NASLite Network Attached Storage

I have my NASLITE wired into my Netgear DG834G along with my desktop. I stream movies & music to my XBox wirelessly.

When talking desktop to NAS I get network utilisation of around 50-65% on 100mb cards. If I added a Netgear GS605 gigabit switch and a GA311 gigabit NIC to the NAS and desktop would I see a substantial increase in network transfer speeds? (Or are processors, disk drives, etc limiting throughput to 60mbps?)

My Home network is based around a GS605 gigabit switch with my DG834GT router BLOCKED_WORD to the switch and all my pc's including the NAS connected to the switch with GA311 cards, I kinda like Netgear stuff. I have struggled to get real use from the gigabit transfer speeds to and from the NAS the general consensus from the forum was the IDE speed in my NAS wasn't up to the rest of the network, I am trying to get round to changing my NAS box to a more up to date spec that will give me bettert transfer speeds but a new kitchen before christmas is getting in the way at the moment

My advice though is to go with the gigabit upgrade, its not horrendously expensive ebuyer were selling the GS605 for £20 yesterday but do check as ebuyers prices rise and fall like the tide and at about £15 for a GA311 it will be a good future proof set up that can only help your network perform better. I used to use a modded xbox as a media player and played music and ripped dvd's no problem on my old 100mbps network. I plan to put the xbox back in the system at some point but I will wire it direct into the router as the xbox only has 100mbps network connection

Good luck

Cheers for that. What sort of network utilisation do you get if you, say, copy a 700mb divx from NAS to pc?

Looking forward to the Xbox 360 as I can get my existing xbox booting direct into XBMC. Just a shame that the 360 appears to only stream from an XP pc's My Music, My Pictures folder. Mine are on the NAS which means my pc would have to be on.

BTW is it a case of just putting a cable between the 834g and the gs605 to bridge them?

Hi simonq156,

Network transfers between PC and NAS were very up and down, they had a heart beat monitor type appearance, I get between 50mbps and 0mbps transfer but PC to PC across the network I was getting 105mbps+. I used a little program called netmeter which actually shows me the transfer rate, a little different to the method your using regards network utilisation.

As regards the connection of your router into the GS605 its dead simple, yes you just connect em up via a patch lead, CAT5e will suffice as your router is only 100mbps the switch is autouplink sensing so you don't need to enable any specific ports as the uplink. Then connect all your gigabit pc's into the GS605 and away you go.

I have a print server (Netgear again) connected into my router and also my XBOX will go into it as they only have 100mbps ports. My HTPC, office PC and NASbox all connect into the switch, I also have a wall socket in the spare room where I do a bit of system building connected up so I can access the network for installing any software I have backed up on my NAS.

The XBOX 360 does look very swish but I'll stick with my HTPC and chuck the XBOX into the conservatory and use it as a media serving for playing MP3's in the garden when the summer comes and the BBQ can be brought back out of hibernation

wilbur