I've set up my Time Capsule in my living room as a router that extends the wired-to-modem airport extreme upstairs. The Time Capsule backs up two macs. Also it is connected (by ethernet cables) to the PS3, PS2 and a mac mini.

Should I have just allowed the PS3 and the mac mini wirelessly connect to the network, or does the ethernet cable to the wireless router extension the way to go in terms of a faster connection?

6/26/2011 2:22:37 AM

more wires = always faster

6/26/2011 3:20:22 AM

If possible and feasible you should always lean toward running a wire. For security, speed, reliability, a whole host of reasons.

I run the whole house on wires, and then have a dual band router. In-house stuff runs on the 5Ghz wifi (like the kitchen computer and my computer that's almost always linked in to work along with the home security cam). Guests get on the G network where the security code is just my phone number (it's firewalled to stay off network resources.)

6/26/2011 12:05:51 PM

I don't know if it will make a difference...
You have

Modem <-> AirPort Extreme -> (WIRELESS)

Then

(WIRELESS) -> TimeCapsule <-> PS3
<-> PS2
<-> Mini Mac

6/26/2011 1:06:54 PM

Yes, that's right. I figured that instead of six devices talking to the router, why not make it two devices wirelessly talking to the router. Doesn't that alleviate all kinds of signal problems which would make the network faster?

6/27/2011 12:23:11 AM

not necessarily. you're using a wireless backhaul and bridging it to wired clients and doing the reverse at the router. that's typically an inside out design but now you're only relying on 1 wireless link and NIC negotiation, which is probably better for reliability, speed, not so much.

6/27/2011 4:35:34 AM

wouldn't that setup increase wireless traffic? You'd have the backup job running across 2 wireless links of the network instead of one.

6/27/2011 8:52:27 AM

The backup job is unaffected though... as far as I can tell... It goes the same speed as everything else....

6/27/2011 10:17:53 PM

Probably the wireless network can absorb the extra overhead - it's the slow time capsule being the bottleneck

6/27/2011 11:57:01 PM

so you're arguing to just put all devices as a wireless device? Or maybe change the Time Capsule to an airport extreme and use the time Capsule as an item on it's own...

6/28/2011 2:44:03 AM

I've sped it up and it appears that I needed to upgrade all the cables (some were cat 5 or 5e). It's a much more fluid and RELIABLE connection now.

I don't think the time capsule is the problem. I checked that and it was easily mitigated using a program call "Time Machine Editor." The program allows you to set a schedule on when backups occur. In my case, I set it to run once a night at bedtime which is around 12 am (that's if I go to bed really late).

I'm connecting to the internet faster now on my PS2 and using the Airport Express, I've just made the one computer that is still stuck in wifi a/b/g. That, of course, is making my network faster too.

Am I forgetting anything? Any thoughts on this?

7/2/2011 2:47:19 PM

That did the trick! CAT 6 all around!

7/2/2011 11:37:31 PM

I'm peaking at speeds of 1.7 Mb/s... Am I slow at the times, does anyone else have speeds like that (I mean is that today's norm and I'm just old?)?

7/4/2011 12:21:04 AM

Quote :

"more wires = always faster"

Quote :

"If possible and feasible you should always lean toward running a wire. For security, speed, reliability, a whole host of reasons. "

As a benchmark I get around 6MB/s sustained on CAT6; and for transfers that don't overrun the gig of cache on the NAS I get something like 50MB/s. *almost* as good as a USB drive, but 4TB of space

[Edited on July 4, 2011 at 1:18 AM. Reason : .]

7/4/2011 12:50:59 AM

I'm going to wait for the new iPhone (not iPhone 4 but the one after that) to come out, I think I can still reach great wireless speeds if the Iphone 3GS was wifi b/g/n. Then after that, set the connection to "n" only and let the good times roll.

Thanks for the great advice from smoothcrim and wwwebsurfer

7/4/2011 5:24:31 PM