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Friday, 25 August 2006 |
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Most of us have become so used to Fast Ethernet networks, that we don’t give the speed of the network much thought. If you have a network of PC’s, the chances are it operates at either 10 or 100 Mbps – that’s Megabit per second for non-technical people! The chances are also that it uses Category 5e network cabling – standard copper cabling with the familiar grey plastic sheathing. Until very recently, 100Mbps was the fastest practicable option available, so much so that network design didn’t even need to consider the alternatives. Now though, 1000Mbs – aka Gigabit networking – is rapidly becoming a viable alternative. What’s more, (and contrary to popular belief) it can be deployed on the standard Cat5e cabling that most organisations already have in place.Gigabit will not be of benefit unless you are moving large files around your network. Gigabit for example will make no difference to the speed of the internet. However, if you are involved in video production, graphic design, or simply have a lot of users opening files from servers all day long, an upgrade to Gigabit should mean real performance gains, with the network hypothetically gaining speed when opening files stored on other areas of the network.In order to implement Gigabit networking you will need a 1000-BaseT network card for each PC (available now at around £10 each) and a Gigabit switch (available now for around 10-20% more than a comparable 100-BaseT switch). ESP can of course supply and advise on this area, but there is also a mini-guide here: http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Transition-Gigabit-Ethernet.html
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