Netgear FS108 Replacement / Upgrade / Advice Please

Posted by: Tony2011 on 04 March 2013

I need to upgrade an ageing Netgear FS108.

Stuf connected are:  Uniti(via a 5M ethernet cable) / Blu Ray Player  then Netgear  to a BT Infiniti router/modem. The computer and printer  in another room.

I am doing a lot of streaming and response time(iPhone/iPad) is extremely slow.  Should I connect the Uniti straight to the router using a longer ethernet cable instead?

All help much appreciated.

Many thanks

Tony

Posted on: 04 March 2013 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Tony, your FS108 should be fine, unless it has become faulty it will last for years yet. Unless you are doing lots high speed NAS transfers (and I don't mean relatively small media file transfers) 100Mbps will be more than fine.

If you have very slow performance I would look at your wifi. You can try hanging an Airport Express off the switch, and assuming your Unitiserve is not faulty it should become quite nippy

Simon

Posted on: 04 March 2013 by Tony2011

Thank you, Simon.

I was thinking of upgrading it to a GS608  but your advice makes a lot more sense. A will check all hardware connection tomorrow  as they have not been touched for a couple of years and will also take into consideration the Airport Express.

Once again, many thanks for your expertise.

Tony

 

 

Posted on: 04 March 2013 by spartacus

The FS108 is a Mega bit switch. You could try the GS108 which is the Giga bit version. When I started streaming I put in the GS108 on the basis that I wanted my internal network to be as fast as possible and I put all the critical stuff on that. I have only one link to the router from the switch.

 

I have kept the FS108 in case I wanted to add other things to a slower network segment.

 

Having said that you only seem to be saying that things were slow on the wifi side. It may be that the problem is with the routers wifi network. Does music stream without a hitch?

 

**Update** Simon beat me to it... Damn

Posted on: 04 March 2013 by beeka

If it is wifi then also check the channel it is working on. My wifi performance dropped dramatically and the inSSIDer program showed a neighbour had a very powerful wifi running on the same channel. My performance was restored once I changed my wifi channel.

Posted on: 04 March 2013 by Tony2011

All connections are wired. Streaming is Ok once it's connected, for example internet radion stations. Radio Paradise is a doodle while  other stations take a little longer  to "log on" but that could be server. Main porblem really is streaming from iTunes library which is a bit of a pain (slow). It can be frustrating having to wait 20/30 seconds to jump from one  menu to another, selecting a different artist or track, etc...

All advice is good.

Thanks

Tony

 

Posted on: 04 March 2013 by mutterback
Originally Posted by Tony2011:

All connections are wired. Streaming is Ok once it's connected, for example internet radion stations. Radio Paradise is a doodle while  other stations take a little longer  to "log on" but that could be server. Main porblem really is streaming from iTunes library which is a bit of a pain (slow). It can be frustrating having to wait 20/30 seconds to jump from one  menu to another, selecting a different artist or track, etc...

All advice is good.

Thanks

Tony

 

Ah ha - think your getting towards the right problem to solve: I had the same problem when trying to host an itunes library on an NAS. I think its the NAS + iTunes combo that might be to blame, rather than your network. Is your NAS on the same switch as the Uniti? If you are going into the Unit you don't really need the itunes library on your NAS - just use the files in a directory (folders, etc.)

 

Internet radio is all over the place, as you say, it depends on the radio stations server. Old fashioned radio doesn't slow down as more people tune in....

Posted on: 05 March 2013 by Tony2011

Still working on the issue. Yes, NAS is connected to same network. Unplugged/plugged/cleaned all connections and there was a slight improvement. I tried wireless and it was a little faster when I thought, according to logic,  it would be the other way round. Perhaps  I should go completely wireless with the Airport as suggested. Any thoughts on the Airport Extreme?

Thanks

Tony