Apple Airport: Wired or Wireless, which is faster?

[mjones185]

Hello,

I have a MediaSmart Server due on Friday. I have an iMac, MBP, MB, and two PC's using an Apple Airport, how should I connect the MediaSmart Server EX485 to my airport, wired or wireless? Is there a performance difference between the two setups?

If wired offers best speed then I can easily do that as they will be near each other.

 

[bozz2006]

if wired isn't much of a hassle, wired is better. doesn't interfere with your other wireless products, and the speed will be stable.

 

[energysaver]

The Airport runs at 54Mbps - much faster than your 4Mbps (or something) broadband, so it won't make a difference to the speed.

 

[eldy]

You should use wired connections as much as possible.

 

[plinden]

You don't say what version of the Airport base station you're using? Express or Extreme? Gigabit Wireless N or the older Wireless G?

Anyway, as a data point, with my MBP on wireless N in a mixed G/N network, I get 8-9MB/s. Connecting directly to one of the gigabit ports on my AEBS, I get 40-50MB/s.

 

[GGJstudios]

Anyway, as a data point, with my MBP on wireless N in a mixed G/N network, I get 8-9MB/s. ...

...which is still much faster than the bandwidth of the OP's internet service provider, so there's no difference in web performance between wired and wireless.

 

[plinden]

...which is still much faster than the bandwidth of the OP's internet service provider, so there's no difference in web performance between wired and wireless.

The OP is asking about adding a HP media server to his home network. His ISP speed isn't going to have any bearing on his decision to go wireless or wired.

 

[GGJstudios]

The OP is asking about adding a HP media server to his home network. His ISP speed isn't going to have any bearing on his decision to go wireless or wired.

You're absolutely right.... I read too fast!

 

[Consultant]

Wired.

When you run both devices via wireless, both devices get half the bandwidth.

 

[mjones185]

1st, I have to say this is an awesome forum...I've been an observer for a very long time, way before becoming a member and everyone here has been more polite and helpful to the community than any other forum I visit.

I have an Airport base station with wireless N. This will be my first Server, NAS sorta setup. I have always used external HDs but now my wife has a laptop, I have one and we want to be able to access our files from any location in the house. I have the capability to connect wireless and wired based on the location I will set up the server.

Over the years I never gave it much thought on whats best, wired or wireless, I've only recently started using wireless when I got the iMac, MBP, MB, and a couple PS3's, everything works excellent except streaming iPod quality movies (400MBs) to the PS3's are to choppy to watch so I wireless copy them to the PS3's.