Building Home network cabinet: advice needed for newbie

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jpcolin

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Hi,

I have been reading this forum for a while, an d found this verry interesting.
In fact i'm looking to build a network rack (wall mounted) for my home

Don't be surprise by the amout of connections i have, i have an home automation and multiroom audio (sonos)

Here i a little summary (and pic attached):
8 sonos zones(hardwired)
14 Home entertianement
7 home automation
6 IP cams HD
4 AP's
2 NAS
x Computers
x spare

I counted 51, but probalby it's going to end up around 58

What i'm looking for i wal mounted racks (middle atlantic seems great but expensive!) around 700€ (looking foor 22U-26u with removable side panels of swirling)
Here a first draft of my future configuration, I would like to have your apinion and advice

- PDU: APC basic PDU 1U with surge protection: does it exist i could not find it?
- Patch panel 4 x 24 of 2x 48? Is there a difference in quality in brands? What brand do you ecommend?
- Neat Patch 2x not yet sure about it, i read mixed reviews
- Switch: 2 x HP 1620 48G: anyone has experince with this one? it seems to be a new model
- POE switch (for IP cam and maybe unify AP's) any suggestion? Maybe HP (1920 24G 180W), i like to stick with 1 brand, but it's not a must.
- Router? any suggestion? (at the moment a Dlink wich works) i need dynDNS, port forwarding, Mac reservation. No wifi needed because it is in the basement and tha AP's wil do it.
- Unifi AP AC, not sure about it because i read mixed reviews.
What about a firewall, any added value for a private house? I read about firebox that could be "hacked into Pfsense... worth the price or not?

BTW i have a cable internet a 160Mbps so a Gigabit router is needed

FYI, i'm a novice in this network thing, and wil need a lot of advice, but i'm engineer (mechanical) and i'm a quick learner ;-)

EDIT:
-All equipment that makes sense must be rackmountable
-Integrated power supply with the standard 3 pin power

Thank you
PSEldxv.jpg
 
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There's no such thing as a cheap wall-mount rack. If you have an e-recycler near you, you can probably pickup a 22-25U rolling rack for $300.

I'd suggest 48-port patch panels over 24-ports. No particular reason. As far as brand, we use Abergetty. It's carried by our local cabling shop, and we've yet to have issues with them. I know Leviton is always well received.

I don't know the Neat brand, but cable management is 50/50 for most people. On one hand, yes it looks nice when the time is taken to dress everything. On the other hand, why not just order 1 ft cable so you don't have giant loops that need to be cleaned. Without the cable management devices, I'd say leave a 1U space between equipment and just use shorter cables.

Everyone will have different opinions on switches, mine are as follows: If you want new and cheaper, use D-Link DGS line. They're business class and work very well. On the picture below I put in DGS-1210-48 and 1210-08P. Then you have a single brand and don't have to think too hard about how to access each unit (WebUI by default). If you don't mind used, I'd highly suggest Dell PowerConnect 5448 for you 48-port units. Full managed via CLI, with web console, and just a wonderful workhorse. The CLI documentation is very thorough, but may be daunting for a non-networking person.

PoE I don't personally have much feelings for one way or another, but I did put D-Link in my image. I've also used TrendNet, D-Link, and Cisco for PoE, as long as everything powers on I don't care. If you can find a Ubiquiti (UBNT) ToughSwitch 8-port, they work very well, but are not rack-mountable (ok, not totally true, but the 1U rack unit has place for 2x ToughSwitch units).

I'm going to suggest the UBNT EdgeRouter Lite. It's a very strong unit, works 1Gbps line speed, and it's $99. If you want it rack mounted (because who doesn't) some people do make a 1U adapter (http://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=UB-RM1&eq=&Tp=&o1=0). The firebox hacked to pfSense is Watchguard's X-series, not XTM (unless someone's done it recently, been a while since I looked). It's an older series that should run your 160Mbps with no issues. But the EdgeRouter is a new piece of hardware that keeps growing in features.

If you want your wireless powered by the PoE switch, you will need the UAP-Pro or UAP-AC. The UAP and UAP-LR use UBNT proprietary power adapters. I have nothing bad to say about the UAP and UAP-LR, we've got over 100 units deployed across 3 states for my company. They would be great units for your home.


 
@Firedrow,

Thanks for your reply, already learning thanks to you.
I'm not a cheap buyer, but found 7-800€ quite expensive for a rack, but if that is the price then so is it.
Any other recommendation besides Middle Atlantic, Triplite? Don't want cheap stuff, but decent price/quality.

I was kind of attracted to those HP 1620 48G switches, any negative about those?

You made me discover the Ubiquiti router and switches, according to you decent quality?
How would you rate those in comparaison to HP and Cisco? The Edgeswitch poe+ 24G switch is half the price of the HP 1920 24G!!!!
I would not go for a 8G ports, my mistake, lets take 24G so i can expand later...

The router that retained my attention is the ER-8Pro or ER-8. Have you use those before?
Do they do portforwarding, and Mac adress reservation? i could not this in the datasheet.

And yes not even thinking of not guetting AC AP's! i have to investigate more on those AC unifi's, have you use those before? what i also like about those is that they us 802.3at, so i can connect them directly on a poe+ switch.

So i'll drop the firewall pfsense.

The single brand makes sense, but if have to use HP and Ubiquiti it's ok i think. I would not liker to use more than 2 brands for switches and router.

Following questions wil be how to connect those piece together UTP or SFP? link aggregation or not, and where? but this is the second step. first lets define the hardware.

Thanks for your time.
 
ATM I see at least the following:

2x switch
1x POE switch
1x router
1x bridge
1x NAS

all connected to an itty-bitty SU750. I would suggest serious consideration be given to kicking that up at least to a SU1000 or larger especially if you plan on adding anything like a server in the rack. APC has a sizing tool on their website which will give and estimated run time based on load.

As for PDU at home I use APC 7900s. They are 8 port, 1U, switched and networked, but I don't know if they do surge protection or not but they are connected to pair of SUX 3000s which handle that.
 
The tried and true HP 1810 is just a bit more and some places less than the HP 1620 and has higher throughput and more features.
I have used a ton of them with 0 problems.
 
jpcolin said:
The Edgeswitch poe+ 24G switch is half the price of the HP 1920 24G!!!!
Click to expand...
Look at the warranty and support.
You can call hp and actually talk to an engineer for 3 years and have a lifetime warranty vs email or forum post that can take days to answer and a 1 year warranty. Not to mention depending on location and product 4 hour or next day replacement vs weeks and sometimes a month.
That is what stops me from using Ubiquiti for anything too serious.
The hardware is decent most of the time the software for the hardware so-so but the support stinks.
 
firedrow said:
......

If you want your wireless powered by the PoE switch, you will need the UAP-Pro or UAP-AC. The UAP and UAP-LR use UBNT proprietary power adapters. I have nothing bad to say about the UAP and UAP-LR, we've got over 100 units deployed across 3 states for my company. They would be great units for your home.


Click to expand...

Very thorough and informative reply, nicely done.

One thing I would like to add....

I have the ToughSwitch Pro POE-8 that powers my single UAP-Pro and a UAP-LR as well as 4 IP Cams

The Cams run at 24v as does the UAP-LR but the UAP-Pro runs on 48v.

The ToughSwitch can be configured on a per-port basis for what POE voltage you want to put out on that port.

Just make sure you plug/patch the right device into the right port.
 
I know you said wall mounted in your OP but if space allows, consider a free standing unit that allows access from all sides. Too many things wind up being far easier to install, check, modify from directions other then the front. Wheels even better. Also consider where your power and other cables are going to enter and exit. No point in creating a trip hazard. If you can, bring as many wires as possible in from above. Less wires for pets/small children to explore, chew and pull on. Twist lock power cables are your friend.

Be sure to consider your POE power needs when sizing that UPS. 750 is probably a bit small if you want any real run time during a power loss event.

Make sure your NAS can accept a signal from the UPS to perform a clean unattended shutdown when the batteries near end of charge.
 
Nicklebon said:
ATM I see at least the following:

2x switch
1x POE switch
1x router
1x bridge
1x NAS

all connected to an itty-bitty SU750. I would suggest serious consideration be given to kicking that up at least to a SU1000 or larger especially if you plan on adding anything like a server in the rack. APC has a sizing tool on their website which will give and estimated run time based on load.

As for PDU at home I use APC 7900s. They are 8 port, 1U, switched and networked, but I don't know if they do surge protection or not but they are connected to pair of SUX 3000s which handle that.
Click to expand...

You are right the 750 is a little to small, just looked at the APC selector: the smart ups 1000RM2U should fit better with 25min power and is compatible with the synology.


and with the 6 outlets i don't think i need a PDU do i?
 
stormy1 said:
The tried and true HP 1810 is just a bit more and some places less than the HP 1620 and has higher throughput and more features.
I have used a ton of them with 0 problems.
Click to expand...

Ok but the difference in througput is marginal
1620-48G: 71.4 Mpps
1810-48G: 77.4 Mpps

Pro 1620: power consumption 28W, faster processor, newer conception, price
Pro 1810: a little faster,SFP ports : but do i need them?

Anithing else?
 
stormy1 said:
Look at the warranty and support.
You can call hp and actually talk to an engineer for 3 years and have a lifetime warranty vs email or forum post that can take days to answer and a 1 year warranty. Not to mention depending on location and product 4 hour or next day replacement vs weeks and sometimes a month.
That is what stops me from using Ubiquiti for anything too serious.
The hardware is decent most of the time the software for the hardware so-so but the support stinks.
Click to expand...

Ok, i understand this but i'm not building a data center, with my current router, switch, ... i never had a single problem so did not have to use waranty.
But i'm looking for quality, never used Ubiquiti, but i read som e good reviews,. Of course HP is top qulaity, but i seems to be older design/conception ist it? How old is the 1920-24G POE? How old is the 1810-48G? don't see much upgrade, except the newer 1620-48G
 
Dead Parrot said:
I know you said wall mounted in your OP but if space allows, consider a free standing unit that allows access from all sides. Too many things wind up being far easier to install, check, modify from directions other then the front. Wheels even better. Also consider where your power and other cables are going to enter and exit. No point in creating a trip hazard. If you can, bring as many wires as possible in from above. Less wires for pets/small children to explore, chew and pull on. Twist lock power cables are your friend.

Be sure to consider your POE power needs when sizing that UPS. 750 is probably a bit small if you want any real run time during a power loss event.

Make sure your NAS can accept a signal from the UPS to perform a clean unattended shutdown when the batteries near end of charge.
Click to expand...

I need wall mounted, because is basement and we already 2x flooding there not too much but you never know, with wall mounted i'm safe! I'm looking for a 2 side removable panels or flipping design cabinet. found the Middle Atlantic DWR-24-17PD but it's quite expensive
 
BigBadAl said:
Very thorough and informative reply, nicely done.

One thing I would like to add....

I have the ToughSwitch Pro POE-8 that powers my single UAP-Pro and a UAP-LR as well as 4 IP Cams

The Cams run at 24v as does the UAP-LR but the UAP-Pro runs on 48v.

The ToughSwitch can be configured on a per-port basis for what POE voltage you want to put out on that port.

Just make sure you plug/patch the right device into the right port.
Click to expand...

Are you satisfied with the toughswitch Pro?
Any negatives points?
can you switch off some ports? so if i use only 10 of the 24 ports of a edgeswitch i can turn of the power of 14 ports?
 
jpcolin said:
Of course HP is top qulaity, but i seems to be older design/conception ist it? How old is the 1920-24G POE? How old is the 1810-48G? don't see much upgrade, except the newer 1620-48G
Click to expand...
Age of the design don't matter much if they work as advertised and do a great job. The firmware has been updated a few times on the 1810 and you get free firmware updates for a long time.
The 1620 if it were a lot cheaper than the 1810 would be compelling for a simpler network but for around the same price I would take the 1810 all day. The 1810 v2 was released in 2012.
 
@jpcolin

I didn't mean to imply your cheap, if that's how you took it. I was simply offering alternative choices. I don't know specific brands since I don't do the ordering for work. But I know we've order many from monoprice.com for customers who need 6-12U and they've been great. I saw they did have a 22U unit online.

I don't know anything about HP switches, never had a customer with one.

Love the quality of Ubiquiti stuff, I use them at home and at work. At home I have the EdgeRouter Lite, ToughSwitch-5, and a UAP-LR. At work we use the EdgeRouter Lite as a pure router (read: no nat) for our fiber line. It's currently only 20Mbps symmetric, but will be going to 1Gbps in 90 days or so. We have deployed over 100 WAP, a mix of UAP and UAP-LR for customers, all connected to a single WAP Controller running in our office. Has been working great! I believe I also have a Picostation deployed as a wireless bridge for a small insurance office that's waiting on their office area to be built (it's going into an automative dealer, so they're in a side area for now).

From how the forums have been reading, the EdgeSwitches are Cisco replacements. You would have to delve into the CLI, but I think that's pretty high praise. I haven't had the chance to work with them yet because right before they were released we needed to upgrade our switches, so we order Dell PowerConnect 5448 switches. I wish we had waited though. I believe for the PoE models you can enable/disable PoE per port, or at least most other brands I've worked with you could. I know the TrendNet switches you can enable PoE per port.

For routers, I've only used the ERL, but it's the same firmware/OS are the ER8 and ER8-PRO. For firewalls we use Watchguard XTMs, which I love, but they'd be expensive for a home. You should check out the UBNT forums and wiki, there is a Stories section in each sub-forum that people post about how they use the equipment. It's pretty cool how some people use it. I know I read about a group in South America who uses the ER8-PRO to do BGP routing with multiple upstream carriers, something like 500,000 routes working through his router.

Port Forwarding and MAC Reservation are just simple clicks once you're up and running. Send me a PM and I will post a couple screenshots of my ERL so you can see how those look.

From my reading, I believe the EdgeSwitch will do 802.3af/at as well as the UBNT PoE outputs. So if you're going to do UBNT UniFi WAPs, you could grab the UAP or UAP-LR unless you want to upgrade to 802.11ac.

I like pfSense, used it for several years out of college, but now that vendors like Ubiquiti and MikroTik aren't so niche, it's not cost prohibitive to get a proper firewall. If you want to setup pfSense, or Untangle, IPCOP, etc, no one will stop you. They're fun to play with, but now a days I only use pfSense on Hyper-V & Virtualbox to segment some lab stuff.

HP and UBNT should work fine together, that's why things are standards and not proprietary technologies (pfft....Cisco).

@Nicklebon/jpcolin

I did post a 2U UPS because jpcolin posted one and didn't ask about UPS. I totally agree a smaller 750 and 1000 VA unit would work. In fact, Cyberpower makes a 1U 700/1k/1.5kVA UPS; OR700LCDRM1U, OR1000LCDRM1U, OR1500LCDRM1U. That should cover power needs quite easily.
 
@jpcolin

I've mentioned this earlier in the forums but I'm going to give you some advice (and I'm not trying to pick a fight/start a flamewar)....
Most people here have overly ambitions ideas of a home network, all business features/hardware would indeed be nice to have at home but it's by far not necessary and you can do fine without most of it as long as you are willing to spend a bit more time to setup stuff and when/if it brakes. Since you mention euros as currency I'm going to assume that you're in Europe somewhere.

Patch Panels: Don't really have that much experience but in general I'd advice you to stay away from no-name and be sure to match cables and panels/outlets (ie if you're going with CAT5e outlets, make sure to use CAT5e cabling etc and the other way around if you go for CAT6e or whatever).
I've had good experience with Equip's stuff and it usually is cheap off Amazon and in Germany.

http://www.equip-info.net/Cat.5e/235324/p-449.htm
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Equip-Cat5e...ie=UTF8&qid=1426642247&sr=1-3&keywords=235324

Switches: Try to get something that's manageable, it'll be much easier if you need to troubleshoot and if you ever want to use VLANs this is pretty much a requirement.
Depending on where you live I'd have a look at Zyxel GS1910 and/or GS1920 depending on pricing. Very good value switch and several of us use them without any issues at all. GS1910 is being discontinued so you might find this at a very low price. Perhaps pair a 48p with a 24p instead of 2x48 to keep the costs down. As for the small one (PoE), perhaps Zyxel's GS1900 series might be of interest?

Use the D-Link if it works, if you're dead set on getting a new one I'd suggest you'd have a look at TP-Link Archer C5 and running OpenWRT on it. Unless you need to have features such as real-time antivirus scanning and other UTM feature it'll do just fine and you'll have the ability to easily update the firmware as needed. As for performance it'll handle your connection without issues. You can go with the UBNT EdgeRouter but it'll be slower of you for some reason need to disable hardware NAT (it might break some protocols) and I'm not really that fond of the UI myself but that's up to you. There's no need to go for pfsense unless you need what I mentioned above, otherwise it's just a waste of money getting both the hardware and electricity.

As for APs you can use UBNT's line but they can be a bit expensive and not all are PoE compliant which means that you need to use an injector and/or their switches. If you go for 11n you need to use their dual band models if I'm not mistaken (check the datasheet). If you want a slightly cheaper alternative that works very well but isn't as "professional" I'd grab a few (depending on are to cover) TP-Link TL-WDR3600 routers and run these as APs using OpenWRT. They work very reliably and are very cheap, downside is that PoE doesn't work on these boxes.

UPS: APC are good but also pricey, have a look at Eaton/Powerware as they are usually a bit cheaper and work just as good (including software support)

//Danne
 
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jpcolin said:
Are you satisfied with the toughswitch Pro?
Any negatives points?
can you switch off some ports? so if i use only 10 of the 24 ports of a edgeswitch i can turn of the power of 14 ports?
Click to expand...

Yes, definitely satisfied, runs cool and just works.

No negatives that I`ve found, but bear in mind I only have the 8 port version.

Yes, I have POE off on the uplink port to my main switch and the one spare port I have left on the switch is off altogether.

Great little switches, shame they don`t do a 16 port without having to buy 2x 8 ports and the very expensive bracket to house them.
 
@firedrow,

monprice does not ship to Belgium unfortunatly.
Have you deployed unifi AC AP's yet? I do not want to invest at time in not AC AP's as this setup as to be a little futureproof. Also a tought i understood that you don't need to run the controleler permanently, this is just for setup right?

What do you mean with cisco replacement?
about the ups, not all brand are compatible with synology, Eaton and powerware aren't cyberpower have a few, i will look into it.

thanks

@diizzy

You are totaly right, i had someoverly ambitious idea's, i'm already steping down a little, it's not only a price matter, but why buy top notch stuf for using only 10% of the capabilities? (like a pfsense, or firebox)
That said even if i'm not running a datacenter, i have quite a big home setup.

Key words are: relaibility, perfomance, green/power concious, expandability, price/quality (in this order)

I already thougt of a 48 and 24port switch but, i'm more future proof with 2x48, plus swapability is possible in case of brakedown.
I printed the datasheet fo zyxel and HP to have a look at it, but stil like the HP 1620's, still thinking about it.

As for the router, if i replace my Dlink(wich i will do butm aybe not at the begining) i want really good one (read reliable, fast futureproof), rackable.

what do you mean with "UBNT EdgeRouter but it'll be slower"?
Is this a slow router?

As for the AP's if i take a ES i can power the unifi's AP directly, but i really want AC, but Cisco is even more expense than unifi's.
 
jpcolin said:
@firedrow,
As for the router, if i replace my Dlink(wich i will do butm aybe not at the begining) i want really good one (read reliable, fast futureproof), rackable.

what do you mean with "UBNT EdgeRouter but it'll be slower"?
Is this a slow router?
.
Click to expand...

The UBNT EdgeRouter uses hardware routing, which makes it very fast, however if you enable features that are not supported by the hardware routing then it has to offload it to software which uses the CPU in the router instead of hardware. As long as it's all done in hardware, it's smokin' fast.

Read: https://community.ubnt.com/t5/EdgeMAX/ER-POE-speed-without-offload/m-p/1152962/highlight/true#M53485
 
canna said:
The UBNT EdgeRouter uses hardware routing, which makes it very fast, however if you enable features that are not supported by the hardware routing then it has to offload it to software which uses the CPU in the router instead of hardware. As long as it's all done in hardware, it's smokin' fast.

Read: https://community.ubnt.com/t5/EdgeMAX/ER-POE-speed-without-offload/m-p/1152962/highlight/true#M53485
Click to expand...

Interesting post, but i'm affraid my knowlage is too limited, wat is Vlan offload?
 
@ jpcolin

You're free to do what you wish of course but I fail to see what the HP offers compared to the Zyxel especially when the Zyxel switches (GS1920-48) are quite a bit cheaper than the HPs

What I mean is that not all protocols (services) works with hardware NAT (SIP is usually troublesome for instance) which means that you have to disable hardware NAT to get it to work reliable/at all and that reduces performance. I'd guess that you'll see about ~160mbit (WAN-LAN) or so using NAT in software mode given the hardware.

VLAN offload is when you have different VLANs and you don't strip the VLAN tag before it hits the router which would be the Edgerouter or whatever you want to use. You can of course do this using a manageable switch but if you setup different VLANs depending on how you want to do this in the end you would need a separate interface (not port) on the router per VLAN.

You probably want to stay away from 11ac until the next gen hw is available, from what I've gathered they aren't very reliable and 11ac hardware in general seems less stable than 11n.
//Danne
 
@Diizzy,

I'll print the datasheet of the Zyxel and have a look.
But you seem to know more, what would i mis with the HP's?

I tought NAT was Always used, how to deal wip SIP then?
And what is the difference between software and hardware NAT (exept that one uses the hadware to translate), i mean how to know when one or the other is required?

I knwo what a Vlan basicaly is, but not sure what you mean with "you don't strip the VLAN tag before it hits the router "
My plan was indeed to do this with the switch, but here again my knowlage is limited at the moment, can you explain this:
"depending on how you want to do this in the end you would need a separate interface (not port) on the router per VLAN."

Yes i was about to conclude the same about 11ac, but that is a difficult one, i don't want to invest in b/g/n unifi's anymore, so i guess i will have to use a temporary (cheap) solution.

Thanks and sorry for this stupid questions, i'm starting to learn...
 
@ jpcolin
1. The HP has lower switching capacity, lacks SPF and has a much worse WebUI. The Zyxel also offers a few extract protocols such as STP and MSTP but I doubt you'll use these at home. There a few more features but that's the major ones except the price which also is lower than the HP in general.

2. You disable hardware NAT? You'll know if you need it when some services don't work at all or properly but you'll probably end up doing quite a of debugging to find the issue.

3. The naming differs a bit depending on vendor but it works like this if you're on Zyxel router

PVID is the VLAN ID each paket gets if its unknown and/or untagged (per port bases)
You can also tell a device to use a specific VLAN ID manually instead of hanging every device off a separate port. This is used in many scenarios like if you have VoIP phones and a workstation connected on the same port etc. Thing is that if you don't untag all packets that goes to the ERL it'll disable the hardware acceleration since it cannot process tagged packets. You can of course do this but then you'll have "random packets" as the router will see it from different networks and it just wont work.
//Danne
 
@Diizzy
Thanks this is a little more clear for me.

@all
We have looked at the hardware choices, but i think we (i) need to look first at the hardware requirements.

- Given my internet speed (160mbit) possibly 320mBit in the futur
Is the UBNT Edgerouter enough?

- How should i connect the switches (still to be defined) to the router (link aggregation ?)

- How should i connect the switches togheter or separatly to the router (link aggregation or SFP)

- Same fot the POE Switch

- Do i need sFP ports?

ANKFFAJ.png
 
1. Yes and no, it'll handle 160mbit fine (it does about 220-ish in software mode) with either hardware NAT or software NAT. If you can use hardware NAY without issues it'll also do 320 mbit otherwise you need to look at something more powerful.

2+3. I honestly doubt it'll matter in a home network as you'll rarely saturate a gigabit link anyways. Depending on what router you choose option 2 will always work and most likely wont cause at bottleneck even if some devices will be limited to a gigabit connection upstream. You can use LACP (link aggregation) but I don't think it's necessary in your cause and will also be "one more thing that can break".

4. Not sure what you mean

5. Most likely not but well, if its cheaper why not?
//Danne
 
1. Ok, youre talking about ER-8 AND ERPro-8? what router would handle the 320mbit?
2.-3. ok i understand that, but is option 1 beter? since a ER8 pro or not has 8 ports, this can be done.
Or would it be better to take option 2 with the SFP ports linking the router and the "main switch"? and the link aggregation between the "main switch " and the other switches?
Link aggregation can break? isn't it just a software setting?
4. i meant how to conect the POE switch to the rest of the hardware since it power 5 HD IPcams and 3 AC AP's...
5. i asked this because it is stil not clear what the benefit of SFP is? isn't still 1 Gbit like Cat 5e?


Don't you think i can saturate a gigabit link with al this stuff? (HD IPCams, HD videostreaming from the NAS, HD (FLAC) audio streaming NAS and internet(Qobuz) , AC AP's, ...

JP
 
diizzy said:
@ jpcolin
1. The HP has lower switching capacity, lacks SPF and has a much worse WebUI. The Zyxel also offers a few extract protocols such as STP and MSTP but I doubt you'll use these at home. There a few more features but that's the major ones except the price which also is lower than the HP in general.

2. You disable hardware NAT? You'll know if you need it when some services don't work at all or properly but you'll probably end up doing quite a of debugging to find the issue.

3. The naming differs a bit depending on vendor but it works like this if you're on Zyxel router

PVID is the VLAN ID each paket gets if its unknown and/or untagged (per port bases)
You can also tell a device to use a specific VLAN ID manually instead of hanging every device off a separate port. This is used in many scenarios like if you have VoIP phones and a workstation connected on the same port etc. Thing is that if you don't untag all packets that goes to the ERL it'll disable the hardware acceleration since it cannot process tagged packets. You can of course do this but then you'll have "random packets" as the router will see it from different networks and it just wont work.
//Danne
Click to expand...

The EdgeRouters handle VLAN offloading now in later software versions.
 
1. No, I'm talking about whether can use hardware acceleration or not.
The 3-port and 5-port models use the same CPU so performance will be very similar.
8-port model (non PoE) uses a slightly faster CPU so it should be able to pull off 300-400mbit in software mode while the 8-port PoE model should be able to do 500mbit+.
That said, given the price of an 8-port model (non PoE) is well above 300+ I'd advice you to have a look at an ARM-based solution or perhaps x86 (64-bit). However if you can use hardware acceleration the 3-port version is fast enough.

2. What's best depends on where you have most traffic, in your case it'll be much more load on your internal network than externally so connecting it as option 2 makes more sense as you (in theory at least depending on how you physically connect things) have more clients on a faster backend compared where more clients needs to go via the router. Also have in mind that there's no guarantee that you'll have line speed between several ports going thru the router.

3. Well, the more complex setup you have the more points of (possible) errors/issues you get.

4. If you have a PoE switch with 8-ports you're going to run out of switch ports for uplink so you either need a switch with more ports, one device less or daisy chain two or more devices to free up a port.

5. SPF slots are usually used when you want fiber connections
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_form-factor_pluggable_transceiver
//Danne
 
@Diizzy
1. Ok my bad, i didn't know you were talking about the 3 ports, i want something rackable so at least the ER-8, not sure what the added value of the erpro-8 would be for me. 8 port POE wich one is that?
do you any suggestion for ARM or x86 based routers?

2. ok, that right i have to look at what needs to go throug the router wat stays on the internal network. what needs to have internet access should go on the "main switch" right?

3. Yes indeed but i did not know that LACP was such complex...

4. i was thinking of the edgeswith 24POE to be future proof and disable the unused ports to not waste electricity

5. i did some research about SFP, it seems it is not an added value for me.
 
diizzy said:
1. No, I'm talking about whether can use hardware acceleration or not.
The 3-port and 5-port models use the same CPU so performance will be very similar.
8-port model (non PoE) uses a slightly faster CPU so it should be able to pull off 300-400mbit in software mode while the 8-port PoE model should be able to do 500mbit+.
That said, given the price of an 8-port model (non PoE) is well above 300+ I'd advice you to have a look at an ARM-based solution or perhaps x86 (64-bit). However if you can use hardware acceleration the 3-port version is fast enough.
//Danne
Click to expand...


There should be no reason he can't do everything with hardware offload. OP should have no issue at 320Mbps.

OP, I'd have everything terminate on a L3 switch. From there have a single route to the ERL. All inter-vlan routing is at wirespeed that way. Uplink the second switch to the primary one. Only traffic that should be hitting the router should be between the LAN and the Internet and not between internal devices. The ERL will be able to do close to 900Mbit (WAN to LAN routing) with that setup.
 
@ jpcolin

1. Just get the 3-port and a 1u tray? If you want x86 based one I'd have a look at Compulabs Fitlet PCs (I-series or better if you want multiple LANs). http://www.fit-pc.com/web/purchasing/order-fitlet/
Software-wise you can run pretty much anything you'd want, a real operating sytem to a specialized distro such as OPNsense.

2. You just need to follow the wire (example one). If you have user A who wants access to an IP camera or a wireless device all data needs to go all the way up to the router and back down to the device and reversal. That's not very efficient although given that you most likely wont have the much traffic going on it probably wont matter in the end but its just backwards wired compared to the other example.

3. It's not very complex although it is another point of possible failure. :)

4. Are those reliable nowdays and reasonably priced? Last time I checked you'd rather grab a switch from HP, Zyxel and possibly Dell (Juniper, Cisco etc are too expensive in comparison).

5. Probably not

@ /usr/home
If that's the case it's all good but if it isn't he still wont see much better performance than his current router unfortunately.

//Danne
 
/usr/home said:
There should be no reason he can't do everything with hardware offload. OP should have no issue at 320Mbps.

OP, I'd have everything terminate on a L3 switch. From there have a single route to the ERL. All inter-vlan routing is at wirespeed that way. Uplink the second switch to the primary one. Only traffic that should be hitting the router should be between the LAN and the Internet and not between internal devices. The ERL will be able to do close to 900Mbit (WAN to LAN routing) with that setup.
Click to expand...

Sorry for my english (i'm from Belgium) but what is OP?
Can you explain this:"Only traffic that should be hitting the router should be between the LAN and the Internet and not between internal devices. The ERL will be able to do close to 900Mbit (WAN to LAN routing) with that setup. "
So you would do itlike this, the only downside i see is the AP's, those are going trough 2 switches...
mlw914X.png
 
Yes, that'll do fine but L3 switches doing InterVLAN routing are quite a bit expensive (much more expensive than getting a router handling it) and in your case you wont need it really. If you want to use VLANs (again, this is a home network) you can put everything except the wireless clients on the same VLAN which makes a L3 switch kinda pointless as the traffic will be on the same VLAN except wireless clients but they wont generate traffic that'll overload a regular router. Even if you want to play around with VLANs afterwards you'll have headroom for that too.

In short, skip that L3 switch as it's going to be a waste of money.

Also, why wouldn't a 48-port + 24-p POE switch be sufficient (I fail to see why you would need 3 switches at all)?
//Danne
 
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1. i wil read the datasheet of the ERL and ER-8, i found the 1U trays for the ERL, looks ok, but quite expensive like 60$ and the ERL is 100$
the ER-8 is 300$, integrated psu and 1u rack. i have to look at the added value of the ER-8 (besides the faster cpu)

2.Yes i understand, but like just stated, it's not all black or white, if look at the AP's they have got to got trough 2 switches before hitting the router. And the AP's are maintly for webbrowsing

3. ok, but.. a little one ;-)

4. 399$ for the 24G 250W, it's ok, HP is more expensive for less Watts

5. drop the SFP

6. looked into the datasheet of the HP 1620-48G and 1810-48G, not much difference except :
"IEEE 802.1D Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) and IEEE 802.1W Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP)"

do i realy need this?
 
diizzy said:
Yes, that'll do fine but L3 switches doing InterVLAN routing are quite a bit expensive (much more expensive than getting a router handling it) and in your case you wont need it really. If you want to use VLANs (again, this is a home network) you can put everything except the wireless clients on the same VLAN which makes a L3 switch kinda pointless as the traffic will be on the same VLAN except wireless clients but they wont generate traffic that'll overload a regular router. Even if you want to play around with VLANs afterwards you'll have headroom for that too.

In short, skip that L3 switch as it's going to be a waste of money.

Also, why wouldn't a 48-port + 24-p POE switch be sufficient (I fail to see why you would need 3 switches at all)?
//Danne
Click to expand...

Danne, it seems i'm starting to laern and understand, that was also my idea, not much added value ;-)

Do you know a good "tutorial" training course on the web lilke a network building for dummies? i still think i'm missing some basic concepts...

about the second switch, wel i was going that way yesterday evening, i double counted the POE devices in my excel sheet...
So yes at first sight it seems i wil have enough with 1x48G+ 1x24 PEO, I wil look into that this evenign at home.
 
diizzy said:
https://learningportal.juniper.net/...golden/netfun/netfun_course/course_start.html
Section 5 isn't really helpful but at least that'll give you an idea I guess.
//Danne
Click to expand...

Danne,

Thanks for the link, i stopped for today at chapter4, still a little bit to go, but i learned a lot!
I checked, i have 43 non POE hosts, si i got 1or 2(lacp) left to connect the POE switch and 1or 2(lacp) for the router. 1 spare! We just cut the costs dramaticaly ;-)
Have you looked at my other post above? Am i correct that for my home network i should not need STP or RSTP?
 
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I this case i do not see what advantage the HP 1810 over the 1620
Does someone know if the edgerouter-8 or pro does link aggregation?
The specs says 802.3ad but I can't find anything about it in the user manual
Same question for the edgeswitch 24G POE

I ask this because i would this setup:
P6S3rvN.png
 
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