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System
1:
LiteOn
Mid Tower ATX Case w/ 300W PS, Pentium III
933EB, Abit
SE6 i815 Motherboard, 128MB of PC133 True CAS2 SDRAM
from Corsair (thanks Outside
Loop), IBM 15Gig 7200 RPM ATA100 Hard Drive
(thanks again Outside
Loop), NVidia GeForce2 Ultra , Linksys 10BaseT
PCI Ethernet Adapter, Kenwood
72X CDROM, Toshiba DOCSIS Cable Modem, Win
98SE, DirectX 7.0a
System
2:
PC
Nut Nutcase Jr. Mid
Tower ATX Case w/ 300W PS, Pentium III 933EB, Soyo
SY-6BA+IV Intel BX Motherboard,
128MB of PC133 True CAS2 SDRAM from Corsair,
IBM 15Gig 7200 RPM ATA100 Hard Drive (thanks Outside
Loop), 3dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP , Linksys 10BaseT
PCI Ethernet Adapter, 56X
CDROM, Win
98SE, DirectX 7.0a
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| Benchmarks
and Performance of the DHN-920 Kit |
| Slick
and easy but not earth shattering
speed |
|
A
word on network reliability and stability:
The
DHN-920 Network In A Box provided very stable
network performance. During testing and weeks
of general use, we experienced very few
interruptions or glitches. It should be noted
however, that the units themselves like to be
plugged directly into a USB port in your system or
motherboard. When we had them installed in a
powered USB Hub, sharing connections with a USB
Mouse and Keyboard, the unit would drop connection
with the system occasionally and drivers had to be
reloaded. This anomaly completely disappeared
when a unit was plugged directly into a USB port in
the host machine.
We
recently heard of a program that really dials in on
pure network performance that is largely unaffected
by the host machine it is running on. NetCPS
by Jarle Aase measure Network performance
by transferring 100MB of data across a connection to
a client machine, all without disk access on either
machine. The test measure throughput of the
connection between two adapters exclusively.
Here
are the results of a session between our Test System
#1 and Test System #2, each with a D-LInk USB 10Mb
Phone Line Adapter connecting it to the network.
Click
image for full view
As you
can see, it took 332 seconds, almost 6 minutes, to
transfer 100MB of data. This translates to
about 2.5Mb/sec performance. This seemed a
little poky so we decided to set up a standard
10BaseT Network Connection between the two systems,
with a pair of Linksys 10Mb Ethernet Adapter
Cards.
Here are
the results of our little competition
The
standard Ethernet Twisted Pair setup was
significantly faster topping out at 96 seconds for
the transfer. This translates to about
7.6Mb/sec. of throughput. These numbers are
typical of 10BaseT performance. What is
surprising is how much slower the USB Phoneline kit
is. For certain, this is due to the latency
that is introduced by the USB connection to the host
system. We haven't been able to prove it out
yet but it may even be relative to the performance
of the USB controller in a given system.
In this
regard, our network setup consisted of a legacy BX
Board and its integrated USB controller as well as
an all new i815E board with its controller.
These two systems we feel are fairly representative
of the supporting hardware that is out in the
mainstream today. Thus, regardless of the
performance of an individual USB controller in our
tests, the scores are indicative of "real
world" performance.
Let's
wrap up...
The
D-Link DHN-920 USB Phoneline Network In A Box is an
impressive amazingly easy to set up system that
provides almost instantaneous connectivity over your
existing phone lines. The installation could
not have been easier with its USB interface.
There was no need to open a computer chassis or
consume an internal expansion slot with an adapter
card. The shear convenience alone of the
system was enough for us to give it high marks.
However,
the software that comes with the kit was less than
user friendly. Should you not be familiar with
the intricacies of network setup, you will most
likely struggle with its Midpoint Lite
package. Third party internet sharing software
is available from several sources, should you run
into trouble.
One area
that will temper our score however, is
performance. The system really only was able
exert 2.5Mb/sec. throughput. This is
significantly slower than its 10Mb/sec.
specification. However most all 10Mb Ethernet
products perform at something less than 10Mb/sec.,
as was evident in our test. Regardless, the
kit really isn't in the same league as its Twisted
Pair connected counterparts. On the other
hand, the performance of the DHN-920, for most SOHO
users, is more than adequate and its
simplicity and convenience more than make up for its
short comings.
We're
giving the D-Link DHN-920 USB Phoneline Network In A
Box a HotHardware Heat Meter Rating of....
Get
into the H.H. Conference Room and Talk It Up!
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