Small but fast network - advice seeked

robbie1876

I am looking for some advice and help on the best way to setup a small (less that 6 PCs) and fast office network capable of rapid transfer of large files. My technical knowledge of networks is very limited, so 'Dummies guide to...' type replies would be appreciated!

At the moment we have a 'master' PC with about 200GB of media files, some of which are in single file sizes of over 3GB (max 8GB). There are several other PCs that need to have identical copies of this master file library. At the moment we use a USB2.0 hard drive to sync the library, and then connect the drive to the other PCs and sync to them from the hard drive. This can be time consuming (up to about 40 mins per sync).

The current 'network' basically consists of a wireless router/modem in another room (constraint of the building) with wireless interfaces in the PCs for internet access and small file transfer. Transferring the large files through the wireless router has been tried but is way too slow. I am looking for a wired solution in the main office room that can transfer the large files between PCs as fast as their hard drives can read them (all the hard drives are SATA 7200RPM in RAID 1 configs).

Basically what I'm asking is should I be looking at a Fast Ethernet solution to replace our USB drive transfer situation? Is Gigabit overkill? From what I can figure, we are looking at some kind of basic hub or switch in the main room, for the transfer of files. Somehow the hub/switch needs to also be connected to the wireless network for internet access (we want to do away with having seperate wireless interfaces for the PCs as they are unreliable), so what is the minimum equipment we need to do this?

Thanks for taking the time to read this, I welcome any help, advice and hardware recommendations.

Cheers,

Robbie

bushy...

What you want is a gigabit switch and cards for the pcs and run a cable back to the internet router too.

robbie1876

Thanks for the fast reply, bushy. Ok, gigabit switch and cards it is then, no major expense there. Running a cable to the router is not possible, unfortunately. What's the best way to do it wirelessly? I have seen wireless access points, can they be used for multiple PCs if connected to a switch?

towel401

get a powerline based connection to the router. you only need 2 of the powerline things one from the uplink port of your switch and another one into one of the ports on the router

humaxf1

powerline can be slow, but would be OK for Internet.

OP, is there anyway you can run a network cable between the switch and the router? Otherwise, a wireless bridge is probably the handiest way to connect PCs wirelessly to the router for Internet access. It acts like a wireless client/card for all the wired PCs.

mastermind2005

why cant you run the cable?, a pre-n wireless system will allow about 300mbps transfare, have you the pcs cabled up yet?, my advise is to go with a gigabit system, as over time the small extra cost will pay off in saved time,