Tough choices lie ahead for home networking

UP UNTIL recently, I haven't been really inclined to beef up the speed of my home network. The PCs and laptops are connected at various rates of 10 to 14 Mbps, with a mix of IOGear and NETGEAR PowerLine adaptors spread out across the house. I've got an old HP LaserJet II 4 Plus hooked up using a Linksys 802.11g wireless print server and everything goes out of the house through a Linksys 802.11g wireless router.

Why PowerLine? Two reasons: Security and no interference. I don't have to worry about how far I'm blasting signal or if my neighbours see my access point or if some guy with a cantenna is doing a drive-by to see if he can crack my encryption. I also don't have to worry about extraneous RF sources such as cordless phones, microwave ovens, and all of my neighbour's Wi-Fi devices, clobbering out my theoretical max data rates.

Going outside of the house, the current bottleneck in all of this is the combination of the router and my cable modem service - clocking at 5 Mbps downstream, and 2 Mbps upstream. According to Cox, there's also a whistle called "PowerBoost" that gives me up to 50 per cent faster downloads if the bandwidth on the network is available. I haven't seen any difference in my downloads, but it's not like there's a big flashing light or roaring engine sound that goes off so I'd be aware of the feature.

Instead, the drive for upgrading speed is on the home LAN side. I'd really like to implement a home server for centralised storage and backup. Sure, there's a lot of future happy talk about being able to stream video anywhere in the house, blah-blah, but since my Series 2 TiVO is lucky to make its cheap Ethernet port break into a sweat, it's not worth the trouble.

Microsoft and HP's announcement of a Home Server has piqued my interest, but Microsoft has put down minimum system requirements of 100 Mbps wired Ethernet along with running either Windows XP SP2 or - gag - Windows Vista. There's also some fine print floating around about some features "only available with "Windows Vista Business (or higher) systems, making the only way to get certain features is through Vista Ultimate."

Microsoft is also saying that you have to go wired into the router. From there, you can go wireless to wherever you want. It's an interesting twist and makes sense from a design standpoint. Everything goes to the router on a wire, so it should, in theory, get the max data rates of the router.

Along this line, the first upgrade to my home LAN should be a faster router, of the Gigabit Ethernet flavor. Like it or not, the only way to get a home Gigabit Ethernet router is to buy one that is kitted out for Draft 802.11n wireless so the first check is to D-Link, Linksys or NETGEAR. Call it around $200 list for the upgraded router.

The next step is to go buy some HomePlug AV devices. I'm planning on two desktop boxes, one laptop, and one for the Gigabit router. Zyxel's PLA-400 device is supposed to run at $114 a pop, but you can't find one to save your life. Maybe they'll start shipping in February 2007 in conjunction with the PC World review here, cited by PowerLine chip maker Intellon. Linksys says it'll be offering a pair of their PowerLine AV boxes for $179.99 street price. Amazon has them listed, but "This item is currently not available." So, for four PowerLine AV boxes, we're talking between $360 to $400ish.

Total cost for boxes will run me list price around $560 to $600. I'm sure the more macho out there would say "Screw it, run Cat-5 or Cat-6" but I'm not feeling too ambitious to start fishing through the walls of the house. I'd have to buy cable, plates, and crimp and cut and wire, so when you start knocking off the parts and tool costs for all that, then factor in the time involved, buying the boxes starts looking to be like a bargain.

Once I've got everything running at higher speed, then I can choose to either buy an off-the-shelf thing or blow the dust off the server I built once upon a time and see if that meets my needs. List price on a Seagate Mirra 500 GB server is $600 and they have them on the shelf at BestBuy. Whenever it ships, NETGATE Storage Central Turbo is a rather comely device with some serious theoretical speed - it has a GigE Ethernet port in it, plus can hold two 3.5 inch SATA drives. Price? Who knows.

And HP MediaSmart Home Server? Well, that's another who knows, but with a Windows code load and HP's markup, it's likely to be expensive. µ