Why is Gigabit still expensive?

wweboy

So I've been looking to upgrade my network from 10 / 100 to gigabit. Right now I'm running a Linksys WRV200 to two 5 port switches.

I'm looking to get a gigabit router and a 16 port switch. I've notice the prices are pretty expensive still, why is home gigabit cost so high?

Every major manufacture is coming out with gigabit nic cards but the price to get up and running is still pretty high. I'm looking at getting that new NetGear xtreme router with the traffic management built in.

tiersten

Fast Ethernet is good enough for most people and therefore Gigabit Ethernet is still expensive. Less demand for it and the manufacturers can charge a premium. This isn't just the manufacturer of the actual device but the manufacturer of the chips inside.

wastedtime

Also How many switches have you seen with 10 Gigabit Ethernet. That plays a facter in it too.

tiersten

wweboy wrote: »

So I've been looking to upgrade my network from 10 / 100 to gigabit.

Any particular reason? Just curious.

wweboy wrote: »

I'm looking to get a gigabit router and a 16 port switch.

Why do you need a gigabit capable router? Unless you're running 802.11n, you're not going to need it. Even then, the average home WiFi network won't be pushing that much data.

Whilst a home router may have GigE interfaces, don't expect to actually push GigE speeds through it...

A generic 16 port GigE switch isn't that bad now but it is still more expensive than a cheap 10/100 switch.

wweboy wrote: »

Every major manufacture is coming out with gigabit nic cards but the price to get up and running is still pretty high.

Not all NIC cards are equivalent. Certain chipsets are to be blunt crap. Even some 10/100 chipsets are terrible. Various designs are ancient NE2000 or DEC Tulip clones that have had extra features bolted on to support newer technologies. If you want to blow some cash on a decent card then most of the Intel NICs are good.

wweboy wrote: »

I'm looking at getting that new NetGear xtreme router with the traffic management built in.

No clue which router you're talking about here but I'd keep away from Netgear routers personally. I've had the misfortune to have to support various family members or friends with the plastic Netgear home routers and they're been extremely unreliable. Mysterious crashes or reboots, suddenly dying or just odd behaviour on every single one.

The only Netgear product I'd buy are the unmanaged non rackmount network switches that come in the little metal cases. I've never had any problems with them and they're robust.

I've previously used some of their rackmount "business" level managed switches and found them to be odd. The L3 managed switch (GSM7324) in particular to have a sudden death fault which requires a RMA to repair/replace. You get what you pay for basically...

tiersten

wastedtime wrote: »

Also How many switches have you seen with 10 Gigabit Ethernet. That plays a facter in it too.

I've seen a few switches that have 10GE interfaces but they're in the datacenter. You'd have to be rich and nuts to have anything like that at home. The original posters query is about upgrading to GigE anyway.

Forsaken_GA

tiersten wrote: »

The only Netgear product I'd buy are the unmanaged non rackmount network switches that come in the little metal cases. I've never had any problems with them and they're robust.

I've previously used some of their rackmount "business" level managed switches and found them to be odd. The L3 managed switch (GSM7324) in particular to have a sudden death fault which requires a RMA to repair/replace. You get what you pay for basically...

I've got one of the 7324's that someone gave me and told me I could have if I made it work again. It's problem is that it loses it's image every time it's power cycled. So it's relegated to boat anchor status.

At work, we use quite a few Netgear GS724T's as backend switches, and they work fine. They're cheap enough to keep spares on hand, so we don't really care if one dies, though to date none of them has. We would *never* trust them pushing traffic across the frontend network though

tiersten

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

I've got one of the 7324's that someone gave me and told me I could have if I made it work again. It's problem is that it loses it's image every time it's power cycled. So it's relegated to boat anchor status.

The problem I had with them was that the CPU would fail to enumerate the internal bus after some random period of time. This meant that the switch would suddenly fail to actually switch. If it happened whilst it was on, you'd get an endless stream of console errors about not being able to communicate with the switch chips. If you rebooted it then it'd fail to boot with an error. Once it died, it would stay that way.

Even though they're not particularly expensive (compared to other brands) I'd avoid them just because the cost of downtime to replace/repair would be too great.

The actual design isn't actually Netgear's. It is an OEM design by a company called LVL7 which was bought out by Broadcom a few years back. The chips they used were Broadcom ones. Dell and a few other companies used the same design as well so I'd be wary of those as well.

The boot loader menu was dangerous. The option to test the flash would actually erase the entire flash including product data like the serial number and model code. The boot loader was kept in a different flash so that would be safe. There is also a secret diagnostic menu in the boot loader which gives you some more options to alter settings and perform tests.

wweboy

I want gigabit in my home because I have a file server and I'm transfering multiple gigabytes by and forth and hate waiting and all the pcs in my house have a gigabit nic card I'd like to be able to use that speed.

Forsaken_GA

Unless you're setting them up on different networks, you don't need a gigabit router then. If you are, then, well, it's going to cost you. If all you're worried about is file transfer speeds between hosts, then all you need to do is toss them into the same network and hook them into a gigabit switch, the traffic never even need cross the router.

dynamik

I think he's looking at SOHO routers that just have a gigabit switch built in...

tiersten

wweboy wrote: »

I want gigabit in my home because I have a file server and I'm transfering multiple gigabytes by and forth and hate waiting and all the pcs in my house have a gigabit nic card I'd like to be able to use that speed.

Buy a cheap unmanaged GigE switch like a Netgear GS116. Anything else is overkill. Buy an 802.11n AP if you want to try and get faster WiFi.