Some network advice, new NAS, Smart TV, new dual N router required or not?

[coolspot007007]

I've just bought a 2TB NAS (Zyxel NSA310) which is currently connected by wifi to my Panansonic smart TV using DLNA via the media server on the NAS. Now I'm in two minds what to do now :S. I was planning on upgrading my router, currently an o2 wireless box 4, to a dual N of some kind. That way I'd have easily enough bandwidth to stream via wifi from the NAS to the tv in 1080p with 2 laptops using the wifi as well. However I've just moved the router from the hall to by the tv so was thinking I might as well go cat5e/6 from tv to router and same again from the NAS to router. That way I could junk the wifi adapter for the tv all together and might not need a top end router with stupid bandwidth like the Llinksys e4200v2 I was looking at. The films I download will now be saving directly to the NAS but via the laptop rather than donloading to the laptop and streaming from laptop to tv as I used to. So I don't know whether a top end router is overkill if half the network would be wired and only the laptops will be using the wifi, as long as whatever router I get has gigabit ethernet.

When testing the download speed saving to the NAS via laptop (newsleecher) I'm getting as low as half the speed to about 2/3 of the speed I normally see if I download directly to the laptop. I don't know if thats the wifi slowing things down or if the NAS isn't up to getting the files via the laptop (it does have a 1.2ghz processor and 250mb RAM and CPU usage stays under 20% and RAM under 33% whilst downloading, which seems ok. Any advice?

 

[Dink]

i'm guessing the speed drop id due to the amount you are sending and receiving at the same time.

it could also be due to router being near the tv etc.

i use a dlink gigabit router with everything hard wired to it (1 nas and 2 pcs and a gigabit switch) and just use wireless for the laptop and phone

i get about 50MB/s copying from pc to nas

 

[Cr33do]

Even though you are saving the file to the NAS they are going through the laptop as that is the device that is performing the copy/download function. As your laptop is connected wirelessly and wifi is a shared domain where only one device can communicate over the air at any given time this is why you are seeing a 50% drop in throughput.

Patching the laptop to the router/switch will improve things during this process. Then your broadband will be the bottleneck.