Spec me a 24 port switch for home network

welshdragon

welshdragon

welshdragon

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Hi Guys

I'm not great when it comes to networking but a house purchase and full rewire has given me the opportunity to hardwire cat 6 throughout my new house.

I'll end up with roughly 16 runs so I'm looking for a 24 port switch.

What's the best/most user friendly/fanless one I can get around £100?

I've so far looked at the

TP-Link TL-SG1024D

TRENDnet TEG-S24Dg 24


Any thoughts guys?
 
TEG-S24G (full length, different to the one you suggested)

--

Also, look up LackRack
£5 Ikea table for making a super cheap rack!

You can easily cut the legs to make it fit into any height

https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/LackRack


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Bought a 24 port Trendnet myself this year, hasn't skipped a beat :) One of the lowest power consumption, fanless models I could find.
 
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Cheers bledd.

Is the only difference is one is rackmount (G) whilst the other isn't (DG)?

It'll be housed in the electrical distribution cupboard along with the mains board and perhaps wiring ready for solar in a year or two? With a custom cupboard/enclosure built around it all.

I presume that's ok in terms of any possible electrical interference? Everything will be brand new and I've gone for copper core shielded cable?
 
I'd highly recommend using a patch panel and not having loose ends going straight into the switch, if possible.

Yes that's the only difference in those models.
 
bledd. said:
Neater, less chance of damaging connections. Easier to see exactly which cable is which
Click to expand...

As above. You run the risk of causing fatigue on the RJ45s, especially with stiffer CAT6 cabling. Running it into a patch panel is much prefered. Panels are pretty cheap and the punch-down tools can be had for a few quid (they aren't super quality, but for doing a single panel they'll usually get the job done).

If you use a panel, you can use super-short (0.3 or 0.5M) patch leads to keep everything tidy. It is also much simpler to swap out a patch lead than re-terminating a CAT6 in an enclosed space if/when a connector gets damaged.

Another advantage is being able to colour code your patch leads. For work we (try!) to use specific colours for different things. Say, blue for a PC; red for an access point etc. Another strategy is different colours for different rooms.
 
Just about any CAT6 rated panel will do. Probably loads on eBay or the like.

You could use a CAT5e panel, but it's usually a good idea to match the panel to the cabling type.
 
The reason the cost gap between 5e and 6 is minimal is because they are essentially the same for home users. You only need CAT6 for Gigabit Ethernet over very long distances or 10 Gigabit Ethernet, which is currently not even on the radar for home users. You'd need SSDs to even benefit from 10 Gbps transfers to begin with.

I'd recommend the TP-Link switches. They're cheap, do what they say on the tin, and can maintain true Gigabit throughput (I regularly see 90 MB/s transfers between my machines). Their only slight downside is that they are light due to being made of plastic, so you need something heavy on top of them really, unless they're going underneath a TV stand like one of mine :p. TP-Link do have metal versions of their switches but they have the Ethernet sockets on the opposite side to the power socket, which is crap for home use IMO. In a business environment, being able to see all of the Ethernet sockets and their lights is nice but at home you want cables running behind tables/desks.
 
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Do they have a 24 port version with Ethernet sockets on the rear?

Also guys, will a Virgin Superhub be ok driving all this or should I really be looking at something better and using the Superhub in modem only mode?
 
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