Re: gigbit router for home?

Gigabit nics tend to have MUCH larger buffers (cache) so that may well be
the source of your improvement, plugging in a nic with more cache into your
cable modem. You're not likely to see improvements switching more of your
PCs to giga-bit, even if you don't change your other networking equipment,
counter-intuitive, but holds out in benchmarking.

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 7:57 AM, Jason Klein <[email protected]> wrote:

> David,
>
> You need to consider which Cox internet speed are you subscribing to.
>  They are currently offering 1mb/s, 3mb/s, 18mb/s, 35mb/s, and 55mb/s
> packages but you could be grandfathered into an old package with a
> different speed (ie: 8mb/s, 12mb/s, etc).  If you don't know what speed you
> have, go to a website like Speed Test (http://www.speedtest.net/) and
> find out.  Assuming you're not using your Internet connection to watch
> movies or download large files during the speed test, the results are
> usually fairly accurate.
>
> You also need to consider the model of cable modem you were using before
> the upgrade.  There's a chance that your previous cable modem was old
> enough that it still had a 10BASE-T Ethernet connection (approx 8mb/s
> throughput).  Simply replacing the modem may have eliminated a
> bottleneck if your Cox subscription includes more than 10mb/s of
> throughput.  In most cases, this would be a noticeable improvement.
>
> We subscribe to 18mb/s service.  I upgraded from an older cable modem with
> 10/100mb/s Ethernet to a Motorola DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem with
> 10/100/1000mb/s Ethernet earlier this year and also felt an improvement in
> speed even though the old cable modem shouldn't have been a bottleneck in
> my case.  It could also be that these newer modems just perform better
> overall?
>
> Until you are able to subscribe to 100mb/s or faster service from Cox, I
> doubt you would notice an improvement in *Internet* speeds by upgrading
> your home switches/hubs from 100mb/s to 1000mb/s (gigabit).  However, if
> you copy a lot of media (videos, cd images, dvd images, etc) between
> computers in your home, you could notice an improvement in *local*transfer speeds between those computers by upgrading from 100mb/s to
> 1000mb/s.  Most computers are able to transfer data across the local
> network at speeds greater than 100mb/s, but few computers can take
> advantage of the full 1000mb/s (gigabit) speed because their hard drives
> become the bottleneck.  Most hard disks are only rated for 30-40M/s (or
> 240-320mb/s) of throughput.
>
> In short, the gigabit devices are becoming reasonable enough that it's
> probably worth upgrading, but you probably won't notice a performance
> difference unless you're moving a lot of data between your local computers.
>
> Jason
>
>
> On Dec 21, 2011, at 1:15 AM, David Carmichael wrote:
>
> Hey all you network masterminds...
>
> Would I notice an difference in a home setting using a COX cable modem if
> I changed all my in home routers/hubs to 1000/100/10 routers?
>
> OR
>
> Are my current 10/100 routers faster enough for anything that I would get
> via cable internet service currently.
>
> The reason for my question is... I finally updated my six year old "G"
> gateway to a new: Cisco DPC3825 DOCSIS 3.0 / "N" Gateway  : which
> has Four 1000/100/10BASE-T Ethernet connections.
>
> I have noticed a marked improvement for the wireless devices... even tho I
> had a "N" router set up in part of the house anyway.... Now I just need to
> update one other device to "N"
>
> :David
>
>