Best router for NDX, US and apple products

The T-Link ethernet switch arrived yesterday. Plugged the long cable from the Apple Extreme into the box and the short ones from the Mac Mini and SuperUniti in as well, plugged it into the wall  and.... The bloodly thing works! Hi-res is no longer dropping (24/96). And all for less than £15! I should state here the previously the Mini was wi-fi to the Extreme and the SU wired.

Simon, Xmas has come early here.

Many thanks

Neil

Hi Simon:

Have a same similar internet setup to the ones you mentioned:

DSL bb ---> router--->ethernet switch ---> a.) router (living room) 

                                                           ---->b.) router (masters room)

If I plan on connecting my NAS and streamer to the switch (is this the right approach?), will the addition of two routers for wifi use in the house slow down the streaming of the hi-fi equipments? I have many outlets for wired use connected to the switch but only the two routers are used for wifi and CCTV purposes. All are just there for future use, i.e. guests with a laptop using wired internet connection. 

Merry Christmas Everyone! 

Before the original question gets lost, albeit it's been answered at least once, in my personal experience the Apple Airport Extreme, or it's cousin the Time Capsule, are excellent wireless routers.  Although not used for music streaming in my home, the wifi they provide is heads and shoulders above anything else I've tried.  And they can be 'linked' together with no detriment to speed.

At Simon:

Thank you for your reply. No, I use routers on point A and B but with different SSID. one router downstairs is not enough to get the signal upstairs that's why I use two. Now the first part gets a little confusing. Is it right to put the router first before going to the ethernet switch to setup security for the whole network? At least right from the DSL bb I can already put a password entering the switch then throughout the house. 

if Im using say my NAS and naim streamer connected via ethernet switch, then somebody is using wifi through routers A and B upstairs, will it affect my streaming capabilities? Thank you all for your suggestions. I know I can answer this once I setup my NAS and streaming device but as of the moment, still finalizing between NDX or cheaper streamer(sonos)  into nDAC. 

Marley, I'm no expert (and that is my disclaimer!).  This is one area where Apple Airport Extremes work really well -- creating an extended wifi network in your home by linking two of them together. I believe that using Apple's linking scheme that there is some loss of speed, but Im quite happy with my throughput and see very fast speeds using online speedtests.  And when walking through the house with an iPhone, etc., there is no need for it to change wifi networks.

Also, with your current setup of 2 wifi networks, are they on different channels?  That would be important to do, I believe.

Ok, since connecting the ethernet switch things have been great except for one thing.....

The Mac Mini no longer goes into 'sleep' mode when it has been inactive for a preselected time duration (15 mins). Anyone got any ideas? The switch is 'unmanaged'. Does that make a difference?

Many thanks

Neil

You can set if the mini is awake for ethernet access in the energy savings part of the preferences.

However at use it uses something pathetic like 30 watts and it silent. I have a mini for full AV duties and I don't think its slept in 6 months. I have though.

Marley

As you are using routers connected to the access points and not simply attaching wireless Access Points to the switch, thats quite a complex setup..  which routing protocol are you using? or are you using statics? I tend to use EIGRP on internal routers - but yes its limited to Cisco.  If you are using routers then the broadcast traffic will not obviously go  between the different subnets. I gues your routers are IGMP aware? As they will need to forward the / handle the multicast across the subnets. How are you forwarding the broadcast between routed subnets? I have had had all sorts of challanges with uPnP and Apple air port across subnets. In the end I have used flat network (single switched subnet) for my media to get round those issues.  I guess it must be  working for you.

Of course if you are routing across multiple subnets each subnet is independent - and wont have any affect on each other apart from the forwarded packets.

If you were using a flat network with Wifi access points off the switch, then you clearly you would have a single subnet, and multicast and broadcast traffic would be shared across the subnet despite your wireless networks having seperate SSIDs. Therefore any traffic on the wireless network that was heavy in muticast or broadcast could affect the throughout in the switched ethernet. However unless you were close to max network capapcity this is unlikely to be noticed.

Cheers

Simon

Cheers Gary.

Just twigged - I changed the Hard Drive for a Solid State Drive (music is stored on an external HD), do these sleep like normal drives?

Thanks

Neil