spec me a home network

[233]

utterly fed up faffing about with wireless and home plugs and have taken the plunge and decided to run cables to every room in the house needed.


so far we have


virgin 350 coming into the house which will be fed via from the virgin modem into a switch under the stairs.

from there 2x feeds into each room (1 live one spare)

so thats
living room
bedroom 1
bedroom 2
bedroom 3
bedroom 4
dining room no run will be more than 40-50 metres (going up via the loft then down for the bedrooms

i will need a cheap switch in each room and the living room

now i have teenagers so will no doubt be pretty much having maximum useage of that virgin connection think gaming/4k streaming and the kicker i also want to be able to fire 4k plex content over the network at the same time.

plex servier will reside under the stairs with the switch

i presume just generic cat5e will be ample for gigabit speeds to every room,

can i get a recomendaiton for a decent idiot proof switch for main distribution and a small 4/8 port switch for each room.

 

[bremen1874]

Cat5e or Cat6 depending on how you feel about 10GBe and whether Cat5e will actually support it at domestic distances.

All unmanaged switches are idiot proof (assuming you don't create a loop with your cabling). Buy whatever you like the look of.

If possible run more cables to reduce the need for remote switches.

Make sure the cable you buy isn't CCA (copper clad aluminium). I don't buy anything that does state that it is solid copper.

 

[233]

is there any specific reason for avoiding cca other than it wont be as good over long runs (i cant imagine anything over 40-50 metres getting put in ) i know the pure copper will have lower packet loss and will bend easier but just curious as to whether there was a definite performance hit at my distances.

also will be going switch and patch cables in each room as patch cables are cheap to replace unlike running extra cables when the kids eventually rip them out the wall.

 

[bremen1874]

CCA will almost certainly work just fine if you're desperate to save every penny. For me, the few pounds you'll save by using CCA isn't enough to make it worthwhile. Your choice.

What's to stop your kids ripping your one or two cables out of the wall? Not sure how you'd rip one out anyway, the socket or plug clips will break before the entire socket comes adrift.

 

[Armageus]

is there any specific reason for avoiding cca other than it wont be as good over long runs

As well as being poorer in terms of signal strength/packet loss, it's also more brittle, and so easier to damage when installing (thus increasing the chance of packet loss/random issues).
It's also generally not recommended for PoE applications, as it has higher resistance than Copper, which in order to compensate for requires the conductors to be made larger (which generally never happens as it would increase cost, thus negating the cost advantage) - potentially this can be dangerous if the PoE devices are drawing sufficient current.

https://www.belden.com/blog/smart-building/cca-cable-5-reasons-to-stay-away

 

[233]

CCA will almost certainly work just fine if you're desperate to save every penny. For me, the few pounds you'll save by using CCA isn't enough to make it worthwhile. Your choice.

What's to stop your kids ripping your one or two cables out of the wall? Not sure how you'd rip one out anyway, the socket or plug clips will break before the entire socket comes adrift.

you dont have teenagers i guess?

if it can somehow be broken it will be broken


thanks for the info on the CCA stuff Armageus confirmed what i thought spend the bit extra for potential down the line benefits and piece of mind.

 

[Avalon]

Have you considered pulls for things like AP’s and CCTV or Balun kits if required? I ask because the Blauns especially require dedicated unbroken feeds, or you to pay a lot for IP and run it on a dedicated VLAN or its own subnet/switches.

CCA is horrible, just don’t do it. Plex wise you are potentially throwing 100Mbit + streams around at 4K, gigabit will be fine for this and 5e should do 10Gbit at this sort of distance anyway, 6 is just more of a pita to deal with.

 

[233]

Don’t see a need for balun kits at any point but Poe is something to consider for cctv in future

will probably run 16-18 pulls up to the loft from the cupboard under the stairs anyway only need 4 x2 for each room (live plus spare) but be handy to have the rest available

easy enough to poke them through for extra runs or APs or cctv in future as long as I leave plenty length on them

 

[Avalon]

Baluns like everything else, can be useful in the right circumstances, I use them for moving games console feeds to PJ’s in another room, allowing control of something like a VM/Sky box via IR in other parts of the house etc. but it largely depends on how you choose to pipe your content and your needs. Irrespective of anything, I would always run Sat/DVB-T feeds, they will likely work when anything else you use fails. Also look into the Plex local auth settings, nothing worse than not being able to watch your own local content because Plex have an issue or your internet connection is down, that sucks