The gigabit ethernet network operates at speed. Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express network adapter

Many Russians have already learned the delights of gigabit Ethernet. Home users in the Russian Federation increasingly prefer super-fast Internet access.

– Don’t have Gigabit Ethernet yet? Then we go to you! We'll tell you how to properly build a home network at gigabit speeds, which router to choose, what maximum speed can be achieved with the right equipment, and how much it will cost you.

Just a few years ago, Gigabit Ethernet technology was used only by telecom operators and large companies: in corporate networks, local networks, for transporting traffic over long distances, etc. Home subscribers did not even think about getting such speeds. But in 2012-2013, thanks to improvements in software and hardware, as well as the widespread use of Internet technologies, gigabit speeds became more accessible and realistic for private users. Today, almost every resident of a metropolis has the opportunity to build a network supporting Gigabit Ethernet at home.

Many will ask: “Why even have Internet at home with speeds of about 1 Gbit/s? Is megabit Internet really not enough for surfing websites, downloading movies and hanging out on social networks?

We will answer in detail.

How a home user can use Gigabit Ethernet

Russian Internet users, as well as home Internet consumers around the world, use traffic extremely actively. The volume of traffic consumed in the world is growing every month (not even a year). A few years ago we were happy with 1 Mbit/s, and even earlier we were ready to download a movie all night long to watch it later. Today, few people download videos at all; most watch them directly online. In addition, thousands of users want HD quality and are willing to pay for it. And to watch and download videos in high quality you need high-speed unlimited Internet.

Also recently, torrent television has become popular, allowing you to watch TV over the Internet, completely free. Some users have already begun to abandon cable and satellite TV, others use torrent television as a new interesting service and hope for its rapid popularization. But in any case, torrent TV requires fast Internet, and even unlimited, otherwise this venture will cost more than regular cable.

A very important segment of broadband Internet consumers are gamers who play online. Today there are many online games for which young people (and not only) upgrade their PCs and pay for unlimited Internet with high connection speeds. Moreover, the release of a new cult game Survarium from the creators of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is planned for the end of 2013. This will be an online game with free accounts. Considering how many Russians played the legendary S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Internet providers should prepare for a new influx of subscribers willing to pay for faster and more expensive Internet access. And users can start preparing now – and gigabit Internet can be the first step in this preparation.

In a word, finding the use of Gigabit Ethernet in a home network is very simple if you are an IT advanced person and use modern technologies to the fullest.

Real Gigabit Ethernet speed - where's the catch?

The phrase “Gigabit Internet” sounds big, but will you really get the 1Gbps minimum? In fact, such a speed is achieved only in ideal conditions; it is impossible to get it at home, even if you install equipment that supports Gigabit Ethernet, configure everything as it should, and order a gigabit package from your provider. Of course, you will get a speed 1 thousand times higher than with 1 Mbit/s, because the same restrictions apply for megabit Internet. But let's calculate what your Internet access speed will be.

We will calculate using ordinary arithmetic, according to the “standard” approach. In addition, for simplicity, we will round up: 1 kilobit = 1000 bits, not 1024 bits. In this case, 1 Gigabit is equal to 1000 megabits. But on a hard drive, information is not stored in bits, but in bytes - larger units. As everyone knows, 1 byte = 8 bits. For convenience, the volume of information and the speed at which it is transmitted are usually calculated in different units, and this often confuses the user, causing him to expect more than is actually the case.

Thus, the transfer speed of real files will be 8 times slower than what the ISP says, since ISPs and speed testing programs count the bits. Our 1 Gbps (1,000,000,000 bps) turns into 125,000,000 bytes (divided by 8). It turns out that 1 Gbit/s = 125 MB/s.

But the problem is that a home user, due to various circumstances that are not always dependent on him, actually receives only about 30% of the ideal 125 MB/s. That is, we already get about 37 MB/s. This is all that remains of 1 Gbit/s. But if we look at this figure in comparison with 1 Mbit/s, we will still get 1 thousand times faster Internet.

Home network equipment for Gigabit Ethernet

Today it is quite possible to create conditions for a Gigabit Ethernet network at home. Moreover, if you have a modern PC, then you will not need a very large re-equipment, and it will not cost as much as it might seem at first glance. The most important thing to do is make sure that all your major devices support Gigabit Ethernet. After all, if at least one of them is not designed for such speeds, then in the end you will get a maximum of 100 Mbit/s.

If you want to achieve gigabit speeds, then you will need the following equipment that supports 1 Gbps:

• router supporting Gigabit Ethernet;
• network card (Ethernet adapter, network adapter);
• Network Controller;
• hub/switch;
• HDD;
• cables must be rated for 1 Gbps.

Each of the listed devices is an important link in the network, and the final data transfer speed depends on each. So let's take a closer look at each of them.

Wi-Fi router. You need a gigabit router, i.e. with Gigabit Ethernet support. These routers are slightly more expensive than megabit routers, because they are designed for higher speeds. In principle, there are enough offers on the market under the brands Asus, TP-LINK, D-Link, etc. But base your choice not only on the list of functions, characteristics and design. Be sure to look at forums (at least 5) with reviews from real consumers to make sure that the router will work long and reliably.

LAN card. This device can be integrated into the motherboard or separate. The network adapter for a gigabit network must support Gigabit Ethernet. If your PC is more than 2-3 years old, then most likely the network card is outdated and does not support such high speeds. If you recently purchased a computer, then it is quite possible that you will not have to upgrade the network adapter. But in any case, check the specifications of your specific network card for compatibility with the Gigabit Ethernet network.

Network Controller. If you are building a home network, then it is important that each computer on this network has a gigabit controller. Otherwise, only those PCs that have one will get sufficient speeds. Like the network card, the network controller can be separate or integrated into the motherboard. Typically, modern PCs are equipped with controllers that support 1 Gbit/s by default. So it's possible that you won't have to modify anything for Gigabit Ethernet.

Hub/switch. This is one of the most expensive components of a home network. Often it is already in the router. But check if it supports gigabit speeds. Important! A switch is more efficient than a hub because it routes data to only one specific port, while a hub routes data to everything at once. Using a switch, you can significantly save resources without wasting it on unnecessary ports.

HDD. This may seem strange to some, but the hard drive seriously affects the speed of Internet access. The fact is that it is the hard drive that sends data to the network controller, and how quickly you can transmit and receive data depends on their quality connection. It is desirable that the controller has a PCI Express (PCIe) interface rather than PCI. And the hard drive should have a SATA connector, not an IDE connector, since the latter supports too low speeds.

Network cable. Naturally, cable is an important part of a home gigabit network. You can choose twisted-pair cables of the Cat 5 and Cat 5e categories (used for laying telephone lines and local networks - they are sufficient for Gigabit Ethernet) or pay a little extra and take a Cat 6 cable (specially designed for Gigabit Ethernet and Fast Ethernet). The length of the twisted pair should be no more than 100 m, otherwise the signal begins to fade and the required Internet connection speed cannot be achieved. In addition, when placing cables in an apartment, please note that it is not advisable to lay them next to power supply wires (read more about the reasons).

And the last important factor for organizing a Gigabit Ethernet home network is software. The operating system on the PC must be more recent. If it's Windows, then no earlier than Windows 2000 (and even then you'll have to dig into the settings). Versions of XP, Vista, Windows 7 support gigabit Internet by default, so there should be no problems. With other operating systems, additional configuration may be necessary.

Top 5 best home Wi-Fi routers,
supporting Gigabit Ethernet, 2013

1. ASUS RT-N66U– an excellent model, powerful and reliable. Operates simultaneously in two frequency ranges - 2.4 and 5 GHz. We are pleased with the high data transfer speed – 900 Mbit/s is stated. Perfect for building a home Gigabit Ethernet network. But you need to reflash it to improve performance and get rid of a number of problems that arise with native firmware. However, most routers require flashing immediately or shortly after purchase. The cost is about 4.5-5 thousand rubles.

2. D-Link DIR-825 - not a bad choice. This is a 2-band router, quite “stuffed”. Operating frequencies: 2.4 and 5 GHz; Simultaneous use of both is possible. This router has the best price-quality ratio on the market. Among the advantages is a wide Wi-Fi distribution channel (can accommodate up to 50 subscribers). From the point of view of users, the most noticeable disadvantage is the bright LED display of the device, but this is rather a matter of taste rather than the quality of the device. As for the firmware, you can leave the original one, but to improve performance it is recommended to reflash it. Router price: about 3 thousand rubles.

3. TP-LINK TL-WDR4300 – a very fast router, perfect for home networks. The manufacturer claims a maximum data transfer rate of 750 Mbit/s. One of the important advantages of this model over many others is the ability to simultaneously use two frequency bands: 2.4 and 5 GHz. Thanks to this, users can simultaneously connect to the Internet from phones, smartphones, and from a laptop, PC or tablet. Another advantage of this model is that it comes with fairly powerful antennas that allow you to distribute the Internet via Wi-Fi over a distance of more than 200 m. But in order for all this to function normally, it is better to change the firmware from the factory. Thanks to a number of manipulations with the software, the device will work much better. Model price: about 3 thousand rubles.

4. Zyxel Keenetic Giga is a good router with several useful features. Its main disadvantage is that the router only operates in one frequency range – 2.4 GHz. But at the same time, the speed is sufficient to watch IP television, use torrent networks (there is a built-in torrent client) and other “gluttonous” services. Zyxel Keenetic Giga is equipped with powerful antennas, which allows you to create Wi-Fi networks (by the way, the device supports all Wi-Fi standards) with a large range. The router is quite easy to set up, but the firmware, as with most routers, will have to be changed. Another plus is that the device is relatively inexpensive - from 3 to 4 thousand rubles.

5. TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND – a fairly powerful and cheap gigabit router. True, it has several disadvantages. Firstly, it only works in the 2.4 GHz band, which is not very convenient. Secondly, it is more suitable for experienced users, since the native firmware, as in many cases, is not very good, and flashing this model can be difficult. But all this is more than compensated for by the reliability and power of this router. The maximum data transfer rate is 300 Mbit/s. The device earns its money, since the price of the model is only 2 thousand rubles.

Decide if your network needs to be upgraded.

• If you and your family members regularly download large files, stream media on the Internet, or perform other tasks that place a heavy load on your network, such as a file hosting server, or play online games, you would be happy to invest in upgrading to Gigabit Ethernet.
• Medium and large enterprises require many users to be connected over a network and simultaneously increase their productivity.
• Individuals who use the Internet alone for non-resource-intensive networking tasks like email, instant messaging, or web surfing may not see the benefit of upgrading network access to Gigabit Ethernet.

I was in no rush to upgrade my home network from 100Mbps to 1Gbps, which is quite strange for me since I transfer a lot of files over the network. However, when I spend money on a computer or infrastructure upgrade, I believe I should get an immediate performance boost in the apps and games I run. Many users like to treat themselves with a new video card, central processor and some gadget. However, for some reason, networking equipment does not attract such enthusiasm. Indeed, it is difficult to invest the money you earn in network infrastructure instead of another technological birthday gift.

However, my bandwidth requirements are very high, and at one point I realized that a 100 Mbit/s infrastructure was no longer enough. All of my home computers already have integrated 1 Gbps adapters (on their motherboards), so I decided to take the price list of the nearest computer company and see what I would need to convert my entire network infrastructure to 1 Gbps.

No, a home gigabit network is not that complicated at all.

I bought and installed all the equipment. I remember that it used to take about a minute and a half to copy a large file over a 100 Mbps network. After an upgrade to 1 Gbit/s, the same file began to be copied in 40 seconds. The performance increase was pleasantly pleasing, but still I did not get the tenfold improvement that could be expected from comparing the throughput of 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps of the old and new networks.

What is the reason?

For a gigabit network, all parts must support 1 Gbps. For example, if you have Gigabit network cards and associated cables installed, but the hub/switch only supports 100 Mbps, then the entire network will operate at 100 Mbps.

The first requirement is a network controller. It is best if each computer on the network is equipped with a gigabit network adapter (separate or integrated on the motherboard). This requirement is the easiest to satisfy, since most motherboard manufacturers have been integrating gigabit network controllers for the last couple of years.

The second requirement is that the network card must also support 1 Gbit/s. There is a common misconception that gigabit networks require Cat 5e cable, but in fact even old Cat 5 cable supports 1 Gbps. However, Cat 5e cables have better characteristics, so they will be a more optimal solution for gigabit networks, especially if the cables are of a decent length. However, Cat 5e cables are still the cheapest today, since the old Cat 5 standard is already outdated. Newer and more expensive Cat 6 cables offer even better performance for gigabit networks. We'll compare the performance of Cat 5e vs Cat 6 cables later in our article.

The third and probably most expensive component in a gigabit network is the 1 Gbps hub/switch. Of course, it is better to use a switch (perhaps paired with a router), since a hub or hub is not the most intelligent device, simply broadcasting all network data on all available ports, which leads to a large number of collisions and slows down network performance. If you need high performance, then you cannot do without a gigabit switch, since it forwards network data only to the desired port, which effectively increases the network speed compared to a hub. A router usually contains a built-in switch (with multiple LAN ports) and also allows you to connect your home network to the Internet. Most home users understand the benefits of a router, so a gigabit router is a very attractive option.

How fast should gigabit be? If you hear the prefix "giga", you probably mean 1000 megabytes, while a gigabit network should provide 1000 megabytes per second. If you think so, then you are not alone. But, alas, in reality everything is different.

What is gigabit? This is 1000 megabits, not 1000 megabytes. There are 8 bits in one byte, so let's just do the math: 1,000,000,000 bits divided by 8 bits = 125,000,000 bytes. There are about a million bytes in a megabyte, so a gigabit network should provide a theoretical maximum data transfer rate of about 125 MB/s.

Sure, 125 MB/s doesn't sound as impressive as gigabit, but think about it: a network at that speed should theoretically transfer a gigabyte of data in just eight seconds. And a 10 GB archive should be transferred in just a minute and 20 seconds. The speed is incredible: just remember how long it took to transfer a gigabyte of data before USB sticks became as fast as they are today.

Our expectations were high, so we decided to transfer the file over a gigabit network and enjoy speeds close to 125 MB/s. We don't have any specialized fancy hardware: a simple home network with some old but decent technology.

Copying a 4.3GB file from one home computer to another performed at an average speed of 35.8MB/s (we ran the test five times). This is only 30% of the theoretical ceiling of a gigabit network of 125 MB/s.

What are the causes of the problem?

Selecting components for installing a gigabit network is quite simple, but getting the network to work at maximum speed is much more difficult. The factors that can cause a network to slow down are numerous, but we've found that it all comes down to how fast the hard drives are able to transfer data to the network controller.

The first limitation that needs to be taken into account is the interface of the gigabit network controller with the system. If your controller is connected via the old PCI bus, then the amount of data it can theoretically transfer is 133 MB/s. For Gigabit Ethernet's 125 MB/s throughput, this seems sufficient, but remember that the PCI bus bandwidth is shared throughout the system. Each additional PCI card and many system components will use the same bandwidth, reducing the resources available to the network card. Controllers with the new PCI Express (PCIe) interface do not have such problems, since each PCIe line provides at least 250 MB/s of bandwidth, and exclusively for the device.

The next important factor that affects network speed is cables. Many experts point out that if network cables are laid next to power cables that are sources of interference, low speeds are guaranteed. Long cable lengths are also problematic, as Cat 5e copper cables are certified to a maximum length of 100 meters.

Some experts recommend running cables to the new Cat 6 standard instead of Cat 5e. Often such recommendations are difficult to justify, but we will try to test the effect of cable category on a small gigabit home network.

Let's not forget about the operating system. Of course, this system is rarely used in a gigabit environment, but it is worth mentioning that Windows 98 SE (and older operating systems) will not be able to take advantage of gigabit Ethernet, since the TCP/IP stack of this operating system is barely able to load a 100-Mbps connection in to the fullest. Windows 2000 and newer versions of Windows will be fine, although older operating systems will need some tweaking to ensure they make the most of the network. We'll be using Windows Vista 32-bit for our tests, and while Vista doesn't have the best reputation for some tasks, it supports gigabit networking from the start.

Now let's move on to hard drives. Even the older IDE interface with the ATA/133 specification should be sufficient to support a theoretical file transfer speed of 133 MB/s, and the newer SATA specification fits the bill as it provides at least 1.5 Gb/s (150 MB) of throughput. /With). However, while cables and controllers can handle data transfer at such speeds, the hard drives themselves cannot.

Let's take for example a typical modern 500 GB hard drive, which should provide a constant throughput of about 65 MB/s. At the beginning of the plates (outer tracks) the speed may be higher, but as you move to the inner tracks the throughput drops. Data on internal tracks is read slower, at about 45 MB/s.

We thought we had covered all possible bottlenecks. What was left to do? We needed to run some tests and see if we could get the network performance up to the theoretical limit of 125 MB/s.

Test configuration

Tests and settings

Before we move on to any benchmarks, we decided to test the hard drives offline to see what kind of throughput we can expect in an ideal scenario.

We have two PCs running on our home gigabit network. The first, which we will call a server, is equipped with two disk subsystems. The main hard drive is a 320 GB Seagate Barracuda ST3320620AS, a couple of years old. The server operates as a NAS with a RAID array consisting of two 1 TB Hitachi Deskstar 0A-38016 hard drives, which are mirrored for redundancy.

We called the second PC on the network a client; it has two hard drives: both 500 GB Western Digital Caviar 00AAJS-00YFA, about six months old.

We first tested the speed of the server and client system hard drives to see what kind of performance we could expect from them. We used the hard drive test in SiSoftware Sandra 2009.

Our dreams of achieving gigabit file transfer speeds were immediately dashed. Both of the single hard drives achieved a maximum read speed of around 75 MB/s under ideal conditions. Since this test is carried out in real conditions, and the drives are 60% full, we can expect read speeds closer to the 65 MB/s index that we received from both hard drives.

But let's look at the performance of RAID 1 - the best thing about this array is that the hardware RAID controller can increase read performance by fetching data from both hard drives at the same time, similar to RAID 0 arrays; but this effect occurs (as far as we know) only with hardware RAID controllers, but not with software RAID solutions. In our tests, the RAID array delivered much faster read performance than a single hard drive, so chances are good that we'll get high network file transfer speeds from the RAID 1 array. The RAID array delivered an impressive 108 MB/s peak throughput, but at In reality, performance should be close to the 88 MB/s index, since the array is 55% full.

So we should get about 88 MB/s over a gigabit network, right? That's not nearly as close to the gigabit network's 125 MB/s ceiling, but it's much faster than 100-Mbit/s networks that have a 12.5 MB/s ceiling, so getting 88 MB/s in practice wouldn't be bad at all.

But it's not that simple. Just because the read speed of hard drives is quite high does not mean that they will write information quickly in real conditions. Let's run some disk writing tests before using the network. We'll start with our server and copy the 4.3GB image from the high-speed RAID array to the 320GB system hard drive and back again. We will then copy the file from the client's D: drive to its C: drive.

As you can see, copying from a fast RAID array to drive C: gave an average speed of only 41 MB/s. And copying from the C: drive to a RAID 1 array resulted in a drop of only 25 MB/s. What's happening?

This is exactly what happens in reality: hard drive C: was released a little over a year ago, but it is 60% full, probably a little fragmented, so it doesn’t break records in terms of recording. There are other factors, namely how fast the system and memory in general works. RAID 1 is made from relatively new hardware, but due to redundancy, information must be written to two hard drives at the same time, which reduces performance. Although RAID 1 can provide high read performance, write speed will have to be sacrificed. Of course, we could use a striped RAID 0 array, which gives high write and read speeds, but if one hard drive dies, then all the information will be corrupted. Overall, RAID 1 is a better option if you value the data stored on the NAS.

However, all is not lost. Digital Caviar's new 500GB drive is capable of writing our file at 70.3MB/s (average across five test runs), and also delivers a top speed of 73.2MB/s.

With that said, we were expecting a real-world maximum transfer speed of 73 MB/s over a gigabit network from the NAS RAID 1 array to the client's C: drive. We'll also test file transfers from the client's C: drive to the server's C: drive to see if we can realistically expect 40MB/s in that direction.

Let's start with the first test, in which we sent a file from the client's C: drive to the server's C: drive.

As we can see, the results correspond to our expectations. A gigabit network, theoretically capable of 125 MB/s, sends data from the client's C: drive at the fastest possible speed, probably around 65 MB/s. But as we showed above, the server's C: drive can only write at about 40 MB/s.

Now let's copy the file from the server's high-speed RAID array to the C: drive of the client computer.

Everything turned out as we expected. From our tests, we know that the client computer's C: drive is capable of writing data at about 70 MB/s, and gigabit network performance came very close to that speed.

Unfortunately, our results do not come close to the theoretical maximum throughput of 125 MB/s. Can we test the maximum network speed? Sure, but not in a realistic scenario. We will try to transfer information across the network from memory to memory to bypass any bandwidth limitations of hard drives.

To do this, we will create a 1 GB RAM disk on the server and client PCs, and then transfer the 1 GB file between these disks over the network. Since even slow DDR2 memory is capable of transferring data at speeds of more than 3000 MB/s, network bandwidth will be the limiting factor.

We got a maximum speed of 111.4 MB/s on our Gigabit network, which is very close to the theoretical limit of 125 MB/s. An excellent result, there is no need to complain about it, since the actual throughput will still not reach the theoretical maximum due to the transmission of additional information, errors, retransmissions, etc.

The conclusion will be as follows: today, the performance of information transfer over a gigabit network is limited by hard drives, that is, the transfer speed will be limited by the slowest hard drive participating in the process. Having answered the most important question, we can move on to speed tests depending on the cable configuration to make our article complete. Could optimizing cabling bring network speeds even closer to the theoretical limit?

Since performance in our tests was close to expected, we're unlikely to see any improvement by changing the cable configuration. But we still wanted to run tests to get closer to the theoretical speed limit.

We conducted four tests.

Test 1: default.

For this test, we used two cables about 8 meters long, each connected to a computer at one end and a gigabit switch at the other. We left the cables where they were laid, that is, next to the power cables and sockets.

This time we used the same 8-gauge cables as in the first test, but moved the network cable as far away from power cables and extension cords as possible.

In this test, we removed one of the 8-m cables and replaced it with a meter of Cat 5e cable.

In the last test, we replaced the 8's Cat 5e cables with the 8's Cat 6 cables.

In general, our testing of different cable configurations did not show a significant difference, but conclusions can be drawn.

Test 2: reducing interference from power cables.

On small networks like our home network, tests show that you don't have to worry about running LAN cables near electrical cables, outlets, and extension cords. Of course, the interference will be higher, but this will not have a serious effect on the network speed. However, with all that said, it is better to avoid laying it near power cables, and you should remember that the situation may be different on your network.

Test 3: reduce the length of the cables.

This is not a completely correct test, but we tried to detect the difference. It should be remembered that replacing an eight-meter cable with a meter cable may result in the result being simply different cables than differences in distance. In any case, in most tests we do not see a significant difference, with the exception of an abnormal increase in throughput during copying from the client C: drive to the server C: drive.

Test 4: Replace Cat 5e cables with Cat 6 cables.

Again, we found no significant difference. Since the cables are about 8 meters long, longer cables can make a big difference. But if your length is not the maximum, then Cat 5e cables will work quite well on a home gigabit network with a distance of 16 meters between two computers.

It is interesting to note that manipulating the cables had no effect on data transfer between computer RAM disks. It's clear that some other component on the network was limiting performance to the magic number of 111 MB/s. However, such a result is still acceptable.

Do gigabit networks provide gigabit speeds? As it turns out, they almost do.

However, in real conditions, network speed will be seriously limited by hard drives. In a synthetic memory-to-memory scenario, our gigabit network produced performance very close to the theoretical limit of 125 MB/s. Regular network speeds, taking into account the performance of hard drives, will be limited to levels from 20 to 85 MB/s, depending on the hard drives used.

We also tested the impact of power cords, cable length, and upgrading from Cat 5e to Cat 6. On our small home network, none of the factors mentioned impacted performance significantly, although we do note that on a larger, more complex network with longer lengths these factors can have a much stronger influence.

In general, if you transfer a large number of files on your home network, then we recommend installing a gigabit network. Upgrading from a 100Mbps network will give you a nice performance boost; at least you'll get a 2x increase in file transfer speeds.

Gigabit Ethernet on your home network can provide greater performance gains if you read files from a fast NAS storage device that uses hardware RAID. On our test network, we transferred a 4.3GB file in just one minute. Over a 100 Mbps connection, the same file took about six minutes to copy.

Gigabit networks are becoming more and more accessible. Now all that remains is to wait for the speeds of hard drives to rise to the same level. In the meantime, we recommend creating arrays that can overcome the limitations of modern HDD technologies. Then you can squeeze more performance out of your gigabit network.

I was in no rush to upgrade my home network from 100Mbps to 1Gbps, which is quite strange for me since I transfer a lot of files over the network. However, when I spend money on a computer or infrastructure upgrade, I believe I should get an immediate performance boost in the apps and games I run. Many users like to treat themselves with a new video card, central processor and some gadget. However, for some reason, networking equipment does not attract such enthusiasm. Indeed, it is difficult to invest the money you earn in network infrastructure instead of another technological birthday gift.

However, my bandwidth requirements are very high, and at one point I realized that a 100 Mbit/s infrastructure was no longer enough. All of my home computers already have integrated 1 Gbps adapters (on their motherboards), so I decided to take the price list of the nearest computer company and see what I would need to convert my entire network infrastructure to 1 Gbps.

No, a home gigabit network is not that complicated at all.

I bought and installed all the equipment. I remember that it used to take about a minute and a half to copy a large file over a 100 Mbps network. After an upgrade to 1 Gbit/s, the same file began to be copied in 40 seconds. The performance increase was pleasantly pleasing, but still I did not get the tenfold improvement that could be expected from comparing the throughput of 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps of the old and new networks.

What is the reason?

For a gigabit network, all parts must support 1 Gbps. For example, if you have Gigabit network cards and associated cables installed, but the hub/switch only supports 100 Mbps, then the entire network will operate at 100 Mbps.

The first requirement is a network controller. It is best if each computer on the network is equipped with a gigabit network adapter (separate or integrated on the motherboard). This requirement is the easiest to satisfy, since most motherboard manufacturers have been integrating gigabit network controllers for the last couple of years.

The second requirement is that the network card must also support 1 Gbit/s. There is a common misconception that gigabit networks require Cat 5e cable, but in fact even old Cat 5 cable supports 1 Gbps. However, Cat 5e cables have better characteristics, so they will be a more optimal solution for gigabit networks, especially if the cables are of a decent length. However, Cat 5e cables are still the cheapest today, since the old Cat 5 standard is already outdated. Newer and more expensive Cat 6 cables offer even better performance for gigabit networks. We'll compare the performance of Cat 5e vs Cat 6 cables later in our article.

The third and probably most expensive component in a gigabit network is the 1 Gbps hub/switch. Of course, it is better to use a switch (perhaps paired with a router), since a hub or hub is not the most intelligent device, simply broadcasting all network data on all available ports, which leads to a large number of collisions and slows down network performance. If you need high performance, then you cannot do without a gigabit switch, since it forwards network data only to the desired port, which effectively increases the network speed compared to a hub. A router usually contains a built-in switch (with multiple LAN ports) and also allows you to connect your home network to the Internet. Most home users understand the benefits of a router, so a gigabit router is a very attractive option.