Hi

I am planning to setup a home audio recording studio in a network configuration as per the drawing attached.



This will exist alongside my general purpose home computer and my general purpose laptop. However I am facing a lot of difficulty in figuring out the networking aspect which is where I need help.

Here is a summary:

1. A Motorola cable modem is located in BR1 which then connects to a Linksys Wireless-G router WRT54G positioned in the Hall (at a somewhat central location). A laptop with inbuilt wireless adaptor is generally operated in BR1 or in the Hall wherever convenient.

2. In a somewhat distant room (BR2) there is a general purpose computer with a Linksys USB wireless adaptor WUBS54G. A printer (with no networking capability) is also attached to the USB port of this computer which is to be shared over the wireless network.

3. In a third bedroom (BR3) adjacent to BR2 is my recording studio that comprises two PCs (alongwith a huge list of equipment and software) which I plan to wire together in a crossover ethernet network. These machines shall be dedicated to recording and will have nothing to do with the rest of the house or its elements. Each of these two PCs has its own ethernet LAN adaptor but I do not intend to do internet connection sharing at all.

4. However, these two machines in BR3 will, though very rarely, need to go online only for registration and downloading of software / windows updates etc. but never to surf the internet nor for any nefarious activities . For this, each of them has been given a Linksys USB wireless adaptor WUSB54G.

5. To add to the complication a WD NetCenter NAS Drive with one Ethernet port is positioned in the studio for backing up. But this drive will also be used for backing up from the general purpose PC and laptop when necessary. Since this is located in BR3 I purchased a Linksys Wireless-G Ethernet Bridge with a single ethernet port to connect the NAS Drive so that it can be seen/used all over the network.

All these equipment named above have already been purchased.

I am thinking of two situations myself but perhaps you will give me a better idea:

PREFERRED SOLUTION (A):
- Two studio computers connected by crossover ethernet cable for music recording.

- These two studio computers will connect to the internet with the WUSB54G wireless adaptors. However Linksys tells me (I am not sure they are completely correct though) that there is no way to go online wirelessly unless the crossover cable is disconnected physically or disabled. It is essential that I should be able to connect to the internet wirelessly and without unplugging the crossover cable. Any tips please?

- The WD NetCenter NAS Drive gets connected to the WET54G bridge and is made available to all computers on the network for backup through wireless. Is this possible? Well I don't have much choice.

- The general PC and the laptop have their own wireless adaptors and can connect to internet and also share files/folders and printer / scanner wirelessly.

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION (B):

- The two studio computers and the NAS Drive hardwired to the WRT54G router.

- The general PC and the laptop having their own wireless adaptors connect to the internet and also share files/folders/printer/scanner wirelessly.

This leaves me with some excessive equipment that were purchased with an objective: the WET54G bridge and the two WUSB54G wireless adaptors that I purchased for the studio PCs. I feel these would become redundant unless there is a creative idea for using these. However I do not prefer to use this solution in order to avoid mapping / seeing other PCs / drives on my studio PCs.