Home Network: One Large Switch or smaller Switches at endpoints?

[Kealil]

Hey all!
I'm finally getting around to wiring my house with Cat6 and am planning out the network. I would appreciate some input on the layout and possible problems I could run into along the way. 
I plan to move my cable modem, main switch and Access Point to a centralized closet which will also house my main media server and surveillance camera hub. From there I will run Cat 6  through the attic to every room in the house that has even the smallest reason need/want a hard line (so far about 6 rooms are on the docket with a possible 7th). My main concern is how to handle the endpoints and I see two main options:

1. Have a large central switch with individual cables to each room as needed. This will mean that some rooms will get multiple cables run since they need multiple hard lines (Two home offices and a media center in the living room). I see this as being the simplest topographically but more complex in the build since running 2-3 cables through the same wall seems....bothersome.

2. Have a Medium sized switch at the core, run single cables to the various rooms and then split from there with smaller switches as needed. This one would definitely save me some work on the main runs but would involve more cable management at each point. However it seems like it might cause some issue topographically in the network since there would be at least 4 switches on the network at the outset. My main concern with this one is that I am unsure how nice it will play with the home offices. They use network phones with some sort of VPN tunneling that has been known to be unstable on our Mesh network.

So any advice or anecdotes would be appreciated. I know enough about networking that I can get the job done but this will be my first large project on the networking side of things. 

[manikyath]

if you have the chance of running all cables to a centralized location, and that isnt some hundreds of feet away, a centralized location is always nicer than creating a mess from the start.

 

do ofcourse take propper courtesy of documenting and testing every cable as you go. nothing's worse than doing all the work, and eventually finding a dud.

[mariushm]

You should consider routing a LC duplex fiber to each room, along with 1-2 cat6 cables (if less than around 40-45 meters), or cat6a for up to 100 meters.

Plain LC duplex fiber is good enough to get up to 25 gbps, maybe more with the right transceiver. For sure you have 10gbps SFP+ transceivers (up to 400m with OM4 grade fiber)  , 25 gbps with SFP28 transceivers (100m with OM4 fiber, 70m with OM3 grade fiber) .. for QSFP+ (40gbps and higher) you get into MTP/MPO fiber (bundle of 12 fiber pairs) which is expensive for long lengths.

OM3 fiber is cheap

Fiber is cheap .. 30 meters of OM3 grade LC duplex costs 20$ : https://www.fs.com/products/41733.html?attribute=226&id=302830

 and you can get longer lengths.  OM4 is about twice the cost, but still cheap : https://www.fs.com/products/40257.html?attribute=213&id=302784

 

So the point is you could have 10g/25 gbps to each room, and then have a switch with a 25 gbps port and multiple 10g or 1g ports or whatever. Or you could have a cheap 4 port 10g sfp+ switch in the room and 30-40$ 10g network cards give you 10g

 

[Needfuldoer]

There's no technical reason why switches at the edges wouldn't work. The biggest downside is that you're limited to 1 gig leaving each switch back to the core.

 

If you're going to pull one cable, you might as well pull two. Getting to the point where you can pull cable is about 3/4 of the work anyway.

 

Just run Cat6, so in the future you can run 2.5/5/10 gig over copper.

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, Kealil said:

 

1. Have a large central switch with individual cables to each room as needed. 

 

This is the "right" option. This is why each floor in an office building has a wiring closet, and then each wiring closet is connected to each other via fiber.

 

2 hours ago, Kealil said:

2. Have a Medium sized switch at the core, run single cables to the various rooms and then split from there with smaller switches as needed. 

This is a bad idea depending how big your house is.

 

Consider redundancy. You should be wiring each room with at least two ethernet cables. You can save-face from the over-engineering by using it to double the bandwidth, or redundant switches at either end.

 

In the event that one cable dies, you can switch to the other without ripping stuff out of the walls.

 

If you have a single-floor, then I'd suggest wiring two ethernet cables to each room, and then if you need more devices in the room, use a switch or convert one to a WiFi AP at that point.

 

If you have two floors, run cables in parallel, one to the upper floor and one to the lower floor, in each room (Eg one through the attic, one through the basement/floor.) 

 

You don't necessarily need the redundancy, but if you're installing it in a way so that you don't see the cables afterword's (eg inside the walls,)  you may want to make it possible to remove the cables without ripping the walls apart. Keep in mind that WIRED ETHERNET has a lifespan of around 20 years, and what tends to happen is that the physical connector at the end breaks, or the cable gets kinked and it's toast. 

 

So up to you.

 

Again, the "correct" solution is 2 cables per room (in an office this would be like 1 computer and 1 phone, but it could also be like 1 computer and 1 tv at a home), but if you don't see yourself needing the redundancy, just use an ethernet switch in the room. Keep in mind that you are sharing the bandwidth at the switch points, so if you're just sharing internet, you'll be fine, but if you put a NAS anywhere in the home, that will then become a choke point for the room the NAS is in.

 

[manikyath]

3 hours ago, mariushm said:

a LC duplex fiber to each room

that's not a very good suggestion though...

yes, the price of a single cable is okay, but multiply that by 6 rooms and you're already looking at 100 bucks on top of your cost, for something you will most likely not use for a very long time to come.

 

rather, i'd suggest OP runs everything in conduit (which i didnt think of to mention, because it's a given for me..) so he can replace the cables if desired. or, run extra conduit to make 

[Ralphred]

4 hours ago, manikyath said:

running all cables to a centralized location

Yes

 

4 hours ago, mariushm said:

You should consider routing a LC duplex fiber to each room

No you shouldn't

 

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

This is a bad idea

Indeed

49 minutes ago, manikyath said:

not a very good suggestion

Underrated comment

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

each room with at least two ethernet cables

Indeed, you are going to the trouble of running "a" cable, run multiple, for both "future proofing" and "fault tolerance" (within reason, not advocating for running 100 pairs to each room or owt). I'm a bit "meh" on conduit, if you can pull it w/o chipping at the fixtures and finish, don't bother, if you can't then bother with the conduit, if you plan to stay there long enough...

 

 

Simplicity is beauty*, and (more devices)==(bigger electricity bill), but more importantly it also == (bigger upgrade bill)"

 

*in before "my cisco 4650 only uses 20W": Fuck off and pull your head out of your arse...

[Kealil]

Thank you all! 
I appreciate your suggestions and will likely go with the centralized switch. I have a relatively small house that is only a single story so it wont be that bad cable length wise. I also already have the bulk Cat6 so I'm going with that. I really just need the stability of a wired connection since my mesh wireless is not doing it for the work. 
Not looking forward to pulling all those cables but it does make sense in the grand scheme of things.

[wseaton]

Buddy of mine is a realtor. Good field to be in right now. He's laughing at all the new home owners that are drywalling over the previous owners wall jacks because they dont have enough plants to park in front of them. Twisted pair in residential is no longer a thing. Even hipsters buying record players want the ugly wall jacks gone.

 

Cat6 won't make your Netflix stream better, and aside from desktop computers I rarely see devices with ethernet ports in the home. If you do heavy video editing to a local NAS I get why you want to run wire. For accessing your typical cable connection I dont.

.

"My wifi isn't reliable" .

 

Then fix it. Most wifi issues I deal with are issues with client devices, or piece of crap ISP supplied all in one routers. I support tons of ubiquiti installations, and they are all rock solid and fast, and those things are cheap. 

 

Point being, if you are pulling plenum to solve a problem I get it. Because you can't get wifi to work I don't. Last point is stop taking advice from people who also can't get wifi to work reliably in a small home. Not the wifi's fault they have broad channels enabled on 2.4ghz in an apartment building.

 

 

 

 

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, wseaton said:

Buddy of mine is a realtor. Good field to be in right now. He's laughing at all the new home owners that are drywalling over the previous owners wall jacks because they dont have enough plants to park in front of them. Twisted pair in residential is no longer a thing. Even hipsters buying record players want the ugly wall jacks gone.

 

Cat6 won't make your Netflix stream better, and aside from desktop computers I rarely see devices with ethernet ports in the home. If you do heavy video editing to a local NAS I get why you want to run wire. For accessing your typical cable connection I dont.

.

"My wifi isn't reliable" .

 

Then fix it. Most wifi issues I deal with are issues with client devices, or piece of crap ISP supplied all in one routers. I support tons of ubiquiti installations, and they are all rock solid and fast, and those things are cheap. 

 

Point being, if you are pulling plenum to solve a problem I get it. Because you can't get wifi to work I don't. Last point is stop taking advice from people who also can't get wifi to work reliably in a small home. Not the wifi's fault they have broad channels enabled on 2.4ghz in an apartment building.

Then those people will be moaning that their devices are performing poorly, or be putting up with a far worse experience than they needed to.

 

Even the best WiFi can't overcome everyone elses WiFi also interfering, metal in the drywall, furniture, bad router placement, or the multitude of other things that can make WiFi perform poorly.  The best WiFi experience would be to have a short-range Access Point in the middle of every room and even THEN it doesn't avoid slowdowns and latency (mine is right above where I use my laptop).

 

I certainly hope none of them are gamers, WiFi will ALWAYS be a worse experience to wired, period.  Its the nature of trying to send data over the air.

 

My Access Point wasn't cheap, but you bet your ass I don't hit that 940Mbit consistently.  Some days it will only do half, because the wind is blowing the wrong direction, or my device is slightly at a different angle, or just no obvious reason at all, because radio waves are just like that.

 

You clearly have no idea how it works if you think its as simple as "fix it".  I have a stack of routers and access points I've been through, there is no "fixing it", its inconsistent by its nature.

[Kealil]

Man I hate feeding trolls but here I go

 

Quote

Buddy of mine is a realtor. Good field to be in right now. He's laughing at all the new home owners that are drywalling over the previous owners wall jacks because they dont have enough plants to park in front of them. Twisted pair in residential is no longer a thing. Even hipsters buying record players want the ugly wall jacks gone.

And? Besides sounding extremely rude I don't see the goal in this statement since I made no mention of selling my house?

 

Quote

Cat6 won't make your Netflix stream better, and aside from desktop computers I rarely see devices with ethernet ports in the home. If you do heavy video editing to a local NAS I get why you want to run wire. For accessing your typical cable connection I dont.

Well then my household is an oddity as we are currently running at least 1 or 2 in nearly every room. Could they be wireless? Sure, but why not get all the goodness of wired connection if I have to wire some anyway?  I didn't even mention streaming services being an issue so I have no idea where you are getting that from. Only the VPN phones that we are forced to use by our jobs have true issues with wireless. If I am going to run cable I might as well get the most out of it. Other common wired devices include gaming consoles, work computers that are often used for teleconference, Video surveillance hub, and a couple gaming pcs.

Quote

"My wifi isn't reliable" .

 

Then fix it. Most wifi issues I deal with are issues with client devices, or piece of crap ISP supplied all in one routers. I support tons of ubiquiti installations, and they are all rock solid and fast, and those things are cheap. 

 

Point being, if you are pulling plenum to solve a problem I get it. Because you can't get wifi to work I don't. Last point is stop taking advice from people who also can't get wifi to work reliably in a small home. Not the wifi's fault they have broad channels enabled on 2.4ghz in an apartment building.

 

I find it funny that you are using quotes for a statement that I never made? Again, the wifi is fine for most things but our work phones require a hard line and I might as well get the most out of it. Also, currently running a non-combined modem/router so maybe ask before making assumptions?

 

I will probably regret feeding the troll but I am not feeling like being quiet today.

To everyone else who has given suggestions: THANK YOU so much for being good people!