Gigabit switch for home...

Matt_Hirst · 30 Dec 2015 at 19:31

With all the devices in the house now am looking to do a wired connection to some, they're currently all wireless.

Planning on concentrating on the upstairs first, there are three now tv boxes, new type, three tv so that's six connections, in my office I have a pc and two servers connected to an existing 5 port switch this is then wired through to a cupboard in this office where the fibre comes in and connects to a wireless router.

My initial thought is to put a gigabit switch in the loft wiring all tv and now tv to this, run wire from switch in office to this and also another to the fibre router...

So what switch for the loft or is it better suited situating it next to my existing fibre router, just concerned about all wires in the cupboard and wife not happy.

Anyway let me know your thoughts.

Matt

K.C. Leblanc · 30 Dec 2015 at 22:12

For domestic stuff switches are much of a muchness. I've always found TP-Link good for cheap kit. I doubt a basic switch will mind being in the loft as long as it's not really damp.

The only issue I can see is how you're planning to connect it all up. If you connect the new switch to both your router and your office switch you will end up with a loop in your network which will stop the network working.

The neatest solution would be to run all your network points back to one point and get a single switch with enough ports. But in reality you probably won't gain much.

Caged · 30 Dec 2015 at 22:15

It's pretty difficult to buy a bad unmanaged switch in all honesty, I think Netgear are past the time period where everything broke after 4 years as well. Just buy something in the form factor you require with the mounting options you need. I always prefer a switch with a mains input rather than a power brick, and a rackmount format is easy enough to spin the rack ears around and use as wall mounts but that's personal preference. I always end up with HP or Cisco but I tend to 'acquire' them rather than having to make the purchase so it's easy for me to make that recommendation.

Think about whether you might want PoE though, it's great for access points or VoIP phones if you're a home worker etc.

Avalon · 31 Dec 2015 at 02:24

Leave the NowTV's on wireless unless you need to move them off to wired, they're low bandwidth and not latency sensative, do you need the TV's connected? NowTV should do most of what they do better anyway and again they're unlikely to benefit much.

In simple terms either a switch centrally and run everything to it (more cable), or one switch upstairs and one downstairs but understand you'll be bandwidth limited by a single feed potentially between them. Assuming your router has gigabit run from that to each switch, if it doesn't run from switch to switch and then from one of them to router, this will keep all the devices running at full speed between the switches but potentially limit throughput between devices on each switch though it'll still be a gigabit in either direction.

Matt_Hirst · 31 Dec 2015 at 10:48

My reason for doing it is we have two daughters, one on ipad one on hudl both streaming videos at the same time, we watch now tv or use phones at same time, so I thought get as much off wireless as possible, so now tvs, tv's, my pc and servers...

Or am I wasting my money and be better off throwing the money at a better wireless router currently a tendnet ac1900 wireless router and managing useage from there?

I just figure that streaming wise the amount transmitted will just grow and grow.

regards,

Matt

Avalon · 31 Dec 2015 at 21:25

Don't bother, you'll see bugger all benefit from what you have just described. The issue you will have is WAN saturation long before wifi is ever an issue in bandwidth terms. 1080p runs at about 5-6mbit, 720p is less, a few devices streaming video isn't going to stress a router designed for a max of 1900mbit.