Hello peeps, Im looking at wiring my house with cat5e which will include a NAS and a server im going to build. I intend on having a switch upstairs which will feed each room as well as have the router connected to it. This will then be connected to a downstairs switch which will feed everything downstairs. I will also be connecting a NAS and a server to this network but I dont think it matters where these are located. So my questions are as follows. Can people please recommend a good fair priced cable supplier and recommend how much they think ill need? I dont mind buying a box and crimping the ends etc myself. Which cable I should be using? (Shielded or not) Which switches should I be using.... Obviously I want to keep costs down as much as possible but I do tend to buy quality over price. Your suggestions will be greatly appreciated and any links for supplies and or hardware will be amazing. Thanks
You might as well use Cat 6 cable, slight premium but better for the future. The cable appears to come in 300m boxes, if you can rout directly and unless you live in a mansion this is plenty. If you are able to cable each point directly from upstairs to each location downstairs then you only need one switch, I do not see the point of having 2 switches if you can avoid it as it will be a bottleneck.
I was going to use two switches as I didnt want to run loads of long lengths outside the house as im going to need to connect upstairs and downstairs via running a length outside as there isnt any otherway round it without incurring ripping up floors.
terminating it would imply running your cable runs into a patch panel at one end and a wall socket the other end - which is how proper cable installations are done. Patch cables implies rj45 jacks on each end going straight from switch into device - less flexible.
Cat6 is a no brainer if you are running new I think - the price difference is so little and while I doubt > 1Gbps is going to be of much use around the home any time soon is doesn't hurt. You will need some external cable for your outside run - I found that is was cheaper to buy a really long patch lead off ebay and just cut it up to be the cheapest way in small quantities. Couple of tips - always terminate to a wall box rather than leaving a lose lead, it looks better and will be more robust. Patch panels are cheap - use them where your switches are. Run two wires instead of one where you can - on long runs its easier to have two boxes of wire and pull both at the same time but you can do it with one obviously. You almost always end up needing more cables in the end - you don't have to plug them all into a switch initially if you don't have the budget for a bigger switch but switches are always coming down in cost, cable is always a pain to add more of.
Thanks for the advice....i will try to "terminate" where I can without having to ruin already decorated areas. You say to try and run two cables can you explain the reasoning for this?
Unless you have really high requirements such as multiple simultaneous high bitrate video streams pretty much any gigabit switch will do. Ditto the wall boxes etc. My crimp tool and network tester cost a few pounds from eBay and are more than up to these sorts of jobs. The main thing is to make sure you don't damage the cable and make strong terminations. You can easily replace faulty wall boxes but running that cable again is a pita.
tip: do not be tempted to tug at a snag when pulling the cable, make sure there are no kinks, as these will almost certainly break the cable if it gets caught. when you wire the second switch up, make sure it feeds from the router not the first switch.
What happens if I dont? Im starting to go the route of having what I believe is called a "Node Zero" and just run more cables than needed. I have worked out since I starting this post that I can pull the cable through my attic with an existing sky cable installation which will be moved downstairs anyway. This way I can have my central location downstairs in a cupboard and feed the rooms upstairs via the attic (cable running up the side of the house to the attic) and just drop a cable into the corner of each room. I can also feed each room downstairs by running a cable under the house as I have access under the house and just run a cable up in through the floor. I will try to terminate where possible but I think im going to have to pin alot of cables into the corner walls as I really cant screwing with existing decorating work. Do you think 300M will be enough...I live in an end of terrace... 3 bedroom house.
depends how much traffic you have but if you have a switch feeding loads of machines and another switch, and the other switch feeds more machines, you have all the data from switch 2 and all the data from switch 1 going through a single port to router, and could cause bandwidth issues
Why do this? Typically if I had to have two switches and a router I would wire switch to switch and then the router off one switch with nothing else into it. Going from a device plugged into one switch to a device in the other has 2 hops between them but if you put the router inbetween you've now got 3. 3 hops to the internet doesn't bother me as you are never bandwidth limited to the internet. I think what you are describing is star configuration? Rather than two switches you are thinking of one central location that all the wires come back to? If so this is the probably the fastest configuration you could use though often it uses more cable than others. Probably but it depends on your cable routes and how many connections you plan per room. Assuming 8 connections that is 40m per connection which is quite a lot - it must be about the length of our terrace.
I'm inclined to agree with this - if the media server is sitting on a switch, then I would chain switch to switch, as, streaming media off the server is going to use lots more bandwidth than the internet. And if the server is on switch one, you are on switch 2 and you want to stream something, and it's going via the router which could only be 10/100 then you are going to massively reduce the bandwidth to that machine, even though the machine you are on is still on a gigabit connection, the traffic has been through a bottleneck.
Thanks for the advice people Ill try and keep you all updated with how I get on. Its going to be a bit of a bodge job in terms of the cabling due to the mrs only decorating not too long ago in various areas but at least if we move I can take the cable with me haha.
If you router/switches are smart, then you could always nic team between them to increase the bandwidth.
currently I have the Sky Fibre Router.... and what is classed as a smart switch and router? Is nic teaming easy to do ? I will be streaming multiple HD Streams so want as much bandwidth as possible.
