[mythtv-users] Gigabit switch

[Gavin Haslett]

> Agreed.  I've been slowly transitioning all my stuff over to more 
> enterprize level stuff as the consumer stuff
> becomes flaky.   I have a SMC BR7004 router that's the last pc of 
> consumer-ish stuff left.  It's definitely got a
> screw loose, and needs a periodic reboot every few days, but I've not 
> found anything to replace it with that's
> more high end.  Any suggestions?  Even enterprize stuff goes flaky 
> after  a while.  I have an Avaya access point
> that needs a power cycle every few days, and the 3Com switches need a 
> periodic cycle.  I'm going to be going
> to gigabit in the next year or so, and I'm going to pitch the SMC 
> router, but don't want to run a linux server as a gateway.
> I've got enough computers around here running 24/7 that it's noticeable 
> on the power bill.  Eventually I'm going to replace
> my webserver with a dual proc RAID box that will double duty as myth 
> backend, webserver, email/Imap server, and asterix
> server.   Then everything else will be a diskless box netbooting an 
> image off the server.  So the server will be the only
> thing running 24/7.  I want the rest of the hardware to be rock solid 
> under a heavy load.

Linksys WRT54GS and stick Linux on it. Mine's been up for two months now
without a reboot... works like a champ :)

As for the Gigabit switches, I've had pretty good luck with "small
business" type switches in the past. I've installed them at a friend's
house and that was a year ago... no problems yet. Sure, it cost a few
dollars more but it was definitely worth it.

At home I have a 24 port Netgear switch that I've been running for about
5 years now... hasn't been a problem at all, though it is bulkier than
I'd like and the cooling fan keeps getting clogged up with dust... but
it's the small-business grade switch, not consumer grade.

Generally, I'll say that most consumer-grade networking hardware sucks.
I've also done benchmarks and found that generally consumer-grade
hardware has lower performance than the small-business grade stuff,
auto-negotiates better with NICs (though I force speeds myself) and
generally do a much better job of everything. You really do still get
what you pay for in the networking arena.

My only exception to that rule is the Linksys I mentioned above. Rock
solid once I put Linux on it... much more configurable than the default
Linksys OS and incredibly reliable. In fact, I've found that some things
(like Bittorrent) work a lot better with Linux on the WRT than with the
default WRT OS.