Hey guys,I know everyone in here is always playing with the latest and greatest technology. With that being said I thought I would give my report on de-wiring (if that is a word) my wired network and adding NAS in the process...I grabbed a Linksys Dual Band Draft-N gigabit Router to see how well it compared to my Linksys-G (ok, Cisco) wireless router.http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c...d=2396123413L05So to my furthest point in the house; my spare bedroom where I have a spare system for guests I was getting low-medium signal in G with 24-34 as peak bandwidth. When I swapped it out for the new Draft-N I got 290 on initial boot. I actually had to do a double take. My wireless network at its longest run from the AP was seeing almost 3x my wired bandwidth. I am a believer. Granted my external bandwidth is still limited to my broadband but the internal network is just screaming.Combine this with the fact that I am now utilizing my gig interfaces on my wired boxes, was able to convert one of my USB drives to a NAS device and will probably throw my printer onto this device and I am happy with the upgrade...So for everyone who has stared at those boxes in Circuit City, Best Buy, Staples, Office Max etc... and wondered can it really be that much faster: Yes!Enjoy the info folks... -PaulPrimary RigLiquid CooledIntel C2D E8500 468X9.5 @ 4.45Asus Maximus Extreme2 gigs OCZ Reaper DDR3 @1400Dual OC'd XFX 8800GTX @ 2 gigs24 inch Widescreen LCD 16XAA/16XAFDual 19 inch LCD'sRaid-0+1PCPower and Cooling 1k Quad SLIhttp://home.comcast.net/~psolk/3monitorsa.htmlBackup RigAMD 4000 San Diego @ 2.72 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2XFX 7900 GTX Raid-0

Cool!lol, about your first line:"I know everyone in here is always playing with the latest and greatest technology"My first thought before I even clicked on your thread was "Paul always has the latest n greatest" LOL!!

How did you check the bandwidth of a network connection?

Task manager's Networking tab will show the action. It shows in percentage of total bandwidth available. I wanted to run a wireless house. I setup 2 remote machines with my -G router. I figured 54Mb/s should do it. After all, my internet connection was only 5Mb/s. Boy did I learn. Those are little "b"s. To put things in perspective, recent-past harddives can transfer at about 50MB/s, but notice it's a BIG "B." 50MB/s is the same as (50 x 8 = ) 400Mb/s (notice the little "b"). If my HD can internally transfer to my system at 400Mb (aka 50MB), the network can only use 1/8th of my HD's capability. Using the Network for file transfer, (etc) is going to 'feel' 85% slower . . . because it IS 85% slower! Considering the same dynamic from Network side, a 54Mb/s router can transfer data at (54Mb / 8 ~ ) 7MB/s. That's the same transfer rate as my HD from 1995! It was slow then, it became beyond pain as I tried to use the network for computer-to-computer tasks. I was used to the 'feel' of (at least) a 50MB/s harddrive. I thought I'd be able to zip movies and pics between networked users in a very normal fashion. Well, at 7MB/s I gave up right quick. Thankfully, the 2 main boxes were withing Ethernet cable reach of the router. I ran some cable and plugged them in. That provided 1Gb/s transfer rate (That's what Gigabite Ethernet means). Still a little "b" but 1Gb / 8 = a very usable 125MB/s transfer rate. Just as another for-instance: The new Seagate -11 HDs are finally about there at 110MB/s transfers. A Gigabit Ethernet network is very close to having a remote HD plugged into your (using) machine.Now we have the wireless N. Gettin' a whole lot better than that wireless G network. The N advertises 300Mb/s transfers. Still a little "b" but we're gaining on it. 300 / 8 ~ 38MB/s. Now we have wireless networks that operate as if they were ribbon-cable-direct (old PATA) from my old WD160GB harddrive from 2000. Hey, they still work just fine.We're making progress.