I'm looking into wiring the house with gigabit ethernet. Thus, I'm gonna need a half-way decent switch to run all the cables to. Looking at a Netgear GS724T-300NAS in particular. 24 ports is probably major overkill, but I'd like to put four ports in the living room behind the TV and another two away from the tv, and at least four ports in the computer room with one more port for the WAN to run back, with two ports each in the other two rooms. If I am feelin squirrely, I might put one in the kitchen, though I can't imagine why I would ever need it or want it there.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122364

any other units I should look at?

yes, I have wireless, but it's nice to be able to plug a machine in to a router every now and then when wireless is acting up.

after that, what kind of cabling should I use? will 5E be good enough, or should I go whole hog and use 6? I'm gonna be doin pretty much all of this on my own, so I'll prolly get a book for advice, though I won't be running the power. I don't fuck with 120V, mainly cause I have no fuckin clue what I am doing with electricity. Any advice is appreciated, except for "hire me!"

5/29/2010 7:51:18 PM

I just use 2 of these, more than enough for a home network:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127082

Plus my wireless router has gigabit LAN on it as well

5/29/2010 9:05:07 PM

Well, I get all my cabling and plates from monoprice - their prices are awesome. Since they're about the same price I always go with Cat6 - particularly for applications over 50ft or so or permanent installation. Cat6 provides a higher signal/noise ratio for more reliable transmissions. In practice using current tech it's kinda negligible, but that doesn't mean it would be put to use in the future.

And it looks like your selection supports virtual networks. To me it's a lot easier than programming a firewall every time you want to add a device. Run a VN totally unprotected to the internet (for like a server), one with a hardware firewall (a re-purposed box running linux) for general access, and one for internal matters only. The last is a network render setup for graphics. That way all the nodes can communicate with who knows what protocol without internet access or access to the other machines on the network.

Or you could run a VN for a series of wifi routers... you get the idea.

[Edited on May 29, 2010 at 9:20 PM. Reason : Dont get the linksys home gigabit deals - they have loud fans ]

5/29/2010 9:08:57 PM

^ no idea where you were going with that one

5/29/2010 9:13:42 PM

Use plenum rated cable.

Buy quality cable.

5/29/2010 9:15:54 PM

I'm going to be doing something similar once I move into my house. For now I plan to go with Cat6, mostly because I can get it cheap through work and it's not that much more expensive for a big roll. 5e is plenty sufficient for pretty much everything though.

The switch you linked looks like a good one. I looked through some of the other netgear products listed at Newegg and that one looked to have pretty decent features. I'm gonna bet you'll never use most of them - most home networks don't need Spanning Tree or LACP, but it's cool it's there.

I'm planning to use a patch panel in the laundry room where I'll bring everything together. It will make it a lot easier to manage if everything is labeled. Six ports behind the tv, four in the computer room, and two in each bedroom. I might even pull all the phones over to it and set them on their on VLAN if I go VoIP in the future. Not having PoE would make that more of a mess though. At least there's extra ports to expand if you go with 24.

5/29/2010 9:18:34 PM

I went through this about a year ago. I set up a patch panel and use an 8-port switch. Right now I don't need anything more than that.
http://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=528146&page=2

5/29/2010 9:30:07 PM

hmmm. looking at the cabling a little more, it sounds like I should go with solid instead of stranded. as such, I should probably get a patch panel as well, correct? From what I've read, solid wire is NOT good for an RJ45 connector, and stranded is not good for punchdown, so there's really no mixing, it sounds like.

I'll go with punchdown connectors for the wall, as well.

sound like a plan?

5/29/2010 9:39:42 PM

What benefit is there to solid vs stranded on a simple home-setup? Sure you dont want to use fiber?

5/29/2010 9:53:14 PM

fiber is beyond my scope of knowledge.

here's a new question. If I have a 568B patch panel, do I use a crossover cable to connect to the switch?

5/29/2010 10:00:57 PM

The 568A/B is basically only about how the connectors are wired. The switch won't care what you use, as it's automatically going to set itself during auto-negotiation. Wire everything for 568B, at both ends, and use straight cables and you'll be fine.

[Edited on May 29, 2010 at 10:11 PM. Reason : fiber would be awesome, but it's a bit expensive right now...]

5/29/2010 10:11:40 PM

yea as long as it's the same on everything then it doesn't matter

fiber isn't much different.. you'd just be running it instead of copper around the house. i would imagine a fiber switch is slightly more expensive though and doubt it's going to matter for your situation

5/29/2010 10:15:05 PM

PoE is crucial

5/29/2010 10:17:05 PM

nice, yes

but unless you're running cisco phones around the house i can't imagine much need for them

[Edited on May 29, 2010 at 10:24 PM. Reason : which i would def do, btw, lol]

5/29/2010 10:24:07 PM

^well if we gonna do it lets nerd it out a little

5/29/2010 10:43:12 PM

yeah, I figured as much about the A/B designation. just wasn't sure if it made a difference when connecting patch panel to switch. final thing to figure out is where to get the exhaust fan I want to put in the area for it. it will prolly go in a closetty type area, which means I wanna make sure it gets good airflow.

5/29/2010 10:58:41 PM

Quote :

"but unless you're running cisco phones around the house i can't imagine much need for them"

i actually have two 7960s im running that would definitely benefit from a little PoE

[Edited on May 29, 2010 at 11:16 PM. Reason : ..]

5/29/2010 11:15:56 PM

PoE (802.3at) at home could be awesome for powering a laptop or something... more useful on campus at a desk though. I'd like to do it just to say I did, but probably won't spend the extra money for it.

5/30/2010 12:11:41 AM

you don't need an exhaust fan in a closet for 1 switch

5/30/2010 10:12:16 AM

is there a poe standard that can power laptops? i've never heard of it..although it's not a bad idea. the new poe standards are going up in how much power they can deliver so it's certainly plausible

5/30/2010 11:05:11 AM

PoE+ (802.3at) would be a stretch at 25W but it could still charge the battery, even if its slowly. Apparently there are some manufacturers that are able to push 50W but I'm not sure how that fits into the standard.

5/30/2010 12:02:10 PM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122139

Thats what I'm using at home. Works ok.

5/30/2010 12:05:34 PM

In my experience, http://www.provantage.com always beats newegg on Netgear pricing, even after their shipping charges.

Actually they're a few cents more on ^, but it's worth checking. I usually find PV is less.

[Edited on May 30, 2010 at 12:42 PM. Reason : ^]

5/30/2010 12:39:59 PM

^lol wtf, that site is cheaper for a few things than i can even find on ebay

[Edited on May 30, 2010 at 1:26 PM. Reason : asdf]

5/30/2010 1:26:30 PM

Yeah, they're the real deal, too. They ship just as fast and reliably as Newegg, plus have accurate real-time inventory levels disclosed on the site.

I don't like their site nearly as well, but by the time I'm ready to place an order, I know what I want anyway.

Besides Netgear, they're also have the best prices for Xerox brand stuff ... both printers and genuine ink/maintenance kits.

5/30/2010 9:17:33 PM

For PoE youd have to build a laptop that could charge off the ethernet port first.

But yes def cat 6.

And unless you are gonna drop 500 a computer for a fiberNIC plus about 1k for the switch why would you wire a house for fiber??

5/30/2010 10:09:34 PM

you can get one for a couple hundred bucks now.. of course used cisco gear would be $1k+ easily though

5/30/2010 10:12:59 PM

I could've gotten a Black Diamond 6808 from work, but its a bit huge and wasteful, so I declined. There's other stuff here I'd rather have.

5/30/2010 10:47:06 PM

^ actually have one almost exactly like that unused in a back closet at my work, too

5/31/2010 1:52:49 AM

You could power a wireless access point with PoE

5/31/2010 12:03:00 PM

So did you ever order the switch and get the wiring done?
I'm about to do the same thing in my house next month when I move in, so I'm curious.

I was also wondering if anyone has any input on what to use for the firewall between the switch and my ISP's connection. I'm trying to decide if I want to put together a cheap PC and run Untangle (and also use it as my wireless AP), or if I just want to get a BUFFALO WZR-HP-G300NH and install DD-WRT.

6/17/2010 3:03:01 AM

i bought one of these for our office recently

hp procurve 24 port gigabit for $360 http://www.provantage.com/hewlett-packard-hp-j9450a-aba~7HPP951W.htm

we use several procurve switches and they are very solid and dependable for layer2 switching. the best part is that they come with a real lifetime warranty. if it breaks, you call them up and they get you a replacement the next day. from what i've seen they don't care if you're the original owner or not so for home use you could just buy a used one on ebay

6/17/2010 11:12:31 AM

For home use?

Just get a good DD-WRT compatible wifi router.

Untangle if you're a hobbist that likes to play with that kind of stuff, to me it's a waste of power, unless you run it on a miniITX or some low-powered CPU.

6/17/2010 11:12:58 AM

since that would do what he needs it to do and all with a total of what, 4 ports?

6/17/2010 11:28:17 AM

^I'm going with 24 ports. I've got plenty to connect and want room to expand.

^^I've thought about the waste of power and wanted to build a miniITX PC for it with a small SSD drive. Untangle more or less just something I want to play with. DD-WRT will do all I need though.

6/17/2010 11:55:47 AM

asdf

[Edited on June 17, 2010 at 12:06 PM. Reason : asdf]

6/17/2010 12:06:33 PM

OMG... Extreme. Those Black Diamonds were pieces of shit. When I ran a network that had 50 of those chassis's, fully populated, I was replacing 1-2 blades a week.

However, I did like the CLI...

Its funny, that Extreme box you picked above, populated the way you have it, was around 100k new back around 2000.

[Edited on June 17, 2010 at 1:18 PM. Reason : .]

6/17/2010 1:17:53 PM

^The new Extreme stuff is a lot better. All of the ExtremeWare stuff is making its way to End-of-Life, and most of it is already End-of-Sale. ExtremeXOS gear is a lot more powerful and the CLI is better than EW. The 6808 is pretty decent, but the 8800 series is much better. We rarely have any trouble out of those.

6/17/2010 1:54:26 PM

So since aaronburro never came back to update, I figured I would.

I ordered the netgear switch mentioned in the OP, and received it today. I'm not moving into my house for another 2 weeks or so, but I've got it hooked up and running just fine in my apartment. I've also ordered 1000' of Cat6 from monoprice, along with a 24 port patch panel, patch cables, keystone jacks and wall plates, and a small rack for the patch panel. That stuff will be here next week. Once I go to Lowe's and buy the boxes to put into the walls, I'll be set. Hoping to install everything over the weekend of the 23rd and 24th.

All this for 6 connections behind the TV, 4 or 5 to the "study" room, and 2 to each bedroom. In each of the bedrooms, one of the jacks will be a different color so that it can be marked for voice - if I add that in the future. I've got AT&T coming out to install UVerse too. All of the wiring and the U-Verse RG comes together in a closet in the middle of the house where the old A/C air handler used to be (it's being replaced and moving to the crawlspace). The closet has easy access to the crawlspace and attic.

This should be fun

7/8/2010 5:04:17 AM

you can get dell powerconnect 5224s on ebay fairly cheap

they're pretty decent, and the CLI is basically a clone of IOS

'tis what i use

7/8/2010 8:37:30 AM