After letting the PC run a backup overnight, and still having to wait 4 hours in the morning just for ONE of the directories, I've decided to throw in the towel and get a faster router, or at least a faster switch.

Trouble is, I cannot find a modem/router/gigabit switch/wireless-n all in one, which is surprising, as the older generation modem/router/megabit switch/wireless-G was available as soon as the technology was.

I could go one step back and get a gigabit switch, and move the backup server into the office room (I would need to eventually, when the bed is moved back to the front room). Then the PC and Mac would have a gigabit connection to the server, but any wireless devices wouldn't (the access point is in the other room on the router). That's not a problem though, as if I need the mega speed, I could just plug any laptop into the office switch.

Switch-wise, I found a nice Cisco 5 port gigabit switch for about £22. I just can't have the same luck with the router.

If anyone has one, or a recommendation, I really could do with it! (the recommendation, not your actual router ).

A bit beside the point, but i allways buy the cheapest router, and then flash it with DD-WRT frmware wich makes it able to do anything software and gives it a very stable OS. It's a long while since i baught a router, though, and i don't require great specs...

You're going to be hard pushed to find a reliable all-in-one network central device as you described without the big business price tag. This is one reason why I have a separate switch, wireless access point, router, and a child switch for another room that has a lot of stuff.

When looking for Gigabit switches/routers, check it's MTU (also known as Jumbo Frame compatibility). 10Mbps and 100Mbps can only handle up to the regular 1500 byte payload (1514 byte frames). However, gigabit Ethernet can handle up to a 9000 byte payload (9014 byte frames). Larger frames will greatly reduce CPU consumption at very high transfer rates due to the reduced overhead. It's like sending it all on one very long train rather than a series of lorries.

Ensure you check the compatibility of all your gigabit Ethernet devices, as for it all to work efficiently they must all use the same frame size. Go to each computer, open the network adapter properties, and check they can all do jumbo frames at a matching size (hopefully 9000), then find a switch to go with them. Don't worry if some of your adapters say 3000/4500/9000 and others say 3014/4088/9014, they are the same thing -- 3014/4088/9014 is including the Ethernet frame headers where as 3000/4500/9000 is specifying the payload within the frame.

Segmenting frames down to 1514 bytes will need to be done when connecting to 100Mbps devices like your router and wireless access point, but as the maximum throughput of your Internet connection and wireless Ethernet is very small it will only require small resources to do this. 10Mbps devices will not connectible, assuming you have any (which you probably don't).

I recommend the Netgear GS105 / GS108 / GS116 switches (5, 8, or 16 ports respectively), pretty compact things and do 9000 byte jumbo frames very nicely. Their limit is actually 9216 bytes (10240 bytes for the 16-port one) which is classed as a super jumbo frame, but adapters handling this size are rare.

You could just leave it all alone at regular size and get any gigabit switch you like. It'll all work just fine at 1500 bytes, and you'll probably see 200-300Mbps transfers right away. I found out first hand the benefits of jumbo frames when large file transfers over Windows file sharing were peaking around 500Mbps, peaking at 600Mbps... about 2.5x higher without it. Well worth it for large backups

With this in mind, it may be worth finding a router with wireless-N built in. Decent wireless-N access points without the business price tag are somewhat rare, and you're likely to get better results just having it from your router as there is a much larger market for them. Don't worry if the router only has a 100Mbps switch. I've been using wireless-N for some time now and have only managed to get 70Mbps sustained transfer rate peaking at 80Mbps... and that has a gigabit link to my main switch.

Ah, sounds like i'm better off replacing the local switch and moving the 'server' into this room.

It sounds like one or the other though? If I use the jumbo packet, the router wouldn't be able to connect, which would mean no internet access.

Non-JF stuff can connect with JF stuff just fine. The issues to watch out for are mixing different JF frame sizes, all JF stuff needs a common limit.

Also JF stuff connects to non-JF stuff fine providing the first switch they go through is JF enabled. My desktop and server computer both work at 9000 MTU fine through a switch, and work with a router that only does 100mbps through the switch. Also I don't think the network card on our laptops do any JF, but will still work through a JF enabled switch.