Can I link all the macs up in the office?

[Yebubbleman]

We have 12 macs in the office that currently talks to a mac mini over our wireless network. We found that it's extremely slow accessing the network drive. Would it be possible to link up all the macs with a hub over ethernet but still route all the internet traffic over the wireless to the router?

P.S (our mac mini is not wired either so no, we can't use that as a router).

You can, though a smarter way of doing it would be to eliminate wireless altogether by attaching either a Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet adapter to your Mac mini (if it is a 2011 model) or by using a USB to 10/100 Ethernet adapter (if it is a 2010 or earlier model) and connecting a cable from that port to the source of your internet. Wireless is relatively unreliable and results in what feels like a slower connection.

 

[jamesr19]

Simple solution (although you've probably found a solution by now).

Have a 16port gigabit ethernet switch connected to the Mac mini. Connect the other machines to the switch. Use "Internet sharing" on the Mac mini to share your wireless via ethernet. Turn off the wifi on the other machines.

This will allow you to use the Mac mini as a hub for all of your connections. The communication between the machines and the data on the Mac mini will be much faster (hopefully the mini can handle it).

Good luck!


edit:

P.S (our mac mini is not wired either so no, we can't use that as a router).

Using the wireless as the internet source for "Sharing->Internet Sharing" will mean that my solution above will still work.

 

[AtomicGrog]

Why do you need internet and LAN connection to the mac mini to be separate? If you have a cable going to every work station, you'll find that your access to the network drive AND your internet connection will both speed up if you go use ethernet. Once you run the wires it's not very hard to have the wires handle both internet and LAN traffic. (Unless you have some really high end data requirements)

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I can vouch that this sort of system works. I have many computers in my office that are using ethernet for the office raid system, and either another ethernet port for internet, or wifi. However, for most office situations, ethernet cords are more than enough to handle both internet and LAN data.

This would work provided your Lan based connection only services a single subnet i.e. non routed and the IP of the Wifi and the Lan connections are not in the not in the same subnet.

 

[AppleDApp]

So what did OP decide to do?

 

[Bahamut Eos]

This would work provided your Lan based connection only services a single subnet i.e. non routed and the IP of the Wifi and the Lan connections are not in the not in the same subnet.

True, forgot to mention that. We have two different subnets running here. I was walked though setting it up a few years ago so I don't remember too much about the process.