Hub or Router ?

[infocus]

Hi everyone....we have four Kodak G3's linked to our QSS 2901, are replacing our cat5 cables with cat6 or cat7. Would it be faster to go with a router, rather than with a hub ?

[Retired]

NO you dont need a router.    You want a Switch or Switching hub. But do the G3s talk faster than 100mb? If not no reason to go Cat6.

Cat5 is rated for 100mb and works just fine.

[Antic]

You want a Switch 10/100 is of for you and the Cat5 is ok, why Cat6 or 7. Cat6 or 7 are for long distances.

[infocus]

O.K., thanks guys. I was just trying to speed up transfer times. It can take forever (half hour or more) to transfer 300 pics from our G3s to our 2901. Should I maybe check to see if I can add more ram to the G3s? We had to drop our print limit from 999 to 400 or the orders would take half a day to transfer.

[Big Dave]

Hi Infocus,

We have a 2901 with the "stock" PC-NRT-4, and it's very slow transferring files from the CT-SL box as well, using a "cheap" D-Link hub, but we're getting better throughput than it seems you are.  We can print approx 300 in around an hour (hour and a half?) or so, but I always assumed it was because of the PC-NRT-4's slow processor/rendering capabilities coupled with the slow 5200RPM hard drive on the CT-SL....

I've been thinking about upgrading the PC on the 2901 to see if it'll help on the rendering side, but if you're having these problems (assuming you've already upgraded the PC on your 2901) it might be that the Kodak G3's are only capable of 10MBPS ???  Someone correct me if my assumption is incorrect.  Can the G3's be upgraded to 100MBPS, or the 100 speed isn't "turned-on" ??

Dave

[helper]

The nic's in the g3's are 100Mbs. The slowness experienced here is that the g3.s only have a small amount of ram and are using virtual memory constantly.

I suggest(and have done this on many occasions) Increase the ram on each G3. A stick of 1Gb memory now is

[Retired]

You might think about uping to a gigabit network too....... ALL machines on the net would need a gigabit  network interface card including the PRT. In the PRT just take out the old NIC and replace it with a gigbit model. You would then need cat 6 cable and a switch that was  10/100/1000 or (gigabit)

[infocus]

Thanks guys....I think I'll upgrade the ram first, then maybe try the gigabit network after that. We already have the cat 6 cables here, but might as well wait to see if we are going to do the gigabit cards before using them. I guess.