Home Network Config

[Dirtbag1402]

Hi,

As with other posts, I've had some very good help and advise so consider this a good place to seek yet more advise. Having suffered a monumental PC failure, with no backup or restore options worth a damn, it is now time to get a bit more serious about my infrastructure.

Current Hardware
HP Pavilion tower PC.
Netgear Wireless modem/router (DG834GT 108Mbs)

Recent Hardware/Software
Western Digital 1Tb My Book
Acronis 11

Intended Purchses
Laptop. Model and spec TBD. Preferably with a nice big fat HD.

Plan
As my kids are getting more and more into the PC, plan is let them have the HP Pavilion to use. I have a new Seagate SATA disk and Windows XP (Pro) to installl, a much better disk than they need but no doubt I'll have a partition for myself as well. The HD is 320G. Plan is:

20G C:\ partition for Windows
300G D:\ partition for files/docs etc.

Should I use FAT32 for both partitions? Or FAT32 for C:\ and NTFS for the D:\?

Network

We're already wireless for internet connection from HP Pavilion, but as I intend to purchase a laptop for me and the wife to use I want to be able to share the printer and My Book for backing up the devices. Plan is to backup the PC and laptop partitions individually, so I can restore the operating systems for either machine or any documents individually. e,g
HP PC C:\ (Windows install)
HP PC D:\ (Files and documents etc)
Laptop C:\ (Windows install)
Laptop D:\ (Files and Documenst etc)

This just give me options when I need to recover either machine. Backups of the C:\ partitions will be infrequant (once a month or ad-hoc). Backups of the D:\ partitions will be nightly (or more acurately a 'sync').

Q: Is this a sound plan?

The My Book will be purely a backup device. Primary copies of stuff will be 90% on the D:\ partitions of either machine (although 75% of stuff is likely to be on the laptop).

I'm certain Acronis can be configured to undertake my backup plan, and that I can layout the NAS to accomdate.

So after all that - here are the main questions.

What is the best way of attaching the WD My Book to my 'home network'. Or even better - how do I create a home network that allows the WD My Book to be visible to both PC and laptop? I'd prefer a wireless set up, but this may not be advisable or possible. I obviously need to transfer data to and from the PC/laptop and external storage. Don't give a stuff about being able to access stuff on it from anywhere in the world - this is primarily a backup device.

Also - in order to share the printer between PC and laptop - what's required?

You have (more or less) carte blanche with a solution - so please, what's the best config?

regards

DB

 

[JaLing]

Wireless is alot slower than cabled for file transfering.... and if you have vista be prepared for a nightmare.
Even though MS made a patch to speed up file transfer over TCP/IP in Vista it's still a slow process... how about an hour for a 4Gb ISO

I'd definately recommend converting all your partitions to NTFS, generally its a faster, securer and safer file system.
(Partitions already Fat32 can be converted to NTFS via Disk Mananger in Computer Management within Administrator Tools.

It would be wise for me to advise you that even with the fastest wireless setups the max bandwidth ie 110Mb/s etc (or whatever it is) is shared between all the wireless devices. So if you you have 2 computers wirelessly connected be prepared for roughly a 1/3 of your max transfer rate (although as I mentioned earlier with Vista you'll be lucky to get above 10Mb/s anyway)

 

[Dirtbag1402]

Hmmmm. Sounds like Vista was a step forward on the file transfer side of things then. NOT!


So to secure a fast transfer between laptop/pc I'm looking at USB2.0 or FireWire right? And that meanshaving to reconnect the My Book to either device to allow the backups. If I want to use a scheduler to do the backups - say at night - for either pc or laptop - then I'm stuffed. Yet hard wiring the My Book to the laptop also reduces it's portability to a degree.

Decisions decisions. Wireless will be slow (but then if I'm just sync'ing partitons with the NAS, only changes should be applied, not the whole partition) - so maybe the speed isn't a problem. And it's at night, when I'm asleep - so it can take hours if needed.

OK - if I went down the wireless path for my NAS - what should I connect it to and how? Should I connect it to my Netgear wireless ADSL router? Can't see how to configure that, it only has cat5 LAN sockets. Or do I need to buy 'yet another' box to act as a wireless hub, so that wireless ADSL router connects to wireless hub (which in turn connects to the My Book and als acts as a print server)??

I am a tad confused.com as to what my wireless config should be like or needs!

DB

 

[JaLing]

Sorry my info on networking via USB etc is a bit lacking, however I'm prity sure that Cat5E (RJ45) is going to be your best approach. Hook your NAS to the wireless router via the RJ45 connection on it. Make sure that it's all the same IP range etc. The wifi router will act as a relay for it to your wireless devices.