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When will the Airport get Gigabit Ethernet?


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When will the Airport get Gigabit Ethernet?
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Anthem
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
 
2007-01-19, 01:04

I figured Apple would be updating the Airport to Draft-N, and I figured I'd spring for one. I usually don't go for this kind of apple gear because it's easy enough (and a lot cheaper) to set up a modern-day Linksys. But the price looked reasonable, it had draft N, backwards B-G compatibility, and what I've really wanted... Gigabit Ethernet! I figured it was a no-brainer... even the Mac Mini now uses Gigabit Ethernet. Surely the new Apple router supports it!

Wrong. The LAN ports are 10/100 only.

What's the deal? And when will this be fixed?

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...lm=MA073LL%2FA
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intlplby
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
 
2007-01-19, 07:38

lack of gigabit ethernet is a deal breaker for me too
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cupique
New Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
 
2007-01-19, 08:07

My thoughts exactly.
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intlplby
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
 
2007-01-19, 12:24

time to send feedback

although technically an "enhancement request", the fact that it should already have this prompted me to submit it as a bug report.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/airportextreme.html
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Banana
is the next Chiquita
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2007-01-19, 12:50

Maybe I'm being naive, but are we even using 10/100 to the fullest potential already?

My videophone is using 10/100 connection and runs just dandy.... Even then, I'd imagine that the internet connection is the real bottleneck, not the router... It's significantly less than what 10/100 would allow (for residential DSL or cable at least), no?
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2007-01-19, 12:53

Not a deal breaker for me. Maybe it's because I can just get a gigabit switch for the gigabit products I have. I would only be connect the switch, a VoIP adapter and VPN endpoint. (Though I might put it on the front side of the AEBS.) Tree ports isn't enough for my wired connections so I really have to have a switch anyway.

Quote:
Originally Posted by COPACABANANA View Post
Maybe I'm being naive, but are we even using 10/100 to the fullest potential already?

My videophone is using 10/100 connection and runs just dandy.... Even then, I'd imagine that the internet connection is the real bottleneck, not the router... It's significantly less than what 10/100 would allow (for residential DSL or cable at least), no?
Well the issue comes for intranet transfers. Certainly not an issue for connecting to the internet through, I don't know of anyone with a 100MBs boardband speeds that would be using an AEBS to connect with anyway.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
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dfiler
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Pittsburgh
 
2007-01-19, 16:26

Quote:
Originally Posted by COPACABANANA View Post
Maybe I'm being naive, but are we even using 10/100 to the fullest potential already?
Yes.

100Mb delivers a typical throughput of around 12MB/s.
1000Mb delivers a typical throughput of 35+MB/s

Without gigabit ethernet, remote file access is so slow as to be less desirable than local storage. With gigabit ethernet, remote storage is as fast as local storage. (unless your local machine has RAID 1, 3, or 5.

In layman's terms, gigabit makes it possible to access all your computers as quickly as the computer you're sitting in front of. In real world usage, this normally equates to an off the shelf NAS or an old computer loaded up with drives and sitting in a spare bedroom.

I'm not exactly a layman when it comes to computing. So to me gigabit means that my multi-terabyte array of television shows play back instantaneously, even though they're stored on my old G4 which hasn't had a monitor attached in months.

Mmmm, he said terabytes of TV.
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Banana
is the next Chiquita
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2007-01-19, 16:29

dfiler, thanks for the explanation.

And I didn't consider the fact that it's more common to have files somewhere on your local network, which makes the internet connection bottleneck irrelevant.
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dfiler
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Pittsburgh
 
2007-01-19, 16:36

Gigabit is exciting for other reasons too. No longer is it necessary to even have a hard drive in each computer. Or less drastically, it isn't necessary to have a high-speed hard drive or RAID in each computer.

Put all of your hard drives in one location and attach them to a RAID controller. All of a sudden, all of your computers have storage that is faster than a single hard drive in the local computer.

Reading data over gigabit from my G4 (with RAID 3) is actually quicker than reading it from my intel iMac's internal hard drive.
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Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2007-01-19, 16:41

Er... okay, maybe I'm missing something here, but...

This is a WiFi WAP. It happens to have a couple of extra ports for convenience.

None of the WiFi channels will swamp even 100bT, right? So... the *ONLY* reason to include 1kbT on this would be to have it *ALSO* be a Gigabit enet router, in a two for one punch, right?

At what added cost?

For how many people that don't already have a Gigabit router?

I'm not seeing the compelling reason here, just added cost... enlighten me.
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rasmits
rams it
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Seattle
 
2007-01-19, 19:02

Quote:
Originally Posted by Grounds Keeper Willy View Post
I'm not seeing the compelling reason here, just added cost... enlighten me.
It probably wouldn't cost Apple more than a penny to make it gigabit.

The lack of gigabit ethernet, and an odd number of 3 ports (instead of the usual 4), completely baffles me. You shouldn't have top buy a gigabit switch to go with your router.

I know I've said this before, but as always, there are cheaper and better options from just about any different company. I don't think I'll ever buy an Apple router.

You had me at asl
.......
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Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2007-01-19, 20:50

Quote:
Originally Posted by rasmits View Post
It probably wouldn't cost Apple more than a penny to make it gigabit.
In that case, why aren't Gigabit routers the same price as 100bT routers? Doesn't hold water IMO. Now, if you can find us a price differential on the controllers, and can specify how many controllers are needed (one for the unit? one per port?) then this can be a meaningful discussion. Otherwise, it's just speculation.

Quote:
The lack of gigabit ethernet, and an odd number of 3 ports (instead of the usual 4), completely baffles me. You shouldn't have top buy a gigabit switch to go with your router.
You don't *have* to buy *anything*. Damned few people I know bother with wired networks anymore, especially in their homes. WiFi simply cannot utilize a Gb network, and neither can broadband. So the *ONLY* reason to have it is for intranet... which most consumers won't bother with because they don't want to mess with the cables, and most professionals will use much more serious kit for their network.

So what's the market again, that makes it worth bumping up the price, and making it even *more* expensive?

Yeah, I'd love to have it on there too, but I don't see the benefit to Apple, to add it.

Quote:
I know I've said this before, but as always, there are cheaper and better options from just about any different company. I don't think I'll ever buy an Apple router.
You're right, and your choice. As with anything, it's a question of balancing the features, the setup, and the convenience.

Last edited by Kickaha : 2007-01-19 at 22:07.
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rasmits
rams it
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Seattle
 
2007-01-20, 01:04

Here's a Dlink 802.11n Gigabit Router, new, for $149 with USB for external storage, removable and replaceable antenna, and four ethernet ports.

I guess I used that for my baseline when determining the value of Apple's AirPort, and it was only my first search.

I realize (obviously) that Apple isn't well known for having baseline prices. But when it comes to routers, which you pretty much set and forget, I have a hard time justifying the cost, especially when others offer not only a cheaper price, but more features. Of course, that's a personal choice. But if he wants a router with gigabit ethernet, he should look elsewhere. It's not out of the question.

You had me at asl
.......

Last edited by rasmits : 2007-01-20 at 01:15.
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intlplby
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
 
2007-01-20, 03:28

gigabit ethernet still isn't near as fast as local storage like FW400, FW800 or SATA unless you completely disable journaling which is not recommended unless you have a dedicated UPS

i also find that directory listing in OS X is abysmal even over gigabit ethernet...
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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
awesome
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Portland, OR
 
2007-01-20, 03:44

I liked the new AirPort Extreme until I read this thread...
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chucker
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: near Bremen, Germany
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2007-01-20, 03:58

Quote:
Originally Posted by intlplby View Post
gigabit ethernet still isn't near as fast as local storage like FW400, FW800 or SATA unless you completely disable journaling which is not recommended unless you have a dedicated UPS
Journaling has virtually no performance impact at all, and doesn't apply over the network anyway.
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Skaffen
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
 
2007-01-20, 07:37

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roboman View Post
I liked the new AirPort Extreme until I read this thread...
The new Airport Extreme really is a great bit of kit, the lack of gigabit ethernet is pretty minor. The thing to remember with gigabit ethernet is it's really (unless you're using jumbo frames) 400Mb ethernet. So theoretical maximum wise you're looking at 4 times quicker than 100Mb ethernet. It's one reason why the Mac Pros have 2 ethernet sockets, so that you can segregate your gigabit and non-gigabit networks and use jumbo frames on the gigabit network.

Anyway, on top of that you've got the fact that gigabit ethernet is much more susceptible to signal problems than 100Mb, and really requires cat5e or cat6, and it's a lot less happy running near power cables. In the end you can generally squeeze 250Mbs out of gigabit on a home/SOHO network, and that's if you're using a decent gigabit switch. So about 3 times the speed and that's only if you're using a *decent* ethernet controller (which would add to the cost, 1000base-T ethernet is complicated, it's why 1000base-TX was introduced).

At 30MB/s or so that is a LOT slower than an internal drives. SATA2 drives can transfer at burst speeds (from cache) at up to about 240MB/s, and sequential reads (ie when it's not coming from the cache) of around 70MB/s for a 7.2krpm 300GB drive.

Point is that that's not quick enough to even come close to replacing an internal drive, especially when you add in latency. It's why NetBoot on OS X still really only works acceptably when there is an internal drive to use as a local cache. There is a little bit of gain from having gigabit but in cheap home setups it's a really tiny gain for the extra cost. Plus when you add in what else the new Airport can do it's just such a minor negative. I was thinking about getting one anyway and then found out yesterday that you can plug a USB hub in and multiple drives, and that really sealed the deal. Great functionality for what is, I think, a pretty reasonable price.
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Wraven
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Texas
 
2007-01-20, 10:18

Skaffen,

Nice rundown of the features and limitations of gigabit. I was thinking of getting one of these new AEBSs when I get my new TV and tv.

I was going to get the tv and AEBS now, but when I found out the tv is not compatible with my 32" SDTV Sony WEGA flat-screen (not flat-panel), that was a deal breaker.

Since I now have to get a new TV to run tv, I have the luxury of waiting to see if they spiff up the tv (1080p?) and the AEBS (gigabit?) between now and Christmas. I'm holding off until Christmas of 2007 on my new TV so a) I can save up to get something really nice and b) prices for HDTVs should fall significantly by then. If Apple doesn't "fix" these two product's perceived shortcomings, I'll still be purchasing both units (probably after MSWF '08 just to be safe). Why?

Well, I will be getting a TV that does 1080p upscaling (so Movies from tv at 720p if the iTS is upgraded by then should look good) and I don't have a real use for gigabit as the 802.11n transfers from my iMac (will get one around the same time) should be nearly as fast as gigabit in real world applications (and no wires ).

Cheers,
Wraven

Last edited by Wraven : 2007-01-20 at 10:32.
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intlplby
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
 
2007-01-20, 12:21

files transfer much faster with journaling disabled on the NAS device.

journaling doesn't get affected but it affects read/write times.

on another note.
although the apple character looks nice and all, it is a typographic disaster... it has a lot more weight than characters around it and seriously disrupts the flow of reading.
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Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2007-01-20, 12:26

Font geek.

It needs to be an outline apple, like on the Cmd key.
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chucker
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: near Bremen, Germany
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2007-01-20, 12:32

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post
Font geek.

It needs to be an outline apple, like on the Cmd key.
Does Unicode offer that?
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intlplby
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
 
2007-01-20, 20:20

it should.... and i prefer the term typeface geek, thank you very much
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Schnauzer
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Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Arizona
 
2007-01-21, 00:04

Quote:
Originally Posted by intlplby View Post
lack of gigabit ethernet is a deal breaker for me too
yeah same here
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