Wireless N Router advice...

[glasswave]

I need a new router. My current router is a net gear 802.11 G. My piece of crap iPad 2 can't pick up the signal from my br (35 feet away). Even tho' all other devices see full bars. Wireless N should give more range. My laptop is having trouble playing HD Videos over the network from my peer to peer shared drive.

Environment:

Single floor basement with cement outer walls and sheet rock of panel inner walls, no insulation. 40 x 30' space.

Main system:

Self build Win7-64, i7 3930K six core, 32GB, gtx 660ti, 2 ea. - Samsung 830 256GB ssd's + Direct attached storage (DAS)

Other HW:

Macbook Pro late 2013, i74960hq, 16 gb, gt 750m, 1TB ssd, wireless N

Dell m4500 2010, i7 2 core, 8gb, 500GB, Quadro 001.1 or so , Seagate Hybrid 500GB, wireless G

iPAD 2, Razr Maxx HD

I am building a 12GB RAID 5 array (9GB data/3GB parity) for video editing data storage, Right now I am using an external eSATA 3TB that is fairly full.

Uses:

wireless internet -- my connection speed is 32-40 Mb/s down and 8 to 16 Mb/s up

drive sharing/media playing -- Vids mp3s and flacs

Printer sharing

All advice is appreciated....

I'd like to play hd 1080p videos from my RAID array on my MBP and or my Dell as well as stream audio to my RAZR Maxx from the RAID array.

I figure that wireless n should cover my needs. I have decided that I might as well spring for gigabit wired ethernet, since my MBP could be hooked up for disc transfers.

My questions are:
Will dual band be a significant feature?
Should I only consider 600Mb/s routers or is 300Mb/s just as good?
Do I need a router that has special feature for streaming like DLNA?

I lean toward Netgear, just due to good luck so far, I am considering routers priced $50, $75 or $100:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122334

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122326

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1JX0PC7874

 

[bill001g]

Mostly the numbers don't matter since they are all higher than your internet and you should never stream high def video over even the best wireless.

The fastest wireless speeds you will get will be based which is slower the router or your end devices. Your dell will still only be able to run 54m max or whatever it is because it is g...it will to a small extent limit the speed of other devices. For best performance you want to disable the support of b/g equipment in a N router but this means all your equipment must be N. I would consider replacing the nic in this device.

Then you other wireless N equipment will only run as fast as they have the option. If you devices cannot do 300 or 450 then you are pretty much wasting money buy a router that can run that.

You want to run as much wired as you can just because it is very stable but it also reduces competition for wireless bandwidth for device you cannot run wired.

 

[glasswave]

Thank you for your response.

Mostly the numbers don't matter since .... you should never stream high def video over even the best wireless.

Can you elaborate on this statement please? The routers talk about being ideal for media streaming. The router makers boast of their media features. I suppose I could copy them to my local drive first. But really why should I have to? It's not like I have others that are using my network.

The fastest wireless speeds you will get will be based which is slower the router or your end devices. Your dell will still only be able to run 54m max or whatever it is because it is g...it will to a small extent limit the speed of other devices. For best performance you want to disable the support of b/g equipment in a N router but this means all your equipment must be N. I would consider replacing the nic in this device.
.

I don't know how much I'll use the Dell once my new MBP is setup. Probably very little if I am going to slow down my network. Tell me, if I use the Dell to surf the net, print or something, when I log off the network will I have to reboot the entire network or will it simply notice the slow device is no longer connected and jump back up to wireless N? BTW, I thought dual band was so I could connect to slower and faster devices at the same time?

Then your other wireless N equipment will only run as fast as they have the option. If you devices cannot do 300 or 450 then you are pretty much wasting money buy a router that can run that.

You want to run as much wired as you can just because it is very stable but it also reduces competition for wireless bandwidth for device you cannot run wired.

How do I tell how fast my MBP, iPad 2 and Razr Maxx HD can run?

Thanks

 

[bill001g]

The router manufactures SAY all kinds of things to get you to buy their product. They assume you are running in their nice isolated perfect lab situations. Wireless is subject to random interference by many different things. This causes data loss and delays in the transmission. Things like web surfing tolerate this very well since you seldom see the delays. Streaming video on the other hand is one of the most sensitive to any kind of loss or delays. Even very tiny fractions of a second of delay can be detected by the person watching. It is one of the worst application to run on a wireless connection.

Running a G device mixed with N devices will causes a slow down. It does switch back and forth trying to accommodate both but it does have a impact on the N users. It has much less impact when all the G devices are off. There is some fixed overhead just because it is still listening for g devices. The dual band is mostly used to solve the overcrowding of the 2.4g radio band. Too many people have routers and they all stomp all over each other causing interference in the 2.4g band. The 5g band give more channels to choose from but it too is getting very saturated. The 5g band is good and bad. Its ability to go though walls is much less than 2.4g. This is bad when you need it to cover more of your own house but good when you want to prevent a neighbors signal from coming into yours.

You will have to go look up the specs on each device. Most N devices can run at least 150 they need multiple antenna to run the 300 or 450.