Recommend equipment for home setup

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Bird222

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 1, 2000
Messages
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Can you guys recommend some network equipment for home use that is a step above consumer products? Something that can handle a media server and let's say 10 computers and some wireless devices. It can (should) be older (i.e. cheap) equipment. Please explain what the pieces of equipment are. I just want to tinker with some stuff. :D
 
Wire everything you can, it's more reliable than wireless by a long shot, and faster to boot. You could look for a cheap used switch on ebay, or you could buy something like an HP 1810. If you want gb and buy used on ebay then make certain all it's ports are gb, because these sellers mislead by saying its a GB switch when only two ports are GB. If 100mbps is fast enough for you then you can find some super cheap smart or managed switches on ebay if you want VLANS or something.

For a router, you can buy the edgerouter light. It's 99 bucks. Or you could buy a used computer or build something and run pfSense on it. pfSense is dead reliable but all of this (edgerouter and pfSense) might be a steep learning curve for you if you don't know a lot about networking.

Finally for wireless use UniFi from ubiquity networks. You can get the 802.11n Ap's for 70 bucks and it's a system so you can use more than one to get great coverage. Again, might be a bit much for you to learn, but you're gonna have to run a controller for unifi (can run in windows, doesn't need to be running 24/7).

This would make a rock solid network that would just work.
 
diizzy said:
Uhm... Ok?
Exactly what do you want to do?
//Danne
Click to expand...

Well that's the thing, I don't know exactly. I'm a geek and from time to time I like to play with computers. :D I guess I would want a firewall, a good fast switch, some network storage and ability to play with VLANs.
 
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SuperMicro 846 Chassis w/1366 2P motherboard. ~$400 to your door.
24 hot swap bays
2 psus (that are 80+ GOLD efficient)
4U Size
Not too loud when in a cool room, with OEM PWM fans... can be made quieter.

Throw in some CPUs (cheap), DDR3 RDIMM (cheap) and your HDs/SSD and go.

Easily handle all you want and more for very very affordable. L5639 = cheap low power, x5650 = higher power and higher power draw.
 
ToddW2 said:
SuperMicro 846 Chassis w/1366 2P motherboard. ~$400 to your door.
24 hot swap bays
2 psus (that are 80+ GOLD efficient)
4U Size
Not too loud when in a cool room, with OEM PWM fans... can be made quieter.

Throw in some CPUs (cheap), DDR3 RDIMM (cheap) and your HDs/SSD and go.

Easily handle all you want and more for very very affordable. L5639 = cheap low power, x5650 = higher power and higher power draw.
Click to expand...

are you selling these? or where are you getting them
 
Router:

Ubiquiti Edgerouter is probably the best bang for the buck on the market...it's $1000 worth of performance at a $99 entry price.

My recommended alternate: ASUS RT66-68 w/merlin firmware

Dizzy's favorite: TPlink loaded with WRT


Distro Switches: HP 1810G V2, Zyxel GS1910, GS1920 or Linksys G3xx

Wireless: Whatever you want, lots of good choices out there, tell us what you are looking at for an AP and we can tell you if it is a stinker.


Media Center boxes....lots of guys here build their own. I have a hacked HP Gen8 Microserver.
 
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Thanks for mentioning the ERL router. Was reading a lot about this and got it today. Took about 4 hours to setup with the 1.70rc1 beta firmware. This includes reconfiguring everything from scratch.

Now I have in my closet the ERL connected to the cable modem on eth0. A switch is connected to eth1. One WNDR3700 with gargoyle firmware for an access point in that closet on the eth1 switch. And then a separate wired WNDR3700v2 with gargoyle firmware for an access point in the kitchen directly on eth2. Kitchen will be a guest network completely separate since its on eth2.

Didn't need to get into CLI either. Was able to setup all of this including dynamic dns (dnsomatic) and port forwarding completely from the wizard. The deep packet inspection is interesting. Next to maybe play around with QOS. That looks overly complicated.

Next up is a 16 port switch along with one of the Ubuiqiti AP's for the kitchen as I think both WNDR3700's radios are dying.

Running a synology, ooma, freenas, rokus, dune hd, and a few other things besides the typical tablets/phones/pc's/laptops.
 
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