Opinions on future network setup

[Zerxal]

Here's the plans for my future networking setup:

Pricing is the following:

 

SB8200 SURFboard Cable Modem - $170

UAP-AC-PRO-US 2x - $300

UDM-Pro - $380

USW-16-POE - $300

UF-MM-10G - $38

~100 meter fiber cable, not sure how long yet - ~$100

 

Total: $1,288

 

Any suggestions or critiques on this? I'm waiting a week or two for the budget to roll over before purchasing them all.

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, Zerxal said:

~100 meter fiber cable, not sure how long yet - ~$100

That should be much cheaper, Id also probably get sm, cheaper cabling and capable of much higher speeds in the future.

 

But here is a 100m om3 for 50 bucks https://www.fs.com/products/74386.html, still id go os2 here

 

 

 

Also do you really need a 10g line between these 2 floors, nothing you listed seems to need the speed.

5 minutes ago, Zerxal said:

UF-MM-10G - $38

Just saying, generics from fs is like half the price and work fine.

5 minutes ago, Zerxal said:

UAP-AC-PRO-US 2x - $300

go nano hd instead, better ap for most uses, how big is your house, id probably get more aps to keep everything on 5g if you want better wifi speed.

 

[Zerxal]

7 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

That should be much cheaper, Id also probably get sm, cheaper cabling and capable of much higher speeds in the future.

 

But here is a 100m om3 for 50 bucks https://www.fs.com/products/74386.html, still id go os2 here

 

 

 

Also do you really need a 10g line between these 2 floors, nothing you listed seems to need the speed.

Just saying, generics from fs is like half the price and work fine.

go nano hd instead, better ap for most uses, how big is your house, id probably get more aps to keep everything on 5g if you want better wifi speed.

 

My house is 4,000 square feet and it has a lot of brick in it, that's why I was thinking of using two pro's. It was also is not wired for Ethernet, it has no ports except one in the office that is for the router to plug into, and the cable comes out where the switch will be. I'll be replacing the cable with the the fiber cable.

 

I have to manually run cables under floor radiators for my TV and computer. If I could have multiple APs besides the ones I've listed, I would.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Zerxal said:

My house is 4,000 square feet and it has a lot of brick in it,

you probably want way more than 2 aps then, Id probalby aim for 4+, still go nano hd then.

 

1 minute ago, Zerxal said:

I have to manually run cables under floor radiators for my TV and computer. If I could have multiple APs, I would.

You can setup the unifi aps in a wireless mesh setup, Still much better than just 2 aps.

 

2 minutes ago, Zerxal said:

it has no ports except one in the office that is for the router to plug into, and the cable comes out where the switch will be. I'll be replacing the cable with the the fiber cable.

Id keep the ethernet cable if you have one already, You don't seem to need 10g speeds here. Upgrade later if you need it. 

 

Also that switch doesn't support 10g, thats a 1gbit sfp port, not a sfp+. The cheapest 10g switch with poe from unifi is the 24port switch pro at 700 bucks. https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-routing-switching/products/usw-pro-24-poe. 

[Zerxal]

8 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

you probably want way more than 2 aps then, Id probalby aim for 4+, still go nano hd then.

 

You can setup the unifi aps in a wireless mesh setup, Still much better than just 2 aps.

 

Id keep the ethernet cable if you have one already, You don't seem to need 10g speeds here. Upgrade later if you need it. 

 

Also that switch doesn't support 10g, thats a 1gbit sfp port, not a sfp+. The cheapest 10g switch with poe from unifi is the 24port switch pro at 700 bucks. https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-routing-switching/products/usw-pro-24-poe. 

What do you suggest doing for multiple APs? I can't exactly run cables up the walls in plain view. My attic is finished too, so I don't really have ceiling access.

[Electronics Wizardy]

8 minutes ago, Zerxal said:

What do you suggest doing for multiple APs? I can't exactly run cables up the walls in plain view. My attic is finished too, so I don't really have ceiling access.

Run them wirelessly like I mentioned in the previous post. You can have them connect to each other wirelessly, in a mesh setup.\

 

Or if under your house is open, just run them under there.

[Zerxal]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Run them wirelessly like I mentioned in the previous post. You can have them connect to each other wirelessly, in a mesh setup.\

 

Or if under your house is open, just run them under there.

Wouldn't that slow them down greatly?

 

I could probably run them under in my basement, but still, how would I get the cables to the ceiling where the APs would be?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Zerxal said:

Wouldn't that slow them down greatly?

Yea, but still much better than not having enough aps

 

1 minute ago, Zerxal said:

I could probably run them under in my basement, but still, how would I get the cables to the ceiling where the APs would be?

Could you just run the aps under the floor? Not optimal, but still much better than a ap too far away.

[Zerxal]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yea, but still much better than not having enough aps

 

Could you just run the aps under the floor? Not optimal, but still much better than a ap too far away.

Both my attic and basement are finished. My basement is half finished. And how slow would it be? I currently get 50 mbps on WiFi throughout the house with xFi pods. I pay for 1gbps internet.

[Kisai]

46 minutes ago, Zerxal said:

Here's the plans for my future networking setup:

Pricing is the following:

 

SB8200 SURFboard Cable Modem - $170

UAP-AC-PRO-US 2x - $300

UDM-Pro - $380

USW-16-POE - $300

UF-MM-10G - $38

~100 meter fiber cable, not sure how long yet - ~$100

 

Total: $1,288

 

Any suggestions or critiques on this? I'm waiting a week or two for the budget to roll over before purchasing them all.

Slightly overkill, particularly if you are adding POE but not adding security devices that use it. If you're buying two POE unit's just for one WiFi unit, that's a heavy cost for no real benefit.

 

Like in an ideal situation here you'd probably just cut all of it and use a wired Ethernet switch upstairs, and plug it straight into the cable modem downstairs, and if you need more ports downstairs utilize another switch down there. Your setup there is something you'd do if you had to cover more than 180ft (55m)

 

If the cable modem's own WiFi is not strong enough, you can get WiFi repeaters, but I don't believe those are really the best option either. 

 

Basically your proposal is too expensive relative to the site. Cat6 can do 10G, you don't need fiber, and it can do POE, so you don't need two POE insertion points. If you're just worried about punching holes in the wall, you're going to have to do that anyway with fiber.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Zerxal said:

Both my attic and basement are finished. Technically my basement is half finished. And how slow would it be? I currently get 50 mbps on WiFi throughout the house with xFi pods. I pay for 1gbps internet.

Should be much faster than 50mbit with a mesh setup. The backbone should be a 5g wifi link, so a good amount better than 50mbit.

 

 

Also do you really need all of this, Id guess a good home mesh setup would work well here, and would be much cheaper. 

[Zerxal]

2 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Slightly overkill, particularly if you are adding POE but not adding security devices that use it. If you're buying two POE unit;s just for one WiFi unit, that's a heavy cost for no real benefit.

 

Like in an ideal situation here you'd probably just cut all of it and use a wired ethernet switch upstairs, and plug it straight into the cable modem downstairs, and if you need more ports downstairs utilize another switch down there. Your setup there is something you'd do if you had to cover more than 180ft (55m)

 

If the cable modem's own WiFi is not strong enough, you can get WiFi repeaters, but I don't believe those are really the best option either. 

 

Basically your proposal is too expensive relative to the site. Cat6 can to 10G, you don't need fiber, and it can do POE, so you don't need two POE insertion points. If you're just worried about punching holes in the wall, you're going to have to do that anyway with fiber.

It's more of me just wanting a homelab. I already have an existing cat 5 (not 5e) cable running from upstairs to downstairs from the previous owner which I will be replacing. Main reason I want this is just faster WiFi and a homelab.

[Zerxal]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Should be much faster than 50mbit with a mesh setup. The backbone should be a 5g wifi link, so a good amount better than 50mbit.

 

 

Also do you really need all of this, Id guess a good home mesh setup would work well here, and would be much cheaper. 

How many nanoHD's would you think I'd need?

 

This is mainly just a homelab for myself and also to get faster WiFi.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Zerxal said:

Main reason I want this is just faster WiFi and a homelab.

Id really consider not running unifi switches and routers then, Id argue pfsense and untangel are much better for those who like tweaking in a homelab.

 

Also id keep that cat 5 if it does 1gbe(most will from experince).

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Zerxal said:

How many nanoHD's would you think I'd need?

 

This is mainly just a homelab for myself and also to get faster WiFi.

Do you have a goal for wifi speed?

 

Depends on speed and house layout. you lose optimal speed pretty fast on 5g. 

[Zerxal]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id really consider not running unifi switches and routers then, Id argue pfsense and untangel are much better for those who like tweaking in a homelab.

 

Also id keep that cat 5 if it does 1gbe(most will from experince).

The cat5 does not do 1gbps, it gives me 100mbps. I'm replacing it anyway. Pfsense is really not what I want, I just like UniFi and all of the stuff.

 

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Do you have a goal for wifi speed?

 

Depends on speed and house layout. you lose optimal speed pretty fast on 5g. 

I don't have a hard goal, probably over 100mbps as a minimum.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Zerxal said:

I don't have a hard goal, probably over 100mbps as a minimum.

Thats probably gonna require 5g connections, so your gonna need a good amount of accesspoints, IDK you exact home layout, so Id get something like 4 and see how it goes. There are tools to better estimate, but there a pain

 

1 minute ago, Zerxal said:

The cat5 does not do 1gbps, it gives me 100mbps. I'm replacing it anyway.

Are all the pairs good? have you tried forcing the link speed?

 

Just saying, that orginal fibre won't run at 10g as the switch is 1g only. 

[Zerxal]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Thats probably gonna require 5g connections, so your gonna need a good amount of accesspoints, IDK you exact home layout, so Id get something like 4 and see how it goes. There are tools to better estimate, but there a pain

 

Are all the pairs good? have you tried forcing the link speed?

 

Just saying, that orginal fibre won't run at 10g as the switch is 1g only. 

What do you mean by the pairs? And I can't really force a speed, even my downstairs switch shows the cable as 100mbps. The cable is even plugged into the primary port on my xFi gateway.

[Kisai]

1 minute ago, Zerxal said:

It's more of me just wanting a homelab. I already have an existing cat 5 (not 5e) cable running from upstairs to downstairs from the previous owner which I will be replacing. Main reason I want this is just faster WiFi and a homelab.

For reference, the office I work for has two floors in a concrete skyscraper. The two floors are connected by fiber, but the each have their own Cisco router the size of a bar-fridge, which provides the POE, and there is a second router on each floor that connects just the fiber, even though SFP's can be connected to the switches themselves. In that environment it's not even close to overkill because there's 250 possible connections on each floor. So believe me, the fiber option is very overkill for what you're trying to do here.

 

In an ideal setup, you design the network around the ingress point (eg the cable modem in this case) 

So it would be like:

 

Modem (also AP) - (Switch) = (Switch) - AP

 

Then the switch on each floor connects only to the devices on that floor. You should avoid using WiFi for anything that has an Ethernet port, as it will get the fastest, most reliable speed via Cat6. 

 

Now if you want to go from there, let's say you do have a real use for POE, if you don't use fiber here, you can buy one POE insertion point (eg one managed POE switch, eg the second floor) and then run those AP's and other security devices off that switch. 

 

However, if you're simply wanting faster WiFi and would rather connect everything with WiFi (definitely not recommended) you can also just plop a AP directly on top of the switch on the second floor, and then use repeater devices in every room (they go into lightbulb sockets and such)

 

Like my personal experience with this stuff is that the wired ethernet is only good for 10 years regardless of what you use it for, where as the WiFi stuff is only good until the AP decides to die, and then you have to reset everything. So design for a lifetime of about 10 years, assuming there's no heavy temperature fluctuations that would cause the copper to expand or the insulation to become brittle the ethernet cable is the way to go and can last much longer. If you want to do fiber, you also have to contend with  this, but since the insulation is much thinner, it will be easier to damage.

 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Zerxal said:

What do you mean by the pairs? And I can't really force a speed, even my switch shows the cable as 100mbps. The cable is even plugged into the primary port on my xFi gateway.

The nic lets you select a speed it will run at, select 1gbit to force it. Plug something like a laptop into both ends and force it on boeth devices.

 

 

[Kisai]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

The nic lets you select a speed it will run at, select 1gbit to force it. Plug something like a laptop into both ends and force it on boeth devices.

 

 

If you have to force it, then it's not getting a good signal, or the device on either end already determined it was not suitable. Cat 5 is for 100Mbps, 5e/6 is for Gig. 10G requires Cat6 for 55m or Cat6A for 100m. You can also get 2.5G or 5G with the same Cat5e/6 cables on adapters that support it, but you also need a switch that supports it.

 

[Zerxal]

5 minutes ago, Kisai said:

For reference, the office I work for has two floors in a concrete skyscraper. The two floors are connected by fiber, but the each have their own Cisco router the size of a bar-fridge, which provides the POE, and there is a second router on each floor that connects just the fiber, even though SFP's can be connected to the switches themselves. In that environment it's not even close to overkill because there's 250 possible connections on each floor. So believe me, the fiber option is very overkill for what you're trying to do here.

 

In an ideal setup, you design the network around the ingress point (eg the cable modem in this case) 

So it would be like:

 

Modem (also AP) - (Switch) = (Switch) - AP

 

Then the switch on each floor connects only to the devices on that floor. You should avoid using WiFi for anything that has an Ethernet port, as it will get the fastest, most reliable speed via Cat6. 

 

Now if you want to go from there, let's say you do have a real use for POE, if you don't use fiber here, you can buy one POE insertion point (eg one managed POE switch, eg the second floor) and then run those AP's and other security devices off that switch. 

 

However, if you're simply wanting faster WiFi and would rather connect everything with WiFi (definitely not recommended) you can also just plop a AP directly on top of the switch on the second floor, and then use repeater devices in every room (they go into lightbulb sockets and such)

 

Like my personal experience with this stuff is that the wired ethernet is only good for 10 years regardless of what you use it for, where as the WiFi stuff is only good until the AP decides to die, and then you have to reset everything. So design for a lifetime of about 10 years, assuming there's no heavy temperature fluctuations that would cause the copper to expand or the insulation to become brittle the ethernet cable is the way to go and can last much longer. If you want to do fiber, you also have to contend with  this, but since the insulation is much thinner, it will be easier to damage.

 

 

Alright, I'll just replace the cable as cat 6a rather than fiber.

 

The only things that use WiFi are my laptop and mobile devices. TV, Apple TV, and all desktop computers in the house use Ethernet. 

 

Could you also clarify on:

 

"In an ideal setup, you design the network around the ingress point (eg the cable modem in this case) 

So it would be like:

 

Modem (also AP) - (Switch) = (Switch) - AP

 

Then the switch on each floor connects only to the devices on that floor. "

 

I don't really understand.

[Zerxal]

7 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

The nic lets you select a speed it will run at, select 1gbit to force it. Plug something like a laptop into both ends and force it on boeth devices.

 

 

I've tried, my card only lets me force 100mbps. It is a 1gbps card, just doesn't let me force 1gbps. I asked in the LTT discord about it a day or two ago.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Zerxal said:

I've tried, my card only lets me force 100mbps. It is a 1gbps card, just doesn't let me force 1gbps. I asked in the LTT discord about it a day or two ago.

weird, what model of nic? Does it let you force gig in linux?

 

probably replace the line then, put something like cat 6 in then. I don't see a reason to run fibre here, you don't need the speed it seems.

[Zerxal]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

weird, what model of nic? Does it let you force gig in linux?

 

probably replace the line then, put something like cat 6 in then. I don't see a reason to run fibre here, you don't need the speed it seems.

Killer E2500 is the NIC I have. Where would I force it, maybe I'm in the wrong place?

 

And yeah, I'll just run cat 6a