Home Wireless mesh network

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TLN

Active Member
Feb 26, 2016
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Hi.

Does anyone have experience with home mesh network? Want to extend my network from one corner to another, wonder if those are any good?
Biggest question: what speed and and reliability can I expect? Does it only work for small devices (printers/tv) or I can use on data storage as well? (NAS Backups)?
 

BlueLineSwinger

Active Member
Mar 11, 2013
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Mesh is OK for circumstances where it's not possible to hard-wire the access points. But it's a compromise. You can't simply place them at opposite ends of the house and expect them to work. If a laptop at one end can't reach an access point at the other, it's unlikely two mesh access point will be able to properly communicate from the same locations. Also, mesh setups often sacrifice wireless bandwidth to the wireless clients in order to communicate with each other (apparently some higher-end units have separate radios for this).

Better, if possible, would be to get regular access points and wire them to your network via ethernet. If that's not possible, consider alternate wiring setups for the APs, such as MOCA or powerline ethernet.

I would highly recommend connecting a NAS and other high-volume network devices to the wired network if at all possible. Despite what claims and theoretical numbers might imply, wired is always faster than wireless. Wired connections are not shared and full duplex. Wireless is a shared medium between all clients on that AP, and is only half-duplex.
 

William

Well-Known Member
May 7, 2015
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I have two Synology MR2200 units here now that I will be reviewing soon.
They look pretty interesting.