Need some advice/info

seamus

Despite the fact that I've posted here B4, Nets/Comms is certainly not my forte.
So; If I had 2 comps, 1 tower, 1 lappie, and wanted to connect them for large info transfer (~500megs), what is the best?
I heard of connecting using an RS232 cable, but is that through LPT1(don't laugh) or do I have to put in another com port? Or would 2 network cards and an ethernet cable be the way to go? Maybe It would be cheaper to just buy an external Zip drive?
Money is my main concern, so as long as it's faster than using 3.5" floppies, I don't really care about the speed. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

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"There is a race between mankind and the universe. Mankind is trying to build bigger, better, faster, and more foolproof machines. The universe is trying to build bigger, better, and faster fools. So far the universe is winning." - Albert Einstein

flamegrill

2 of these GF100TXR Genius PCI 10/100MB Network Card IR£17.84 from itdirect.ie and get the cabling from them aswell.

Network Cable, UTP Category 5 (priced per meter) IR£0.36

seamus

Cheers, actually now u mention UTP, what's the story with that? Good old Comp Sci lecturer told us that it's what's used in standard phone lines, emm, maybe, but surely it's more technical than that? U mention catergory 5 - is there different pair widths/material types?

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"There is a race between mankind and the universe. Mankind is trying to build bigger, better, faster, and more foolproof machines. The universe is trying to build bigger, better, and faster fools. So far the universe is winning." - Albert Einstein

Xterminator

I dont know the science, but with Cat cables, you plug 1 end in 1 plug, and the other end in the other plug, and bobs ..etc

But when we were setting up a network in the new building, which is setup for cat 6, you have to put the correct end in the correct device or it dont work.

If some one wants to explain ..thats good .. but Cat 5 = simple to use.

X

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"Man, you go through life, you try to be nice to people, you struggle against the urge to punch ‘em in the face, and for what?! For some pimply little puke to treat you like dirt unless you're on a team. Well I'm better than dirt ... well most kinds of dirt. I mean, not that fancy, store-bought dirt. That stuff’s loaded with nutrients. I …I can't compete with that stuff."
-Moe Szyslak

amen

I might be wrong but i think the main difference is that standard telephone cables consist of 2 sets of twisted pairs and have a maximum data rate of 1Mbps.

Cat 5 on the other hand consists of 4 sets of twisted pairs and supports a maximum data rate of 100Mbps

Jaden

Most phone cables will support 2Mbps, and higher, but it's only rated to 1. It's generally 2 pair cored wire to, but you can get it up to 16pair.

CAT5 cable is 4 pair twisted differential cable, which means that the 8 wires inside have been manufactured to a specific standard, from a specific material on a specific thickness, and wound together in such a way, that a certai nconnection sequence will guarantee 100Mbps data rate transfers. Within the CAT5 standard, there are different catagories of the standard, depending on application. CAT6 was designed to support 250Mbps and 500Mbps data transfers, with the CAT6 1Gbps patch cables available (but only over shorter lengths). The cable only working with the correct end plugged into the correct device is something I've never seen (my house is wired with CAT6), but I'm guessing it has something to do with line impedence matching.

Anyway, you won't see a piece of hardware in the mainstream that actually uses that kinda of data rate for about 5 to 10 years anyway.

Incidently, If your're looking for 2 NiCs and a patch cable crossed over to join them up, I can sort you out fairly cheaply. If both machines have a spare ISA slot, then 2 cards and a cable, say 4 meter, I could do for 20 quid.

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Hail To The King, Baby.

Jaden.
Mail: jaden@eircom.net

WhiteWashMan

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by flamegrill:
2 of these GF100TXR Genius PCI 10/100MB Network Card IR£17.84 from itdirect.ie and get the cabling from them aswell.

Network Cable, UTP Category 5 (priced per meter) IR£0.36 </font>

that cable has to be a crossover cable, unless you are going to use a hub.
or you can get a null modem cable which you use with your serial ports and does basically the same thing without having to install network cards.
i think.....

Gavin

Quickest and actually probably easiest would be the netowrk option i'd say.

Null-Modem cables are around 14quid last time I used one. They use the rs232 (serial) port on your pc to connect. You can use windows direct cable connnection to link them, or a dos program. Can't remember the name of it off the top of my head now. Comes in a client and server version. The max transfer is around 115kb i think.... Not sure about that at all.

Faster again is a paralell connection. This goes between the paralell ports obviously enough. Look for a laplink cable in peats/itdirect/maplins/whoever.

Best off is probably the network option as above. Save time and the network cards will prove useful in the future. ( I think jaden has pcmcia networks cards for sale as well )

Gav

elexes

dont bother with the null modem

just get the crossover cable big speed difference .