Home Network Overhaul

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nitrobass24

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - December 2009
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Apr 7, 2006
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My home network is slowly growing out of control and is currently your standard flat home network 192.168.1.0/24.

I am adding iSCSI to the mix for some CableCard TV recording to a VM and I will share the iSCSI volume via Windows SMB network shares so my HTPCs can access the recorded content. I know this appears complicated and it is, but TWC adds the CCI bit to all channels so this is the only way to watch my content on multiple TVs without having to record the same show for each TV.
And I want to do some shared storage for my ESXi host.

I am also adding whole home Audio via a pair of Sonos Player 120.

Was thinking of adding a Dell 5424 switch to handle all of my VLANs (Home/Mgt, Work, Voice, Wireless) and using the 2716 for just iSCSI/NFS traffic to the Storage Server. What are your thoughts on the 5424? Something else for the price?

Here is a map of current state. I have Intentionally left off all wireless devices.
HomeNetcurrent.png


Thoughts, comments, fist fights?
 
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That's one hell of a setup for one user. I'm looking forward to seeing this overhaul...
 
Does anyone know if the 5424 has a web gui? I dont konw if I am really ready to go all CLI :eek:
 
5 wired PCs, plus about 10 other home theater devices are on the LAN. 6-8 WiFi devices at any time.

EDIT: I never said it wasnt excessive ;) this is still [H] right? Plus i like learning new stuff.
 
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Not sure why you need vlans? Are you concerned about security between the hosts of your own internal home network? I suspect not. Your network, though it looks impressive on a jpeg isn't large enough to dictate using vlans to segregate it. It's also going to cause you a pain in the ass with regard to services that rely on broadcast traffic. Most services a home user cares about use broadcasts.

Just my two cents...
 
I don't see a need for VLAN's either, are you sure there is going to be sufficient I/O if your PVR is going to be a VM? What hardware are you looking at for your iSCSI solution?
 
Well my ESXi box is a 2x E5530 w/ 24gb ECC.
Areca RAID6 12TB w/ vt-d running on Server08R2
LSI RAID10 1.2TB for my VMFS Datastore (currently)...I could just as easily move this data store to the Areca or passthrough the LSI card and share it out w/ NFS for my other ESXi VMs.

I really was thinking about the VLANs because i would like to keep my work separate from my home/media segment.
I figured why not separate out media for QoS.
 
Neb said:
What? No 10GbE? ;)
Click to expand...

Not this iteration. Im really focusing all of my efforts on whole home media w/o paying Crestron/URC one of my kidneys.

Arch said:
Not sure why you need vlans? Are you concerned about security between the hosts of your own internal home network? I suspect not. Your network, though it looks impressive on a jpeg isn't large enough to dictate using vlans to segregate it. It's also going to cause you a pain in the ass with regard to services that rely on broadcast traffic. Most services a home user cares about use broadcasts.

Just my two cents...
Click to expand...

Broadcast traffic? What would an example of this be? Im not a real networking guy, more of an enthusiast.
 
probaably don't need to be worried about the broadcast traffic point, some services rely on client and server being in the same subnet, but broadcast traffic isn't routed between VLANs
 
FYI...Sonos is a good choice. A bit spendy but a massively better value than the big booys. We have 5 boxes in our house..might be adding a 6th
 
Trepidati0n said:
FYI...Sonos is a good choice. A bit spendy but a massively better value than the big booys. We have 5 boxes in our house..might be adding a 6th
Click to expand...

O yea they are amazing simple, yet do everything you could want them to...IMO.

I have 8 setup at my parents house and they love it. I have it setup to route the audio back from the TVs into the Sonos's as an input so its really nice to be able to link zones and play the TV audio from the living room in the Kitchen/Dining Area instead of having to crank up the volume.
 
VLANs do seem overly complicated for this setup. If you want to segment your DMZ just hang it off another port on your 5505. For the price of the 5424 you could pick up a couple Netgear GB switches that should handle all your throughput. You could even pick up 3 and still physically segment everything if you truly desired.
 
I say ditch the 2716 ...forget about the 5424.

Install a Dell powerconnect 2824 or more preferably a HP V1810-24G
 
So i picked up a 6224, see network pics thread for pics.

I have made some changes to my intended design. I am going to be adding VOIP soon, so i want to go ahead and create a VLAN and setup QoS for that.

I am going to create a VLAN that is trunked to my Hyper-v Box for my Work VMs (Lab). The reason i want this segregated is I have given some co-workers VPN access and I don't want them on my home network.

Also i don't want wireless users (guest or otherwise) to access network resources other than the internet.

The problem is my ASA 5505 has the basic license and i cant trunk VLANs on the ASA. I could setup a separate interface for each VLAN and just connect them to the switch, but that seems silly since they are all going to the same switch. Is there a better way? I figure i could setup routing on the 6224, but im not sure what im doing. If you guys could point me in the right direction that would great.

Also regarding VOIP/Trunking/Vlans. There are two locations where I only have a single drop. Not sure which phones im going to go with, but i saw a Cisco 7945 that was awesome (color screen) that i wanted to get for one of the locations. Would it be able to handle a VLAN trunk so i could use the builtin switch to connect the computer at that location and still have them on separate VLANs?
 
nitrobass24 said:
So i picked up a 6224, see network pics thread for pics.

I have made some changes to my intended design. I am going to be adding VOIP soon, so i want to go ahead and create a VLAN and setup QoS for that.

I am going to create a VLAN that is trunked to my Hyper-v Box for my Work VMs (Lab). The reason i want this segregated is I have given some co-workers VPN access and I don't want them on my home network.

Also i don't want wireless users (guest or otherwise) to access network resources other than the internet.

The problem is my ASA 5505 has the basic license and i cant trunk VLANs on the ASA. I could setup a separate interface for each VLAN and just connect them to the switch, but that seems silly since they are all going to the same switch. Is there a better way? I figure i could setup routing on the 6224, but im not sure what im doing. If you guys could point me in the right direction that would great.

Also regarding VOIP/Trunking/Vlans. There are two locations where I only have a single drop. Not sure which phones im going to go with, but i saw a Cisco 7945 that was awesome (color screen) that i wanted to get for one of the locations. Would it be able to handle a VLAN trunk so i could use the builtin switch to connect the computer at that location and still have them on separate VLANs?
Click to expand...

What would you use for a VoIP server ? It's a nice phone btw if u get one.

Ps post pics in here too :)
 
dashpuppy said:
What would you use for a VoIP server ? It's a nice phone btw if u get one.

Ps post pics in here too :)
Click to expand...

I have no idea on the VoIP server, i dont know anything about VoIP other than the fact that the phones are way cooler. :)

DSCN1277.jpg

DSCN1276.jpg
 
nitrobass24 said:
I have no idea on the VoIP server, i dont know anything about VoIP other than the fact that the phones are way cooler. :)
Click to expand...

its fun to have, POINTS over to the phone im on right now ( cisco ) voip phone with the voip server in another city :) Friend built a voip server so we could talk SO NICE TO HAVE!!
 
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