2 x Airport extreme with NAS and Mini?

[batistuta]

Currently my internet comes into the house in the attic where my Aiport Extreme sits connected to a NAS next to it and (gigabit) wired to a Mac Mini two floors below.
The problem is that the wireless signal is low in the living room two floors below; iStumbler says 25-30%, which almost the same as the ~50 other wireless networks it sees (from my MBP).
I am thinking of adding an Airport Extreme in the living room and run the wifi from there, while still giving me gigabit cabled connectivity to the NAS in the attic, do you see any problems or performance issues with that?? (other than it being an expensive solution, but I don't want the NAS in the living room!)

 

[waw74]

you could also use an express. if you need more gigabit ports, you can also put a switch in.

if you are able to run an ethernet cable down that would be your best solution. simply put it in "off (bridge mode)" under internet settings, give it the same SSID and security settings, but a different channel. Your devices will switch to the stronger signal in the background as you move about.

also not sure where you live, but it can get really hot in attics, even with only moderate temperatures outside, which coupled with the heat produced by the hard drives probably isn't the best for them.

 

[batistuta]

I deselected the Express, since it only has one 100mbit port and I need something with 2 gigabit ports in the attic for the NAS and down to the Mini (or the new Extreme) in the living room.

I live in Denmark - attic is 5-10C right now and probably up to at least 40C in the summer. I usually keep offsite backups of the NAS (rsync over the internet to one or two locations), and normally exchange the harddrive to a bigger one before the warranty runs out (two years here in Denmark), so far for 1½ years without issues. The NAS is a Synology with a Western Digital 'Green' drive BTW.

 

[Tomorrow]

If your connection to the Airport Extreme is wireless, then the gigabit connection to the NAS is moot, right?

You could just run the internet line down two floors below, put the Airport Extreme there, and the NAS connected to it, and boost your signal strength without buying a second router - but as long as you're connecting to the network wirelessly, you won't be able to take advantage of the gigabit connection; your speed bottleneck would be through the wifi.

 

[batistuta]

I know wifi will not make use of gigabit network. The Mini is NOT connected wirelessly and as I stated earlier; the NAS remains in the attic. I have a Mini with a SSD in the living room - it is very quiet and I don't want to ruin that.
The improved wifi performance by buying a second Extreme would be useful for my wireless clients (mbp, win7 laptop, internet radio, iphone).