Home networking advice

[jrbryner]

I'm planning out my network plans for when my wife and I move into a house soon. I like to keep things a little more than what I need, just for peace of mind, and well... I just do But what I have in mind for usage will be:

1 My PC - everday stuff, work (web dev), downloading, work, games, etc
1 Wife's PC - browsing, email
1 HTPC - watching movies, music, etc
1 Playstation 2
1 Printer
1 Main Fileserver - my old computer with a few hundred GB of storage

So, I want to have the PS2 and printer wireless, and have wireless capability for friends that come over with laptops, and a laptop of our own when I get one.

Most of the movies & music will be stored on the fileserver so I would like some fast transfer between the fileserver and at least the HTPC.

I do alot of work at home and would like to be able to access that stuff from the office, whether it's on my computer, or on the fileserver.

What I had in mind was:

Does that seem ok? I was looking at a Linksys 8 port VPN Router but am thinking of just going with one of their cheaper cheaper 4-port ones. Instead of having my main pc come straight off the router, would it be better to have a gigabit switch for the server and HTPC, and then a 10/100 switch for other computers?

The main thing is that I want to be able to expand the network more in the future, for kid's computers when they come, maybe some i-appliances in the kitchen, you get the idea.

 

[mr viagra]

i can not really advise you on anything else but the wireless access point, but here it is. in my experience I would stay away from linksys(if that was what you were thinking about) when trying to connect a game console wirelessly. for one the linksys generally is regarded as having poor range compared to others and they do not offer any booster or repeater product that works with the G standard( if that is what you are going to use). also, when trying to connect my xbox to xbox live while using a linksys(wirelessly) it would get a signal, a weak one at that, but it could not connect to live. I went out and bought a d link one and it has worked perfectly with my xbox and took less than 5 minutes to have up and running. although I know the xbox and the ps2 are different and probably have different wireless adapters there still could be some relation. just my 2 cents.

 

[jrbryner]

Cool. Ya, I was planning on going with the D-link bridge. I've heard the same thing about the Linksys ones. The only Linksys parts I'm planning on are the print server (I haven't looked at a D-link one yet though), and the VPN router, since I couldn't find one by Netgear that I liked.