the maximum my NAS can handle. Did a comparison with a computer directly connected to the router and it's basically giving me the same transfer speeds.

EDIT: Scratch that, enabled MU-MIMO and is getting 115mb/s transfer to the NAS. jesus.


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