Recommendation and Education!

Truant · Post by **Truant** » January 28, 2005, 4:17 am

Wireless networking for home!

Anyone have any good links and/or recommendations?

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 28, 2005, 4:47 am

Truant wrote:Wireless networking for home!

Anyone have any good links and/or recommendations?

Wait for the new 802.11n to be approved (may take years) or buy the Belkin Wireless Pre-N version of it:

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118666,00.asp

It kicks ass in speed, range, and reliability. It's backward compatible to existing 802.11a/b/g standards. It's available now. I saw a stack of them at Fry's Electronics.

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » January 28, 2005, 5:17 am

Belkin? eww

recommend Dlink stuff, used to love Linksys but their support is awful now. Dlink has a rocking 802.11g wap that goes up to 108mbps

http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=292

Fash · Post by **Fash** » January 28, 2005, 11:02 am

The great thing about standards is you can pretty much buy the cheapest model that has the features and standards you want... I'm not gonna bother recommending a brand, just pick the current fastest wifi standard, and buy where your budget is comfortable.

noel · Post by **noel** » January 28, 2005, 3:26 pm

If I were buying one now, I'd buy:
http://www.netgear.com/products/details/WGT634U.php

The main reason I'd buy this is because it has a USB port that you can connect a USB harddrive to, and use as a central storage point/Internet accessible FTP server and the setup is incredibly simple.

Regarding Winnow's recommendation: It seems like every major consumer wireless vendor is touting some new 'ultra high speed wireless'. The key to using most of the not-yet-standardized high speed wireless is that you generally have to buy the wireless NICs from the same vendor to take advantage of the higher speeds. You can use any vendor's NICs if you're using the older standards of 802.11a/b/g.

For almost all home applications, you don't really need more than 802.11b which runs at 11Mbps, because most home networking is traffic to and from the Internet. 11Mbps is almost always bigger than your pipe to the Internet which is going to be ~3Mbps, so your bottleneck will always be your Internet connection, not your router.

If you do a lot of direct file transfers from computer A to computer B within your home network, then high-speed wireless might be something to seriously consider. Generally for myself, I just temporarily plug into a wired connection and transfer files at 100Mbps, but some people don't want to be bothered with that.

Additionally, if you're going to set up home wireless, make sure you make your Wireless SSID (translation: wireless network name) non-broadcast. This means that other people who have a wireless NIC can't just turn on their computer and see your network. The drawback is that you have to type in the network name on your computers that will attach to it, but it's still a good way to go.

Finally, make sure you add a WEP key to your wireless network. This is like a password that allows you to secure your wireless network so that even if someone is using a special tool that allows them to see your non-broadcast SSID, they still need a password to join your wireless network.

Hope that's helpful.

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » January 28, 2005, 3:32 pm

Excellent tips Noel.

It's also a good idea to change the SSID from the default.

If you are buying new hardware, WPA encryption is the new standard and is incrementally better than WEP but both are trivial to crack.

The best way to secure your wireless network is to do all the above mentioned things and to restrict access by MAC address.

noel · Post by **noel** » January 28, 2005, 3:36 pm

Tenuvil wrote:It's also a good idea to change the SSID from the default.

Lol, I guess I should have explicitly stated that, but I assumed that was a given.

If you are buying new hardware, WPA encryption is the new standard and is incrementally better than WEP but both are trivial to crack.

The best way to secure your wireless network is to do all the above mentioned things and to restrict access by MAC address.

Which is what I do, but MAC address restrictions can make the network overly complicated for the less technical (even though it's pretty simple).

The only brands I'd even consider are Netgear and Linksys. The Belkin thing Winnow mentioned is nice, but it's not yet a standard, so you'll potentially be fucked down the road if the standard goes a different way... If I got the Belkin thing for free, I'd definitely play with it, but I wouldn't pay for it. Sure the speed is nice, but standards based networking beats all other forms of networking every day of the week.

Kargyle · Post by **Kargyle** » January 28, 2005, 3:45 pm

You'd be surprised how many people don't bother to change their SSID. There's probably 6 or 7 wireless networks I can see in from my apartment. Of those only 1 bothered to change his SSID, and only he and 1 other bothered to set up any security on their networks. So if my connection is ever down, there's like 5 networks I can just jump on. And on 4 of them the dumbasses didn't even bother to change the deault password on their wireless routers, so I can just take over whenever I want.

In review, most important things to do when setting up your wireless network.

1. Change the password on your router!!
2. Change your SSID, and preferably set your router not to broadcast it out.
3. Enable encryption security, even if it just the built in WEP encryption. Something is better than nothing, and it will keep people from jumping on your network to dowload kiddie porn, or hack, or anything else they don't want traced back to them.

You can also restrict by MAC address, but if you do the 3 things above, it isn't going to be neccessary more than likely.

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » January 28, 2005, 3:53 pm

Having been a systems auditor for the past seven years, and usually one of the few with training and experience in securing wireless networks, I can honestly say Kargyle is right. Few people bother to change their SSID or even their admin password.

What is scarier is that few corporations bother to implement wireless security. I found that just by inserting a Linksys wireless b card in my laptop or PDA I could access networks in most any of my clients with no effort.

The best was when someone just threw a rogue WAP on a network node and management didn't know about it. I've had a few instances where a half hour after the IT director tells me "we don't use wireless networking here" I've documented hopping on the network and browsing shares from my PDA.

noel · Post by **noel** » January 28, 2005, 4:23 pm

I agree it goes on (all too often), but it's kind of second nature for me to:
A) change the password
B) change the SSID

As first steps, so sometimes I forget to recommend that to others. Glad you guys remembered it.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 28, 2005, 6:03 pm

noel wrote:
The only brands I'd even consider are Netgear and Linksys. The Belkin thing Winnow mentioned is nice, but it's not yet a standard, so you'll potentially be fucked down the road if the standard goes a different way... If I got the Belkin thing for free, I'd definitely play with it, but I wouldn't pay for it. Sure the speed is nice, but standards based networking beats all other forms of networking every day of the week.

Any brand you buy right now that's running at 108Mbps isn't standard. Why pick on Belkin? Netgear and Linksys are in the same boat. I recommended Belkin because it's performed extremely well in tests and uses MIMO technology.

I have a DLink wireless router that has worked great for several years.

Aranuil wrote:For almost all home applications, you don't really need more than 802.11b which runs at 11Mbps, because most home networking is traffic to and from the Internet. 11Mbps is almost always bigger than your pipe to the Internet which is going to be ~3Mbps, so your bottleneck will always be your Internet connection, not your router.

I disagree with this as well. When I need bandwidth from my wireless router, it's when I'm transferring large files between computers, higher resolution videos, or even when I'm reading scanned comics via wirless, it takes longer to open due to the bottleneck. The Internet won't be an issue for the most part (unless you're running BNR2 full speed with 12 connections over the wireless network which you shouldn't.)

I recommend getting as fast a wireless network as you can...I also recommend seriously considering the Belkin with it's solid signal and extended range over the old standards.

If you're running a regular LAN, i'd recommend getting a gigabit 1000Mbps router as they've come down in price and are speedy.

---
As for the USB port/drive you mentioned on the DLink...that's interesting. I'm debating on whether to get a NAS Net Drive or a USB2/Firewire 800/400 Hard Drive stack. I want to get one with 4 bays so I can put 4 250GB drives in there for a little Terabyte server on my network.

I was looking at this one:

http://www.cooldrives.com/qulcdfi80inc.html

That one's a little expensive (but cool looking!) They have the enclosures for as cheap as 100.00....so four 250GB drives for 140.00 plus the enclosure = 1 terabyte for $660.00. Not bad.

noel · Post by **noel** » January 28, 2005, 6:19 pm

Winnow wrote:Any brand you buy right now that's running at 108Mbps isn't standard. Why pick on Belkin? Netgear and Linksys are in the same boat. I recommended Belkin because it's performed extremely well in tests and uses MIMO technology.

If you'd like I can explain in detail how MIMO works...

The reason I choose Netgear and Linksys (and even D-Link) over Belkin is because they've been doing consumer Networking products much longer than Belkin has. While it's not rocket science, there is something to be said for having an easy to use UI, and the fact that Linksys is now owned by Cisco (Netgear has been owned by Nortel for quite a while). Belkin is a great cable manufacturer (among other things), but they don't have the experience of the aforementioned vendors, and there's no significant difference in cost.

Winnow wrote:I disagree with this as well. When I need bandwidth from my wireless router, it's when I'm transferring large files between computers, higher resolution videos, or even when I'm reading scanned comics via wirless, it takes longer to open due to the bottleneck. The Internet won't be an issue for the most part (unless you're running BNR2 full speed with 12 connections over the wireless network which you shouldn't.)

Perhaps you noticed that I already said that if you were doing large file transfers between PCs, higher speed would be better... perhaps not.

I recommend getting as fast a wireless network as you can...I also recommend seriously considering the Belkin with it's solid signal and extended range over the old standards.

Except that every vendor mentioned thus far in this thread has a competing high-range, high-speed standard, so there's no practical advantage to choosing one proprietary standard over another. Another school of thought would be:

A newer higher-speed better-coverage standard is on the way in the near future. Buy a cheap one that meets your needs for now, and invest in a new one when the standard is finalized. Anyone that thinks it will take years for 802.11n to be finalized doesn't know shit about the networking industry. Wireless networking is the future, and as such every major company is investing millions of dollars in R&D and pushing the envelope of wireless connectivity. It's in their best interest to standardize 802.11n as soon as possible, and not for the piddly little home installations, but for the gigantic corporate installations where technologies like AP cloning, roaming zones, and APs that adjust their signal strength to compensate for an AP that goes down are concerns.

If you're running a regular LAN, i'd recommend getting a gigabit 1000Mbps router as they've come down in price and are speedy.

Again, if you're primarily moving large files between computers, and your computers have Gigabit NICs (most new computers do), this is a good idea. If you're not primarily moving large files between computers, this is a huge waste of money for the average home user. That is to say... if money is no issue, yes, get Gigabit. If it is, it's a needless additional cost. Most corporate environments aren't yet doing Gigabit to the desktop. Considering you can stream approximately 33 DVD quality video streams on a 100Mbps network connection, Gigabit at home (at present time) is kind of silly.

As for the USB port/drive you mentioned on the DLink...that's interesting. I'm debating on whether to get a NAS Net Drive or a USB2/Firewire 800/400 Hard Drive stack. I want to get one with 4 bays so I can put 4 250GB drives in there for a little Terabyte server for my network.

FYI, it's a Netgear, and you can plug in any kind of USB mass storage device.

Edit: I should also mention that many consumer wireless devices negotiate their speed down to the slowest connecting NIC. So if you have a laptop with a built-in wireless NIC, you'll have to purchase a pre-802.11n wireless PC card to take advantage of any of the proprietary pre-802.11n implementations. Should someone connect to your network with a G or B card, that will generally lower the speed for all devices and force them all to the G or B speed.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 28, 2005, 7:01 pm

noel wrote:[
FYI, it's a Netgear, and you can plug in any kind of USB mass storage device.

Firewire is faster. USB2 is 480 Mbit/s and Firewire400 is 480 Mbit/s but USB uses more CPU resources while Firewire uses almost none.

Here's a nice review of external vs internal HDs and firewire vs USB2 for anyone considering external HD solutions:

I'd like to talk about something that some of us
have considered at one point or another - storing your data on an external
hard drive. There are several pros, the most important of which being data
portability/share-ability, and also much-increased storage capacity for
laptop users. I myself am tempted by the idea of dropping a 250GB drive
into an external enclosure and being able to easily share my data between my
laptop, desktop, and all my friends. Before diving into an external setup,
there are a few things to consider:

External Vs. Internal:
How well do external drives perform compared to internal drives? Does
ATA-133 give internal drives a signficant advantage?

USB 2.0 has a maximum transfer speed of 60 MB/s, and that of Firewire is 50
MB/s. At first glance, 50-60 MB/sec interface appears to be a severe
bottleneck; however, under many usage conditions, even modern drives will
not be able to push out more than 60MB/sec. For instance, here are some
speed specs for a 200GB DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA drive:

Originally Posted by http://www.thetechlounge.com/review.php ... r_200_7200

PCMark02
Uncached File Write - 42.9 MB/s
Cached File Write - 52.8 MB/s
Uncached File Read - 44.9 MB/s
Cached File Read - 51.8 MB/s
File Copy - 23.8 MB/s

As you can see, none of these speeds touches the 60 MB/s theoretical speed
of USB 2.0, and only starts to tax the 50 MB/s limit of Firewire. While you
might not be able to acheive the full theoretical rate of Firewire, it
appears the performance will be somewhere between 5 and 20% slower compared
to an IDE drive.

Interface:
While the HD will still spin as fast, the interfaces available to those
seeking an external HD solution are USB 2.0 and Firewire. Here is a quick
breakdown of each:

Originally Posted by http://www.digit-life.com/articles/usb20vsfirewire

USB 2.0
Max theoretical 480 Mbit/s (60 MB/s) rate supported.
USB controller is required to control the bus and data transfer.
Cable up to 5 m.
Power supply to external devices is 500 mA/5V (max).
Full compatibility with USB 1.1 devices.
Much more commonly included on motherboards than Firewire.
Uses more system resources than Firewire.

Firewire (IEEE1394)
Max theoretical 400 Mbit/s (50 MB/s) rate supported.
Works without control, devices communicate peer-to-peer.
Cable up to 4.5 m.
Power supply to external devices is 1.25A/12V (max.).
The only computer bus used in digital video cameras.
All Macs come with integrated Firewire.
Uses less system resources than USB 2.0.

File Copying
Connection........................Direct........USB 2.0......Firewire
400
1GB in 1 file ....................58.7 sec.....114.6 sec.......69.6 sec
1GB in 9226 files..............84.1 sec.....119.4 sec.......90.1 sec
As you can see, the architectural differences between these interfaces plays
an important role in performance. In this and other tests, Firewire
out-performs USB 2.0, due to the more efficient control of data flow across
the bus. For external hard drives, Firewire is clearly superior to USB.
However, for devices like CD/DVD-RW drives that don't need a blazing-fast
interface, the difference between two is almost negligible.

Conclusion:
External drives are not for everyone. They cannot be RAIDed, they cost more
than an internal drive, they will perform somewhere between 5-20% slower at
most tasks, and on motherboards that can't boot from USB you still have to
have a system drive installed. However, there are also some obvious
benefits to an external drive. When considering an external drive, the
fastest and least system-intensive interface is Firewire, though USB 2.0 is
by far the more common interface. The best solution would be a USB
2.0/Firewire combo drive, which would give the user the availability of USB
2.0 with the option of the speedier Firewire.

As with everything, with added functionality comes added cost. The most
cost-effective way to get an external drive is to buy the enclosure and the
drive separately and then put them together. Given that there are some
crazy-cheap deals on 3.5-inch hard drives nowadays, this tactic makes great
sense. Pair it with a combo enclosure found at NewEgg for $35 shipped, and
you're good to go. If your mobo doesn't have Firewire support, a PCI card
will run you another $7-8 shipped, but it will be money well-spent.

As for your comments about wireless and going cheap...I still say get the fastest you can. Time is valuable. Especially when you're not at work. (try out Belkin Pre-N! It's been getting great reviews in spee, reliability, range and the ease of use factor that Aranukl was talking about)

Don't get cheap on me now!
-Jurassic Park fat guy quote

noel · Post by **noel** » January 28, 2005, 7:08 pm

Winnow wrote:
noel wrote:[
FYI, it's a Netgear, and you can plug in any kind of USB mass storage device.
Firewire is faster. USB2 is 480 Mbit/s and Firewire400 is 480 Mbit/s but USB uses more CPU resources while Firewire uses almost none.

That's true but I'm not aware of a Router/Firewall that has a Firewire port, and I would say that if you're looking for a speed solution, you're far better off making on of your machines a server and connecting it to the network. I only see the USB option for the Netgear as a convenience solution...

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 28, 2005, 7:42 pm

noel wrote:
Winnow wrote:
noel wrote:[
FYI, it's a Netgear, and you can plug in any kind of USB mass storage device.
Firewire is faster. USB2 is 480 Mbit/s and Firewire400 is 480 Mbit/s but USB uses more CPU resources while Firewire uses almost none.
That's true but I'm not aware of a Router/Firewall that has a Firewire port, and I would say that if you're looking for a speed solution, you're far better off making on of your machines a server and connecting it to the network. I only see the USB option for the Netgear as a convenience solution...

If you were going to do it for that reason, why not just get a NAS Net drive with router? They also have gigabit net drives as a non wireless solution.

Here's an article on the subject:

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/ ... cxb,00.asp

the 250GB Linksys EtherFast NAS EFG 250 has a second internal drive bay, a print server, and gigabit ethernet. This unit was a top performer when we used it with a gigabit network.

I'm considering the firewire(800) solution for it's speed over old firewire and as the cheapest way to get a terabyte of storage up and running... really cheap if opting for the old firewire 400/USB2 four bay drive for 100.00 over the price of four 250GB OEM HDs.

Here's some external firewire HD enclosures:

http://www.cooldrives.com/firen.html

noel · Post by **noel** » January 28, 2005, 7:50 pm

The quick answer is:

Because lots of people have old harddrives lying around, and the $100 router is cheap as is a USB enclosure.

It really all depends on your needs. How much throughput, bandwidth (not the same things) and storage do you need? What other services do you need? What's your budget? Once you figure all of that out, you can go purchase.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 28, 2005, 8:06 pm

All I know is 600GB isn't nearly enough space when you're dealing with ISOs for XBOX, PS2, movies, PC game and APP images, even comics are taking up over 60GB and that will double I'm sure. I've been deleting stuff. almost none of that is pr0n as I tend to delete that stuff after checking it out on the newsgroups. Why watch old pr0n when there's always new stuff out there? : )

DVDs are an option but I find having everything accessible at any time is the best way for me. I like the idea of a fileserver but really don't want another computer. I'm still looking at the options out there.

noel · Post by **noel** » January 28, 2005, 8:13 pm

Winnow wrote:Why watch old pr0n when there's always new stuff out there? : )

Words to live by.

I'm not intending to present the Netgear as a great solution for network storage. To me, it's merely a very convenient, very easy way to set up a central storage device that has the advantage of being accessible from the Internet.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 28, 2005, 8:22 pm

noel wrote:
Winnow wrote:Why watch old pr0n when there's always new stuff out there? : )
Words to live by.

I'm not intending to present the Netgear as a great solution for network storage. To me, it's merely a very convenient, very easy way to set up a central storage device that has the advantage of being accessible from the Internet.

I guess I wasn't understanding why the HD being connected to the router as opposed to any USB port on your computer would make a difference. As soon as that HD is mapped, you can access it from the internet using whatever remote access SW you choose. Having not actually checked out the Netgear thingy...are you saying you can access the HD via the net even if your computer is turned off? That could be useful if that Netgear thingy, and the 4 bay HD enclosure I've mentioned, gave you a terabyte FTP site without the need for a computer at all.

noel · Post by **noel** » January 28, 2005, 8:30 pm

Yes exactly.

You have the Router and USB enclosure powered, and you can FTP to the USB harddrive from the Internet without the need for any special software.

You don't need any additional PCs etc.

You can also map the Harddrive within your LAN as a Windows share. I'm not 100% certain, but I think it has a linux kernel and it's running Samba.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 28, 2005, 9:00 pm

Hmm, I need to read up on that a little more.

CNET peeps are mixed on it

http://reviews.cnet.com/Netgear_WGT634U ... 93348.html

Belkin rated better! : )

noel · Post by **noel** » January 28, 2005, 9:20 pm

Not being able to recognize large disks is a definite limitation.

Not being able to manage security on a drive via NTFS seems a bit overly critical to me. If I wanted to do that, I would expect to have to build a server.

The WDS thing is a feature I'm glad to see being built into the new WAP/Routers, but for a single family home, not a big deal. It's kind of like comparing a Honda Civic to a Ferrari... Sure I'd love the Civic to have all the performance and features the Ferrari does, but if I'm not willing to pony up the cash, I'm going to get what I can pay for.

In this case, you're talking about a $100 WAP/Router, so I think your expectations should be in line with that.

That said, the no large file system thing would likely be a deal breaker for me, and I probably wouldn't buy it now.

Truant · Post by **Truant** » January 29, 2005, 11:17 am

Thank you very much.

And winnow, I think you're being about 10x more demanding than the average household consumer, quit being difficult

I'm tired of having wires running around the floors in this apartment, we're looking at getting a laptop. The convenience of wireless just seems like a good investment. I won't be transfering teraultramegahyperbits of information between computers or anything hyperactive like that, just plain old normal stuff. Though I think the idea of the centralized storage drive off the router is very nice, great convenience.

Anyways, thanks for the relp.

Appreciated muchly

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 29, 2005, 8:37 pm

Truant wrote:Thank you very much.

And winnow, I think you're being about 10x more demanding than the average household consumer, quit being difficult

Only the best!

It's true that you could probably get any 802.11g wireless router and be happy with it. If you get the same brand router and cards, you'll most likely be able to take advantage of 108Mbps xfer rates as well. The only thing you may have to fiddle around with is firewalls for certain P2P apps etc, but if you already have a normal LAN, you're familiar with that stuff already.

What Aranuil said about changing your passords on the wireless network is important. It's amazing all the networks you pick up travelling around with a laptop with wireless access.

noel · Post by **noel** » February 4, 2005, 5:39 pm

*bump*

Killer deal here, even if it is only 802.11B.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 68-4882342

$25. Plus a mail in rebate of $10. Can't beat that!

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » February 4, 2005, 6:08 pm

i have 802.11b because i bought my router a couple of years ago.

11Mbps is pretty fucking fast, especially considering my internet connection is ~1Mb. My laptop uses the wireless connection, i play music to my stereo with my Airport Express, and print. The latter 2 devices are 802.11g.

I would go with Netgear or Linksys stuff if i was buying. I bought Dlink, and it is OK. For a laptop i use an old Cisco Orinoco Gold card, and the range on that is ridiculous. I can literally surf across the street from my house through 4+ walls.

VeeshanVault

Recommendation and Education!

Recommendation and Education!

Re: Recommendation and Education!