Networking a whole house from scratch - masses of advice needed!

Ease · 29 Apr 2013 at 08:48

So this July I'm going to start getting my first well-paid job, so in August (once the first (and most substantial) paycheck has come in) I'm going to buy my small family (myself, missus, and baby) a house.

I've already decided I want Ethernet everywhere, but I want it to look great so it's going to have to be routed through the walls. I had some questions on that:

How essential is shielding?
How easy is it to repair the long channel (sometimes) required in a stud wall?
Is it much harder to run through external walls?

I'm thinking of doing 2 Ethernet ports per bedroom, plus 2 in the kitchen, and 6 in the lounge. That makes 14. Does that sound reasonable to everyone? With that in mind, can I just get the very cheapest 16-port switch I can find, or is it important to spend a little extra and get one in particular?

Also, I currently have 10Tb of media on my PC. I'd love to get it all on a network device so my power-hungry gaming PC doesn't have to stay on the whole time. If multiple devices are trying to stream the media, will a simple 4-bay NAS suffice, or will I need a media server?

Finally, are there any major issues I've clearly not thought about? Or giant flaws in this basic plan?

Thanks in advance for any and all advice! I really appreciate it.

P.s., money is not really a factor; I want a reliable network first and foremost. That said, any left over pennies will help placate the missus that I'm moving 500+ miles from home

bledd · 29 Apr 2013 at 09:11

I'd get a 24port switch.

-Remember your router will need to connect up to it to.
-Then possibly a server in the same location as the switch.
-Possibly a printer

-May be worth having a port in your utility room, new boilers etc will become 'connected' eventually. Probably through wireless, but still..

Personally, I'd be going for a fanless model and keeping it in a cool/ventilated area

Imy · 29 Apr 2013 at 09:17

I think you're jumping the gun here a little. Get the house, get settled in, etc then look at wiring it up with ethernet.

peterwalkley · 29 Apr 2013 at 09:45

You could be over-engineering this. I wired up my house when we moved in about 12 years ago - but today I wouldn't bother. Just about everything we use now is wireless and the few things that aren't can be wired up without doing the whole house.

I really only have two wires that are important. One goes from the cable modem to the cupboard under the stairs (where I have router, NAS, switch etc) - and then one from there into my downstairs office where the other wired kit lurks (desktop, printers etc). None of the cables I routed upstairs are used any more.

Wireless and possibly a range extender - depending on the house.

bledd · 29 Apr 2013 at 10:01

Wireless is crap for data transfer, in his first post he says he has 10Tb of media.

Cable it up son!

Ease · 29 Apr 2013 at 10:04

bledd. said:
I'd get a 24port switch.

-Remember your router will need to connect up to it to.
-Then possibly a server in the same location as the switch.
-Possibly a printer

-May be worth having a port in your utility room, new boilers etc will become 'connected' eventually. Probably through wireless, but still..

Personally, I'd be going for a fanless model and keeping it in a cool/ventilated area

Ah, yeah that's probably a good shout. I forgot to mention that one of the 'bedrooms' will be the office, and will probably need a couple extra ethernet cables anyway, so 24-port is probably essential.

Any recommendation on NAS vs Home Server? I had a (super cheap) NAS at one of my old houses, and it claimed to be able to run at Gigabit over Ethernet, but couldn't even stream HD. It only managed about 10Mb/s at best, though it was a very cheap NAS box. Do the more expensive ones perform a lot better? I had hoped that a NAS box would be able to transfer data within 1% of the speeds that the HDDs are limited to themselves.

Imy said:
I think you're jumping the gun here a little. Get the house, get settled in, etc then look at wiring it up with ethernet.

We've got a place for the time being, and so I'd much prefer to break open the walls and lift floorboards before the house is filled with stuff. Plus with a one year-old I don't really want to be doing a lot of DIY once we're moved in.

peterwalkley said:
You could be over-engineering this. I wired up my house when we moved in about 12 years ago - but today I wouldn't bother. Just about everything we use now is wireless and the few things that aren't can be wired up without doing the whole house.

I really only have two wires that are important. One goes from the cable modem to the cupboard under the stairs (where I have router, NAS, switch etc) - and then one from there into my downstairs office where the other wired kit lurks (desktop, printers etc). None of the cables I routed upstairs are used any more.

Wireless and possibly a range extender - depending on the house.

I am quite possibly over-engineering this, but as an engineer I'll always choose to over-engineer than under-engineer. Plus I host quite a lot of (small) LAN parties, and not everyone has Wireless cards in their PCs (I know I don't), and I really hate trailing cables.

I hate trailing cables so much, in fact, that I'm going to be running HDMI cables in the walls of the sitting room and bedrooms, with HDMI wall sockets and power outlets behind where each TV will go, as well.

Also, you mention "Wireless and possible a range extender" - I'm currently in a tiny two bedroom flat, and can't even get wireless in every room. And I mean tiny. So I have very little faith in wireless.

Cycrow · 29 Apr 2013 at 10:22

id suggest running more cables than you plan to have sockets.

so if you have 2 sockets in a run i would run 4 cables. This would make it easier in the future to add additional sockets if you need to, without needing to run new cables. And if one of the lines breaks for some reason, you have some spares to switch over too.

i would disagree about the wireless suggestion, it can be useful for some things, but is really no replacement for a proper cabled network. I only really use wireless for laptops and things

Ease · 29 Apr 2013 at 10:28

Cycrow said:
id suggest running more cables than you plan to have sockets.

so if you have 2 sockets in a run i would run 4 cables. This would make it easier in the future to add additional sockets if you need to, without needing to run new cables. And if one of the lines breaks for some reason, you have some spares to switch over too.

i would disagree about the wireless suggestion, it can be useful for some things, but is really no replacement for a proper cabled network. I only really use wireless for laptops and things

I had considered doing this, as the cost of the extra cable will be a fraction of that to run more cables.

Also, is it worth considering running Cat6a instead of Cat6?

Bones · 29 Apr 2013 at 10:36

Ease said:
Any recommendation on NAS vs Home Server? I had a (super cheap) NAS at one of my old houses, and it claimed to be able to run at Gigabit over Ethernet, but couldn't even stream HD. It only managed about 10Mb/s at best, though it was a very cheap NAS box. Do the more expensive ones perform a lot better? I had hoped that a NAS box would be able to transfer data within 1% of the speeds that the HDDs are limited to themselves.

Sounds like something was restricting it to 100mb, perhaps an old CAT5 cable or was it plugged into a 100mb switch?

iamtheoneneo · 29 Apr 2013 at 10:37

Unless your a builder good luck, that is a lot of work to be done for very minimal gains and your find that when your actually in the house the amount of DIY you will be willing to do is very minimal!

Just run it under the carpet tbh, much simplier than destroying walls etc.

Ease · 29 Apr 2013 at 10:46

Bones said:
Sounds like something was restricting it to 100mb, perhaps an old CAT5 cable or was it plugged into a 100mb switch?

It was definitely Cat6, but as it was a few years back there's a chance the router I was using as a switch might have been 100mb?

iamtheoneneo said:
Unless your a builder good luck, that is a lot of work to be done for very minimal gains and your find that when your actually in the house the amount of DIY you will be willing to do is very minimal!

I'm no builder, but I have a Masters in Engineering

I've also done a lot (quantity, not quality) of decorating/DIY repairing run-down houses for my Ma. That said, I've never run any cabling, but I can plaster and all that.

iamtheoneneo said:
Just run it under the carpet tbh, much simplier than destroying walls etc.

Eww, yuck! I'd prefer to live without internet at all than have cables under the carpet making it all bumpy

I know you all have only my best interests at heart, but I shan't be swayed from cabling this house: it'll be the first property that will actually be mine, and at the same time it'll be the cheapest place I'll ever own (hopefully <£100k!!!), so I want to get all my DIY skills up to scratch so that in a few years when I move to a proper house I can make it exactly what I want it to be and know that I'm not going to botch it up.

Imy · 29 Apr 2013 at 11:00

You make slits in the underlay and run it in that or between the underlay and carpet grippers. The carpet sits neatly over the top with no bumps if you've done it right (and you've got decent underlay).

No advantage of CAT6a over CAT6 for home gigabit networks. Shielding also unnecessary in a home environment. CAT6 can be quite delicate though if you're used to working with CAT5e. Solid core is better for the punch down modules.

A PC setup to be a NAS is likely to be kicking out a lot more heat than a dedicated off-the-shelf NAS. Something to bare in mind if you want to stick it in a cupboard.

Cycrow · 29 Apr 2013 at 17:34

iamtheoneneo said:
Just run it under the carpet tbh, much simplier than destroying walls etc.

you dont need to destroy walls to run cabling. Most of it will go under the floorboards which you can put back.

i've cabled 100's of houses and i never destroyed any walls

LightraysWiFi · 29 Apr 2013 at 17:56

I agree .... running cables under the floorboards are much easier than damaging walls. I should have ask my electrician to run the network cable from downstairs to upstairs bed room when the floorboards were taken out whilst performing an electricity upgrade, damn.... didn't thought of that....

As a consequence, now I am running my HTPC on wireless-n because my wireless router is upstairs. I am thinking of putting 2 UAP-LR on each floor of my house and just disable the current wireless.

Deleted member 77746 · 29 Apr 2013 at 19:23

Gig Powerlines?

Sin_Chase · 29 Apr 2013 at 20:03

Powerlines suck. They are a band-aid solution for small scale 'cabled' wiring of devices in places where you cannot or cannot be bothered to run cable.

They are not a replacement for or anywhere even near as good as cable.

Deleted member 77746 · 29 Apr 2013 at 21:07

Sin_Chase said:
Powerlines suck. They are a band-aid solution for small scale 'cabled' wiring of devices in places where you cannot or cannot be bothered to run cable.

They are not a replacement for or anywhere even near as good as cable.

They don't suck but I do agree with not as good as cable. It gives options. Running cable can be a long job depends how much experience you have with networking.

What I would do is start small in terms of networking. Pick a central nice spot in the house where all cables can be ran and run your first few cables to main areas then go from there.

Ease · 29 Apr 2013 at 22:23

Huge great Powerline adapter, with an ethernet cable to an ugly switch, with long ethernet cables dangling every which way to reach devices around the room... VS ...nice flush ethernet plates on the wall right behind the devices with short ethernet cables plugged in directly.

Even if the Powerline adapters were free (and they're very much not (the pass-through kit costs equal to 300m of Cat6!)) and of equal quality (again, miles out), I'd still choose to cable in the ethernet, just for aesthetics.

thenewoc · 30 Apr 2013 at 02:37

Not sure if it's sold in the UK but I saw something called 'magnepull' demo'd on youtube which looked pretty nifty.

Five_Star · 30 Apr 2013 at 16:30

Go for it! I ran the Lan cables in my house while it was being gutted so it made it much easier.

I've got a 24 port patch under the stairs where the modem, switch and media PC are located. I have a second cabinet now with a Synology 1812+ NAS in it in addition to the pictures below.

These are just the images I had online already, I need to do a full write up for my blog really on this as its been one of the best additions to the house and 1Gbps beats wireless all day long.

Every room has 2 ports including the loft space. The office has 4 ports. Cat5e is fine for 1Gbps and has less strict installation requirements, although you probably find Cat6 is cheaper these days, I installed this 5 years ago now