07-13-2010, 02:01 AM
mattkime wrote:
Option 1) Run TWO ethernet cables to the middle of the house. One into the router, one out which goes back to the closet and into a switch which connects with all your closet bound devices.
Option 2) Airport Express
Just wanted to reiterate mattkime's Option 1 suggestion here. If you can get by with needing only one router (i.e. one access point) simply by moving it to a more agreeable location, do what it takes to make that happen. You can experiment by getting or making a very long CAT5 cable and walking the router around to different areas of the house and "test driving" a landing spot for it prior to running the cables within the walls etc. Home Depot or Lowes will sell you a large spool in a box, the RJ45 ends and the tool to crimp the RJ45 ends.
Running CAT5 in the way he mentions may at first seem "like a waste" or silly since it's going back and forth, but in truth it's very elegant and reliable considering the alternatives of having to buy a second box that will have to be configured, re-conconfigured at some point, replaced one day and so on. Complexity now and later, without an increase in performance necessarily. A Gigabit switch on the other hand, is a dumb box that needs no setup. Even the Apple link for setting up WDS mentions that the routers utilize some bandwidth for maintaining the network, and so you lose some throughput. Maybe not much, but some.