Thoughts on a winter project.

[IkeaGnome]

So over the winter I'm wanting to do some upgrade on the electronics side of the house. I'm thinking of running ethernet through the rooms that don't have it. Adding 2 or so more ethernet plugs to the computer room. Right now, everything in the house has to run over WiFi. It'd be nice to get it all to Ethernet save for the 2 TVs. I'm also wanting to look at setting up a home backup plugged into this. My thoughts are in the computer room have an outlet near my pc and one near the old lady's pc with one in the closet for some sort of backup. Between her and I, storage requirements on PCs are getting a little ridiculous with games and back ups of DVDs and what not. I do own the house so drilling holes in the crawlspace to run wiring and holes for actual outlets is possible and the route that I'm going. I'm just not sure with where to start on all this. Our internet to the house is plenty for what we do, but there's no fiber up here...yet... There's talks of getting it in late '21 or early '22. 

I just have no clue as to where to start with designing a network for the house or a backup. I've not used RAID or NAS servers before. As far as the networking goes, I can start a different thread in the networking subforum, but figured that might be useful information for this.

[Electronics Wizardy]

For a homenetwork like this, you cn just connect everything with a unmanaged switch.

 

Id get a premade nas like a synology. How many tb do you need?

[IkeaGnome]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

For a homenetwork like this, you cn just connect everything with a unmanaged switch.

 

Id get a premade nas like a synology. How many tb do you need?

I've been looking pretty hard at the Synology. Specifically, the 420 and 920s. For now I can easily get away with 12tb usable. I think that would last us a very long time. I like the idea of being able to add one of the 517 expansions if we run out. My main worry is power loss. Especially in the winter we end up with somewhat frequent power loss. High winds will tend to knock power out every other week to every week for an hour to 3. How does that effect RAID? If I'm not reading or writing when it happens, is everything fine or is there a high potential for data loss there? A UPS would happen regardless. I'm just not sure on how big of one to run. Since I'd like to set it up to where at least the living room tv can run video off this there's a high likelihood of power loss while reading from storage.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Voluspa said:

I've been looking pretty hard at the Synology. Specifically, the 420 and 920s. For now I can easily get away with 12tb usable. I think that would last us a very long time. I like the idea of being able to add one of the 517 expansions if we run out. My main worry is power loss. Especially in the winter we end up with somewhat frequent power loss. High winds will tend to knock power out every other week to every week for an hour to 3. How does that effect RAID? If I'm not reading or writing when it happens, is everything fine or is there a high potential for data loss there? A UPS would happen regardless. I'm just not sure on how big of one to run. Since I'd like to set it up to where at least the living room tv can run video off this there's a high likelihood of power loss while reading from storage.

Yea get that ups here. Might need a pretty big one to watch tv rather than just enough to shutdownn.

 

Most modern oses with modern filesystems like synolgys will handle power outages pretty well, but may need a raid resync. With journaling filesystems, they recovering from poweroutages pretty well.

 

 

[IkeaGnome]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yea get that ups here. Might need a pretty big one to watch tv rather than just enough to shutdownn.

 

Most modern oses with modern filesystems like synolgys will handle power outages pretty well, but may need a raid resync. With journaling filesystems, they recovering from poweroutages pretty well.

 

 

I should have clarified that better. I'm not hoping to watch tv while the power is out. My worry was reading when the power goes out causing issues with lost files or anything like that. I'm also figuring with going with one of those, my best bet to watching backups on the tv would be have it set up to an old pc I have laying around then HDMI or DP from the pc to the tv. 

All in all this is just me trying to get both our computers backed up well while hoping to be able to use it to clear up space on PCs and the laptop we use for streaming video on the tv. 

[Jarsky]

Planning is your most important step. 

 

Think about your requirements, also consider upgradability. You already mentioned that your area will be getting fiber in the coming years, so you want to consider where the best place would be to build out any sort of server and/or network stack. Are you going to be using general consumer routers/switches or prebuilt NAS units, or are you considering rackmount. 

 

In my country, they typically install fiber to the closest point to the road. So for me that is my garage. I built a network/server rack space, and they mounted my ONT (Optical Terminal) right next to it. I then have rackmount Ubiquiti Unifi Gateway & Switches, along with space for my servers. I then have a brush plate on the wall, that all my ethernet runs up through into the crawl space, to drop down to my various ceiling mounted AP's, IP Cameras and down through the walls for ethernet jacks (theyre all terminated CAT7 keystones with wallplates). In my lounge I have 2 ethernet connections, but I only use 1 which then connects to a switch behind the entertainment setup, which my TV, PS4, Xbox, Amplifier, HTPC plug into.

 

[IkeaGnome]

21 minutes ago, Jarsky said:

Planning is your most important step. 

 

Think about your requirements, also consider upgradability. You already mentioned that your area will be getting fiber in the coming years, so you want to consider where the best place would be to build out any sort of server and/or network stack. Are you going to be using general consumer routers/switches or prebuilt NAS units, or are you considering rackmount. 

 

In my country, they typically install fiber to the closest point to the road. So for me that is my garage. I built a network/server rack space, and they mounted my ONT (Optical Terminal) right next to it. I then have rackmount Ubiquiti Unifi Gateway & Switches, along with space for my servers. I then have a brush plate on the wall, that all my ethernet runs up through into the crawl space, to drop down to my various ceiling mounted AP's, IP Cameras and down through the walls for ethernet jacks (theyre all terminated CAT7 keystones with wallplates). In my lounge I have 2 ethernet connections, but I only use 1 which then connects to a switch behind the entertainment setup, which my TV, PS4, Xbox, Amplifier, HTPC plug into.

 

So the way my property is set up, it's about a 75 meter drive off the road. I have a detached garage. Right now the internet into the house comes in right next to the main door. This is where the modem and router are. I was thinking CAT 7 through the house to go something along the lines of this diagram. The bedroom on the top left is currently a spare/future kid's room. On the interior walls, all of the thicker and blacked out walls are closets. The IP cameras are for sure something down the road for me. Not so much for people, but animals. If I have to ....defend... my property and family more pictures of destruction I can get the better. 

How's your experience with the brush plates? Do they let quite a bit of air through or no? That's something I gotta be kind of mindful of. Crawl space isn't insulated from the ground, just on the exterior walls. We've already had a few mornings below -10C, so drafts are a little uncomfortable here in the winter.

I was considering general consumer. Unmanaged switch. Current looking at a Netgear 8 port. https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-8-Port-Gigabit-Ethernet-Unmanaged/dp/B07PFYM5MZ/ref=zg_bs_281414_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=PFXSFP3V383MZTZJ9W80

As far as storage, I am also leaning towards general consumer. The Synology 420 and 920 both are pulling me in. I was going to populate with 4tb drives. That should leave me with 12 TB usable. That'll last us a while. I do like that they are "expandable" with the 517. I'm just not 100% sure how that works. If I expand, would I have to backup the 12tb then set the RAID backup, or have you not used the 517?

 

Spoiler

 

[Jarsky]

22 hours ago, Voluspa said:

So the way my property is set up, it's about a 75 meter drive off the road. I have a detached garage. Right now the internet into the house comes in right next to the main door. This is where the modem and router are. I was thinking CAT 7 through the house to go something along the lines of this diagram. The bedroom on the top left is currently a spare/future kid's room. On the interior walls, all of the thicker and blacked out walls are closets. The IP cameras are for sure something down the road for me. Not so much for people, but animals. If I have to ....defend... my property and family more pictures of destruction I can get the better. 

I dont see any diagram, but you've fairly well explained it. 

If you're interested in cameras, then you may want to consider segmenting your network. Before just going out and getting switches, you'll want to decide if this is something you want to do. If you're fine just running a single network (which is far less complicated) then an unmanaged switch like that is just fine. Just keep in mind that IP cameras you may want to look at doing PoE (Power over Ethernet) so you only have to run 1 cable per camera, keep in mind that you'll need a PoE switch or injectors in that case. 

 

22 hours ago, Voluspa said:

How's your experience with the brush plates? Do they let quite a bit of air through or no? That's something I gotta be kind of mindful of. Crawl space isn't insulated from the ground, just on the exterior walls. We've already had a few mornings below -10C, so drafts are a little uncomfortable here in the winter.

It's fine where I am, but the coldest we get is 0C, and my house is completely insulated. I only use the brush plates with 1 being in the garage for the rack of gear, and 1 behind each TV for running cables down to a cabinet. In my country wall cavities are completely open between the studs, there are noggins in between, and where all the cables come out of my rack up through the top plate into the crawl space, there is insulation there (my entire crawl space is covered in insulation)

22 hours ago, Voluspa said:

I was considering general consumer. Unmanaged switch. Current looking at a Netgear 8 port. https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-8-Port-Gigabit-Ethernet-Unmanaged/dp/B07PFYM5MZ/ref=zg_bs_281414_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=PFXSFP3V383MZTZJ9W80

As far as storage, I am also leaning towards general consumer. The Synology 420 and 920 both are pulling me in. I was going to populate with 4tb drives. That should leave me with 12 TB usable. That'll last us a while. I do like that they are "expandable" with the 517. I'm just not 100% sure how that works. If I expand, would I have to backup the 12tb then set the RAID backup, or have you not used the 517?

The good thing about these consumer devices is theyre fairly compact, so if you have a hallway cupboard you could easily run everything into there and use a shelf in there. 

Keep in mind with Synology that their Surveillance Software for Cameras has a licensing cost, so you may need a seperate device if you want to use IP Cameras with a Free DVR Software. As for expansion, if you use Synology SHR (Hybrid Raid) then you can easily add a disk to it later and can add to the same pool using a DX517 without having to rebuild the array. It might be more worth it though saving for longer and holding off for something like a DS1819+ if you think that extra storage is going to be required. They're just stronger overall in the CPU & feature department.

[IkeaGnome]

22 hours ago, Jarsky said:

I dont see any diagram, but you've fairly well explained it. 

If you're interested in cameras, then you may want to consider segmenting your network. Before just going out and getting switches, you'll want to decide if this is something you want to do. If you're fine just running a single network (which is far less complicated) then an unmanaged switch like that is just fine. Just keep in mind that IP cameras you may want to look at doing PoE (Power over Ethernet) so you only have to run 1 cable per camera, keep in mind that you'll need a PoE switch or injectors in that case. 

 

It's fine where I am, but the coldest we get is 0C, and my house is completely insulated. I only use the brush plates with 1 being in the garage for the rack of gear, and 1 behind each TV for running cables down to a cabinet. In my country wall cavities are completely open between the studs, there are noggins in between, and where all the cables come out of my rack up through the top plate into the crawl space, there is insulation there (my entire crawl space is covered in insulation)

The good thing about these consumer devices is theyre fairly compact, so if you have a hallway cupboard you could easily run everything into there and use a shelf in there. 

Keep in mind with Synology that their Surveillance Software for Cameras has a licensing cost, so you may need a seperate device if you want to use IP Cameras with a Free DVR Software. As for expansion, if you use Synology SHR (Hybrid Raid) then you can easily add a disk to it later and can add to the same pool using a DX517 without having to rebuild the array. It might be more worth it though saving for longer and holding off for something like a DS1819+ if you think that extra storage is going to be required. They're just stronger overall in the CPU & feature department.

Neither of us are set on IP cameras. They probably won't end up happening. They aren't really necessary. 

We have those same openings between the studs. My thought was to make the hole in the wall, drill down to run the wire into the crawlspace then do the opposite for bringing it back up. 

I might have messed up when I uploaded the diagram. I stuffed it in a spoiler. I think this cleared everything up. All in all, this time I'm home I'm going to pick up a spool of the wire and start making runs with that. See if the 1819+ gets discounted on Black Friday(doesn't seem like something that would, but I can hope yeah?). If not, pick up the 1819 and start picking up drives. We're also floating with the idea of flipping the couch to face the wall that has "to switch" put on it and just doing a drop down projector screen across the closet doors there. I'd make one run to there for just in case. Is there anything big you can see that I'm missing or no?

 

 

[Jarsky]

2 hours ago, Voluspa said:

Neither of us are set on IP cameras. They probably won't end up happening. They aren't really necessary. 

We have those same openings between the studs. My thought was to make the hole in the wall, drill down to run the wire into the crawlspace then do the opposite for bringing it back up. 

I might have messed up when I uploaded the diagram. I stuffed it in a spoiler. I think this cleared everything up. All in all, this time I'm home I'm going to pick up a spool of the wire and start making runs with that. See if the 1819+ gets discounted on Black Friday(doesn't seem like something that would, but I can hope yeah?). If not, pick up the 1819 and start picking up drives. We're also floating with the idea of flipping the couch to face the wall that has "to switch" put on it and just doing a drop down projector screen across the closet doors there. I'd make one run to there for just in case. Is there anything big you can see that I'm missing or no

 

It looks like you have it pretty well sorted. So you'll need a krone tool for doing the punchdowns on the keystones (I have a multi tool that has a stripper as well for stripping the outer sheeth). Depending on requirements you'll either need some flush boxes (i have to do this in my country where low power lines are within 200mm of power lines) or if you dont need boxes, then I just use C-clips for screwing wallplates to the plasterboard.   

You can get flex extensions and auger drill bits for them for drilling through the noggins and top plate..you might even be able to just hire them from a place that hires out tools

[SteveiJobs]

I'm in the middle of doing something similar on my house right now (in my case, Cat6A with Panduit MiniCom jacks and panels).

 

The biggest advice I can give is make sure to use the right tools. My drills have been fighting a losing battle with my floor joists.