Gigabit Home Network Questions

[ssmacc]

Hello All,

I'm possibly buying a new house soon and as it needs new carpets etc I’m thinking of installing a wired network to all rooms (PC's & 360 used as media extenders). I'm thinking of getting the following:
Netgear GS608 8-Port Gigabit Desktop Switch
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-102-NG&groupid=46&catid=1453&subcat=1473

Anyone recommend it?

I already have a router although I might upgrade to virgin 50mb when the price comes down (Sept I believe).

What cable do I need? Should I get cat6 or is cat5(e?) good enough? I assume I'm best buying a reel of cable and putting the ends on myself, is this easy to do?

Cheers

 

[PhillyDee]

Easy enough to terminate Cat5e. Cat6 (I hear) is a bit of a pig. It doesnt like bends or somesuch thing. Personally, I have Cat5e round my home and happily get 60mb/s transferring files between machines. Just plug the switch into the router and everything into the switch.

Its easy to crimp on plugs. All you need are the plugs and a tool. If you want to do it well, then get a cheap tester to make sure they are all connected fine. (You may be able to borrow one from a friend or maybe work!)

 

[Nick1881]

I'm using cat 5e too, over quite a long length and my speed is good despite having a really cheap TP-link switch that cost under £20.

I'm sure cat 5e and that Netgear will be fine.

 

[Banzai_Joe]

yeah, i've just upgraded a couple of segments in my home network from cat5e to cat6 (cable, plug, termination to new cat6 patch panel).
All the nics in my pc's are gigabit as is my switch. I'm getting speeds between 30-70MB/s, but you will likely still get this with cat5e. And as mentioned its far less fussy than cat6 as regards corner radius etc.
Cat6 will help future-proof your network and as i've got to reels of it, i thought i'd start replacing it (got plenty of cat6 jacks and modules too), but you probably won't see much if any speed increase. Cat5e is good for gigabit speeds for segments up to about 25m.