Monitoring Internet data usage on multiple devices in a home network

Started by Spencer

I am a retail customer managing our home network. I have a monthly bandwidth cap of 1TB from my Cox ISP before they charge me for overages. I need to figure out what to buy to determine how my Cox internet data is being consumed by my internal sources. We do not have cable TV, nor do we have antenna TV. We cut the cord 18 months ago.

We have a monthly bandwidth cap of 1TB from my Cox ISP before they charge me for overages. We get a 100Mbps download speed through our wireless adapters with no problem.

We have an Arris SURFboard Modem Model SB6141, and a Linksys Dual Band Router Model WRI1900AC-V2. I also have 3 PC's running Windows 7, 2 Roku Premium Streaming devices, and a Plex server running on one or both of the Roku Premium devices. We have installed FreeNAS as the OS for the Plex Server.

I am running a MagicJack Plus for my home phone line plugged directly into the modem. I also have an iPad and 2 iPhones, but those devices use very little bandwidth. The phones and the iPad are used pretty much for gaming.

Most of the incoming data from my router is consumed by wireless streaming activities used by of the PC's and the Roku devices. I do not use Plex to stream from the Internet, but we do stream from Amazon Prime & YouTube from the Roku. Data movement inside the LAN is of no real concern.

I'd like to know what the PCs and the Roku devices are using monthly from my ISP. I do not want to count data usage by Plex which is already stored on the hard drives. Can I put NetWorx on my Plex Server? Can I measure incoming data from my ISP on all three PCs? Must I always have a PC running to capture the data I am interested in?

Please tell me if I can accomplish my goals, and with what software packages.

Thank You!
SoftPerfect Support forum - Ann avatar image
Ann

Re: Monitoring Internet data usage on multiple devices in a home network   10 June 2019, 12:14

There is no universal solution to monitor all devices in a home network like yours. Our app NetWorx can be installed on Windows, Mac or Linux computers only (the versions for Linux and macOS are not as feature-rich as the Windows version).

If your router supports so-called SNMP or UPnP protocol, you can monitor all traffic via your router. This, however, will not give you a per-device usage breakdown and the monitoring computer must be continuously on to poll the router and collect usage data. See the Router Monitoring page for more details.

Otherwise, if you need per-device usage figures for each device, I am afraid there is no simple solution and the only one may be custom firmware for your router.
Thank you for your reply.

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