Getting 1 gbps internet on Tuesday and...

[Dynefire]

I have been looking for ways to improve my computer's speed (namely to install an SSD into my laptop), I was wondering what else I could do in order to make sure my connection is maximized.

I have a Lenovo laptop with 8GB of RAM (never use all of that), Intel i5 quad core processor @ 2.30 ghz.

My router is an ASUS RTAC1750, the ISP is providing the new modem. I am told I will not get 1 gbps over WiFi only the ethernet will be, that is until the second quarter of 2017.

I am thinking of getting another ASUS router, a 3100 model...

Would it be more beneficial to buy a new computer plus router?

I think that the hard drive it has instead of a solid state drive is the bottleneck, but I am not a hardware guy (more of a software guy)... Would that be sufficient?

Any suggestions?

 

[Intel_man]

Realistically, your existing RTAC1750's 5.0ghz band has a theoretical maximum of 1300mbps... which in an ideal scenario will be seeing around 700-800mbps max. The further you are from the router, the lower your speed becomes.

The Asus RT-AC3100 you mention has a 5.0ghz band that has a theoretical maximum of ~2100mbps. I have the RT-AC88U which is just the same model but with 8 ethernet ports at the back, and with the right network adapter, I have managed to achieve 1700-1800mbps according to the router's client page. You also probably don't need speeds in that range unless you're constantly pulling data off your local network drive or if you have lots of devices connected to the router at the same time.

There isn't a laptop wifi adapter/dongle out there that supports those speeds right now, so I wouldn't even bother getting something this fast. As of now with the information you have provided, I'd just stick with what you have for now.

 

[Dynefire]

Realistically, your existing RTAC1750's 5.0ghz band has a theoretical maximum of 1300mbps... which in an ideal scenario will be seeing around 700-800mbps max. The further you are from the router, the lower your speed becomes.

The Asus RT-AC3100 you mention has a 5.0ghz band that has a theoretical maximum of ~2100mbps. I have the RT-AC88U which is just the same model but with 8 ethernet ports at the back, and with the right network adapter, I have managed to achieve 1700-1800mbps according to the router's client page. You also probably don't need speeds in that range unless you're constantly pulling data off your local network drive or if you have lots of devices connected to the router at the same time.

There isn't a laptop wifi adapter/dongle out there that supports those speeds right now, so I wouldn't even bother getting something this fast. As of now with the information you have provided, I'd just stick with what you have for now.

Hard drive is the bottleneck, reading's not a problem, it's writing that's a problem. I am a hobbyist programmer, wrote my own client server to test the speed. When the client doesn't do anything with the data I have clocked as high as 1189 megabits, the server reads data from a 1 gigabyte file, then sends it to the client on the same network. So, it's not the network adapter that's the problem, because when the client writes the data to the hard drive, it slows to between 325 mbps to 440 mbps.

 

[Intel_man]

Mechanical harddrives do have a limitation to speed. SSD will solve your problem up to a point. I have a NAS dual bay one in a RAID 1 environment that will saturate the full bandwidth of gigabit.

There's never really any reason to not go from a hdd to a ssd... expect for the cost of the damn thing I guess.

The better question I will ask you then is, what are you trying to achieve here? Since maximizing your WLAN or LAN speeds may not be useful to you or worth the additional cost.

 

[Darren]

Don't see the need for upgrades really, your internet speed and your laptop speed aren't really something you can compare side by side. See how it is when you get it and adjust then. No point preemptively spending money on something you likely don't need and wouldn't even notice the difference of.

SSD's are nice sure, but kind of a separate issue altogether from your internet speed.

 

[Agent Smith]

And besides what Darren said, you're only going to be able to download a website, file, etc as fast as the hosting server puts out. A lot have caps. I would hate to think one website catering to one user with a 1 Gbps connection. LOL When fast speed comes in at the most is localy with your router and a FTP server or HTPC, NAS, etc. All locally. And at that point your Internet speed doesn't even matter.

But if you feel the uter desire to have a zippy HDD, go m.2 SSD if the MOBO supports it. If the MOBO has two m.2 SSD ports RAID 0 that baby! But RAID 0 won't give you data redundancy. RAID 0 would strip the data across two drives. If you wanted fault tolerance use RAID 1. It will mirror the data across two drives. That way if one HDD goes out the other will still have your data. At that point buy another m.2 ASAP.

Anyway...

 

[Dynefire]

Actually it was because the file being transferred was in cache, so it was locally.

Deleting the file resulted it going down to 115 mbps.

That was the average speed for the 1 gigabyte file.

 

[beers]

Sounds like a lot of cost for minimal gain. I've had Gigapower and Google Fiber, you're really wasting your time since realistically most servers aren't going to provide you a full gig.

How much volume of data do you actually transfer on your LAN right now?