Some basic HDX queries
Posted by: Bruce Woodhouse on 02 January 2009
I'm kicking around replacing my CDS3 with an HDX.
I've been looking through this part of the Forum and I'll be honest, much of it is absolute gobbledegook to me, and I cannot find the answers to some fairly simple questions. I'm not a PC network whizz-be nice to me.
The queries.
My house has a router with wireless and good coverage in the listening room. Can I connect the HDX wirelessly and will this cause any problems? Do I need a gizmo on the back of the HDX to receive wirelessly?
At the moment we don't leave the router on all the time, only connecting it and switching it on when we want to go online. Would this matter (provided it was not disconnected when the HDX was accessing the online database)? Can you tell from the control panel when the HDX is online-and therefore realise it must be left connected? If I ripped a CD whilst it was offline will it acess the database etc when the network is re-connected?
Bruce
I've been looking through this part of the Forum and I'll be honest, much of it is absolute gobbledegook to me, and I cannot find the answers to some fairly simple questions. I'm not a PC network whizz-be nice to me.
The queries.
My house has a router with wireless and good coverage in the listening room. Can I connect the HDX wirelessly and will this cause any problems? Do I need a gizmo on the back of the HDX to receive wirelessly?
At the moment we don't leave the router on all the time, only connecting it and switching it on when we want to go online. Would this matter (provided it was not disconnected when the HDX was accessing the online database)? Can you tell from the control panel when the HDX is online-and therefore realise it must be left connected? If I ripped a CD whilst it was offline will it acess the database etc when the network is re-connected?
Bruce
Posted on: 05 January 2009 by Paul Stephenson
we say in the hdx manuals about the negative effects of ethernet over the mains, if you are only using the connection for downloading cover art and ripping, the mains develo unit can then be unplugged problem goes away. A fixed ethernet cable is the way to go long term.
Posted on: 05 January 2009 by Roy Donaldson
Generally, when looking to access the internet at home most people have 3 options:
1) Fixed ethernet to router.
- Can be problematic to get cabling to listening locations as generally these are not cabled and in different rooms from DSL connections.
2) Wireless Bridge to router.
- Plugs into mains, then bridges wirelessly to main unit. Examples are called gaming adaptors, or Apple Expresses work fine for this.
3) Ethernet over mains. Easiest to use, again more than anything can introduce interference on mains. Very simple to setup and work.
Roy.
1) Fixed ethernet to router.
- Can be problematic to get cabling to listening locations as generally these are not cabled and in different rooms from DSL connections.
2) Wireless Bridge to router.
- Plugs into mains, then bridges wirelessly to main unit. Examples are called gaming adaptors, or Apple Expresses work fine for this.
3) Ethernet over mains. Easiest to use, again more than anything can introduce interference on mains. Very simple to setup and work.
Roy.
Posted on: 05 January 2009 by Roy Donaldson
Should say, I run 802.11n on the 2.4Ghz channel and get 130Mbps to all my wireless machines and Gigabit ethernet to all fixed devices.
Was going to put in a Cisco simultaneous dual-band 2.4Ghz/5Ghz 802.11n access point but decided to give it to a mate instead. Will wait till there is a cost-effective 2.4Ghz/5Ghz simultaneous DSL router option and then move to that. Should then get 300Mbps to all wireless devices.
Remember if you're using wireless to use WPA2 as your encryption protocol, as the standard enforces use of hardware to do the encryption and so the performance is always greater vs. WPA or WEP.
Roy.
Was going to put in a Cisco simultaneous dual-band 2.4Ghz/5Ghz 802.11n access point but decided to give it to a mate instead. Will wait till there is a cost-effective 2.4Ghz/5Ghz simultaneous DSL router option and then move to that. Should then get 300Mbps to all wireless devices.
Remember if you're using wireless to use WPA2 as your encryption protocol, as the standard enforces use of hardware to do the encryption and so the performance is always greater vs. WPA or WEP.
Roy.
Posted on: 05 January 2009 by gary1 (US)
Bruce, I have a friend who's got a similar home set-up as yours with a garage about 50-60 feet from their main house which they use as a family room/office etc... He just had the router hooked up to a network switch in the main home and then ran the cat 5e cable to the garage "annex" rpblem solved. Make sure if you do this you or your network person uses a switch and not a hub as you want to ensure transmission speed through the system. As I said above this gives you an excellent solution now and in the future. Once your into the annex, if you need additional connections then you can use another switch to go off of, ie computers, NS series amps servers, anything.
Posted on: 05 January 2009 by Bruce Woodhouse
Gary1
That is really helpful. Can you just clarify what you mean by switch vs hub (and why)? Is that to switch 'off' the house vs the office? Surely I'm trying to acheive a situation where both are 'on' all the time.
Bruce
That is really helpful. Can you just clarify what you mean by switch vs hub (and why)? Is that to switch 'off' the house vs the office? Surely I'm trying to acheive a situation where both are 'on' all the time.
Bruce
Posted on: 05 January 2009 by garyi
Bruce I was assuming you had no means of getting a cable through.
If you can get a cable through then all you need as mentioned is a switch. Just search ethernet switch on amazon.
That being said a switch just gives you more ethernet ports, nothing to do with wireless.
Basically in your situation you want to have wireless throughout as I understand it. So if you can get an ethernet cable through, do so from your wireless router through to the annex, and in there plug it into an airport express which will extend the wireless network.
Job done.
Or if wireless is not an issue in the annex pass a cable through and plug into a switch to give you a number of ethernet points.
One other thing, my step brother has the new bT homehub. its a POS, you might want to invest in a decent wireless router such as the excellent rangemax products from Netgear. Wireless N has the furthest coverage, provided your devices are wireless N as well.
If you can get a cable through then all you need as mentioned is a switch. Just search ethernet switch on amazon.
That being said a switch just gives you more ethernet ports, nothing to do with wireless.
Basically in your situation you want to have wireless throughout as I understand it. So if you can get an ethernet cable through, do so from your wireless router through to the annex, and in there plug it into an airport express which will extend the wireless network.
Job done.
Or if wireless is not an issue in the annex pass a cable through and plug into a switch to give you a number of ethernet points.
One other thing, my step brother has the new bT homehub. its a POS, you might want to invest in a decent wireless router such as the excellent rangemax products from Netgear. Wireless N has the furthest coverage, provided your devices are wireless N as well.
Posted on: 05 January 2009 by jon h
"Should then get 300Mbps to all wireless devices."
Only in the magical strange world of no walls inhabited by wifi vendors. And 300mbps does not translate to 300/8 MBytes of user data per second because of the huge overhead of wifi compared to Ethernet, of course.
The highest ever seen under test here is the wide channels 5GHz Apple solution (wide channels not legal in UK) which took 56 seconds to transfer 480MBytes of mixed data files, ie about 8.57MBytes/second of real data. And that was in the same room -- halve the throughput for 1 room away.
Compare and contrast with throughput (and range!) of 100Mbit Ethernet or Gig ethernet, and wifi looks a silly joke.
Also note that WEP is as useful as a chocolate teapot for security. WPA2/PSK is much stronger (but not impossible to break)
"Wireless N has the furthest coverage, provided your devices are wireless N as well."
Not so in our experience of testing just about everything on the market. Many G routers have higher throughput at 1 room / 2 rooms away than N routers, which tend to collapse quickly, despite the use of MIMO etc.
The range claims for N over G are only valid for an open air test site with nothing in sight for a few hundred yards in every direction. IE treat them as marketing huff.
jon
Only in the magical strange world of no walls inhabited by wifi vendors. And 300mbps does not translate to 300/8 MBytes of user data per second because of the huge overhead of wifi compared to Ethernet, of course.
The highest ever seen under test here is the wide channels 5GHz Apple solution (wide channels not legal in UK) which took 56 seconds to transfer 480MBytes of mixed data files, ie about 8.57MBytes/second of real data. And that was in the same room -- halve the throughput for 1 room away.
Compare and contrast with throughput (and range!) of 100Mbit Ethernet or Gig ethernet, and wifi looks a silly joke.
Also note that WEP is as useful as a chocolate teapot for security. WPA2/PSK is much stronger (but not impossible to break)
"Wireless N has the furthest coverage, provided your devices are wireless N as well."
Not so in our experience of testing just about everything on the market. Many G routers have higher throughput at 1 room / 2 rooms away than N routers, which tend to collapse quickly, despite the use of MIMO etc.
The range claims for N over G are only valid for an open air test site with nothing in sight for a few hundred yards in every direction. IE treat them as marketing huff.
jon
Posted on: 05 January 2009 by gary1 (US)
quote:Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:
Gary1
That is really helpful. Can you just clarify what you mean by switch vs hub (and why)? Is that to switch 'off' the house vs the office? Surely I'm trying to acheive a situation where both are 'on' all the time.
Bruce
Bruce, with either one they are "on" all the time. With a "switch" all ports have the same potential full transmission rate of the data (10/100/1000)regardless of how many devices are connected through the switch. This is not the same with a hub, so do not use one.
Gary
Posted on: 05 January 2009 by Guido Fawkes
Bruce
A loose analogy would be to say that a Switch is an active device (like an active pre-amp) and a hub is a passive device (like a passive pre-amp).
A switch will cost more and give better performance exactly as Gary suggests.
I have a HP ProCurve Switch - it doesn't have a single switch on it - just 8 Ethernet ports. Maximum length for an Ethernet cable is 100m IIRC. It is called a switch because it can switch traffic from one port to another; potentially it can support more than one network and you can enable/disable individual ports, which is very useful in business environments. Hubs can't do this.
ATB Rotf
A loose analogy would be to say that a Switch is an active device (like an active pre-amp) and a hub is a passive device (like a passive pre-amp).
A switch will cost more and give better performance exactly as Gary suggests.
I have a HP ProCurve Switch - it doesn't have a single switch on it - just 8 Ethernet ports. Maximum length for an Ethernet cable is 100m IIRC. It is called a switch because it can switch traffic from one port to another; potentially it can support more than one network and you can enable/disable individual ports, which is very useful in business environments. Hubs can't do this.
ATB Rotf
Posted on: 05 January 2009 by jon h
The important difference between a switch and a hub is simple - a hub is dumb. It has no idea what is on each port. So data comes into port 1, and it tries to push it out onto port 2 3 4 5 etc.
If you have something on port 1 talking to something on port 2, and also have something on posrt 3 talking to something on port 4, both conversations will share the internal speed of the hub -- so 1->2 and 3->4 will both go at half the speed if the second connection wasnt there.
ie speed(1->2) + speed(3->4) = speed(1->2)alone
A switch is a clever device. It knows what is connected to each port. So it doesnt need to send all the traffic to each port in the hope of finding the destination. This is called a "routing table" and the switch automatically learns where devices are after it is turned on.
So in the example above, 1->2 and 3->4 can both run at full speed within the switch because it has a faster internal backbone and the smarts to know where to send the traffic
Hubs are almost impossible to buy now -- they are really prehistoric kit. But theres still a lot of them out on the "skipware" market, donations from friends etc.
If you have something on port 1 talking to something on port 2, and also have something on posrt 3 talking to something on port 4, both conversations will share the internal speed of the hub -- so 1->2 and 3->4 will both go at half the speed if the second connection wasnt there.
ie speed(1->2) + speed(3->4) = speed(1->2)alone
A switch is a clever device. It knows what is connected to each port. So it doesnt need to send all the traffic to each port in the hope of finding the destination. This is called a "routing table" and the switch automatically learns where devices are after it is turned on.
So in the example above, 1->2 and 3->4 can both run at full speed within the switch because it has a faster internal backbone and the smarts to know where to send the traffic
Hubs are almost impossible to buy now -- they are really prehistoric kit. But theres still a lot of them out on the "skipware" market, donations from friends etc.