extending wireless network with either base station or express?

[marcames11]

I am building a two story house (w pool area outback) that has CAT5 infrastructure throughout. I currently have an AirPort Extreme N base station.

I want to know the plusses and minuses of:

1. Using a SINGLE AirPort Extreme N base station, and augmenting range with numerous AirPort Express.

OR

2. Using MULTIPLE AirPort Extreme N base stations

It's obviously more costly to do #2. But do I loose any range or bandwidth going with #1?

 

[Intell]

The Expresses cannot do both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz at the same time. If you house does/will have wired CAT5, I suggest making a roaming network. https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4260 They are much faster then the extending via WiFi option.

 

[marcames11]

Therefore using 1 primary base station supported with multiple express units will significantly diminish bandwidth?

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AND...the current model I have is 4th Gen. Can I mix 4th and 5th Gen without any loss in performance?

 

[Intell]

You can mix 4th and 5th gens. Your networks speeds will inherently drop when extending your network, but the lack of simultaneous 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz in the Expresses isn't going to slow do your network.