Home Network Upgrade

[kalifornia909]

Unfortunately my asus router died on me, and I was looking at taking this opportunity to really evaluate how I have my home network setup. The connection from my isp comes inside to a 4 port gigabit modem or router I cant really verify if its a modem/router or modem/switch. My existing network was that one connection went from that modem/router combo to my router to supply my wifi and computer with south koreas finest internet lol. I also have a 5 port switch I use to connect all my home entertainment to that goes to my router.

 

My idea for the upgrade is to use a decent bigger gigabit switch and a wireless access point. What functionality would I be losing by going with this setup? I cannot log in to the router/modem combo to have any kind of admin control is one is one of the downfalls I see, but I am not seeing the downside of the upgrade path. Thank you.  

[zMeul]

7 minutes ago, kalifornia909 said:

I cant really verify if its a modem/router or modem/switch

it's a modem router

the concept of a modem-switch has no application at all

[DarkRuskov]

do you really need the gigabit switch? seems unnecessary to me...

by going wireless access point over router you loose all the other functionalities of a router other than wifi.

[kalifornia909]

11 minutes ago, DarkRuskov said:

do you really need the gigabit switch? seems unnecessary to me...

by going wireless access point over router you loose all the other functionalities of a router other than wifi.

for a nas and plex I would definitely want a gigabit switch. why go back to 100mb/s that wouldn't be doing much of an upgrade.

 

22 minutes ago, zMeul said:

it's a modem router

the concept of a modem-switch has no application at all

thank you for clearing that up. cant read the description lol

[Blake]

On 3/15/2016 at 11:20 AM, zMeul said:

it's a modem router

the concept of a modem-switch has no application at all

Well, you could have a modem switch... it'd be a stupid idea, but still, you could do it....

[Blake]

8 hours ago, RandomGuy13 said:

For anything i would use a gigabit switch, comeon its 2016, for something like an 5 or 8 port switch their realy isnt any price difference between 100mb and gigabit. Gigabit is literly 10x as fast

You'll actually find that in most cases, you'd get more out of actually setting up the network correctly. Everything on the one collision domain is very common. Unless your commonly transferring files GB in size (i.e. I run Veem Endpoint on ym systems at home, your looking at 1-5GB on every backup, and that's assuming I haven't used the device, it's a lot higher when I have used the device), gigabit is not really needed, nice to have sure but if it's just connecting a system to a gateway, you'll be fine. Remember to spec the system to requirements first then nice to have come later.

 

I'd much rather have a 10/100 Cisco then a 10/100/1000 tp-link.

 

[Principis]

15 hours ago, Blake said:

You'll actually find that in most cases, you'd get more out of actually setting up the network correctly. Everything on the one collision domain is very common. Unless your commonly transferring files GB in size (i.e. I run Veem Endpoint on ym systems at home, your looking at 1-5GB on every backup, and that's assuming I haven't used the device, it's a lot higher when I have used the device), gigabit is not really needed, nice to have sure but if it's just connecting a system to a gateway, you'll be fine. Remember to spec the system to requirements first then nice to have come later.

 

I'd much rather have a 10/100 Cisco then a 10/100/1000 tp-link.

 

100 mb would bottleneck many people's including my internet connection...

[beavo451]

18 hours ago, Blake said:

You'll actually find that in most cases, you'd get more out of actually setting up the network correctly. Everything on the one collision domain is very common. Unless your commonly transferring files GB in size (i.e. I run Veem Endpoint on ym systems at home, your looking at 1-5GB on every backup, and that's assuming I haven't used the device, it's a lot higher when I have used the device), gigabit is not really needed, nice to have sure but if it's just connecting a system to a gateway, you'll be fine. Remember to spec the system to requirements first then nice to have come later.

 

I'd much rather have a 10/100 Cisco then a 10/100/1000 tp-link.

 

Lol, wat. This is for home use. You're not going to overload a home network. Especially if he has to ask what networking stuff to get.

 

3 hours ago, Principis said:

100 mb would bottleneck many people's including my internet connection...

Nope, not in the US.

[Blake]

6 hours ago, RandomGuy13 said:

If a gigabit tp link switch is faster than a 100Mb cisco switch, why go for that one. sure tp link isnt exactly the best of brands but its still faster. If you have a storage server your going to need gigabit. If you need more than 100mb/s internet speeds, your going to need gigabit. I feel bottle necked by my gigabit network sometimes where files take far to long to move between computers. You would find it hard to stream any high bit rate 4k content to a 100mb client. Also can you elaborate on what you mean by "Remember to spec the system to requirements first then nice to have come later."

 

5 hours ago, Principis said:

100 mb would bottleneck many people's including my internet connection...

What I was saying, is that your dodgy little 8 port tp-link gigabit switch which costs ~$22AUD (so what $5USD?) is a horrible little device, heck I used one for a little while there when I added a intel NUC to my setup, and every time Veeam backup would start backing up to my NAS, bam, No QoS, no ability to setup vlans, nothing, network connection on all devices connected to this 'gigabit' switch fail off the network, because the backups happening. Throw in an old Cisco switch 10/100, throw on a dodgy qos config, bam, backups can happen whenever, and it wont drop your secure web sessions, or timeout your voip connections, and yes, you can even still play multiplayer video games without disconnecting/lag. That is what I was getting at. who cares if your on a 10G connection, if your getting collisions all over the place, or your switch is effectively blocking other traffic making your network a token ring.

 

For requirements versus nice to haves, i'd say a requirement of any switch/router is that all devices are able to connect to the network at the same time. That would be a requirement. General web browsing does have a 10/100 requirement, but even netflix 4k can be easily pushed down a 10/100 pipe, so gettting 10/100/1000 would be a nice to have in this instance. building a SAN? 10/100/1000 would be a requirement, 10G would be a requirement (use case depending) 100G would be a nice to have (once again use case depending, 50 end users accessing the san? it'd be a nice to have).

 

So the TL;DR of my posts: Get a solid basic network setup, that meets all requirements, then use whats left of the budget to get the nice-to-haves.

[skywake]

On 15/03/2016 at 9:26 AM, DarkRuskov said:

do you really need the gigabit switch? seems unnecessary to me...

by going wireless access point over router you loose all the other functionalities of a router other than wifi.

1. There are more things you can do on your network than just share an internet connection. There are some things like moving files from your PC to a NAS that will easily go over 100Mbps. Even if your PC was running over WiFi it's not that hard for wireless AC to push above 100Mbps even if it doesn't get that close to 1Gbps. You also need to remember how much we're actually talking about here. In Australian dollars my local retailer charges $15AU for an 8 port 100Mbps switch, $26AU for an 8 port 1Gbps switch and $1200AU for an 8 port 10Gbps switch. You'd be stupid not to go for the 1Gbps option.

 

2. Nobody is saying that they should remove the router, you need a router. What is being suggested is that instead of buying another router OP should buy an access point. And frankly I'm yet to see an access point that gives you less flexibility in terms of WiFi than a router does. Most of the time an access point, being a single function device, has MORE features. Things like band-steering, quick hand-off, client monitoring, centralised management and so on generally only exist in stand-alone enterprise-grade access points. Things that aren't that necessary for home use but they're nice regardless and are a requirement for larger deployments.

[Principis]

That's why I won't buy any TP-Link stuff anymore I have one router and it is terrible... Port forwarding doesn't even work...

 

But my D-Link switch works perfectly (50 euro's)

[skywake]

14 hours ago, Principis said:

That's why I won't buy any TP-Link stuff anymore I have one router and it is terrible... Port forwarding doesn't even work...

 

But my D-Link switch works perfectly (50 euro's)

Well this is my network device history going back 10 years or so. On the left is what it was and on the right is why I replaced it if I did:

 

Netcomm modem/router #1 (no WiFi) -> died

Netcomm modem/router #2 (no WiFi) -> also died (at this point I got sick of the ISP provided gear)

Netgear wireless g modem/router -> upgraded for wireless n, still works

Netgear wireless n150 modem/router -> upgraded for gigabit ports, still works

Netgear wireless n300 modem/router -> freaked out whenever you plugged more than 1 thing into it

Netgear wireless n600 modem/router -> still works, still using. Just not for WiFi

D-Link wireless AC1200 AP #1 -> Started to behave very strangely, replaced with Ubiquiti AP

D-Link wireless AC1200 AP #2 -> still works, still using

 

I don't trust consumer brands anymore

[InVis]

On 3/21/2016 at 3:47 AM, Blake said:

You'll actually find that in most cases, you'd get more out of actually setting up the network correctly. Everything on the one collision domain is very common. Unless your commonly transferring files GB in size (i.e. I run Veem Endpoint on ym systems at home, your looking at 1-5GB on every backup, and that's assuming I haven't used the device, it's a lot higher when I have used the device), gigabit is not really needed, nice to have sure but if it's just connecting a system to a gateway, you'll be fine. Remember to spec the system to requirements first then nice to have come later.

 

I'd much rather have a 10/100 Cisco then a 10/100/1000 tp-link.

 

You mean broadcast domain, right?

 

Each port on a switch is its own collision domain.

There is no point in buy an old 10/100 Cisco switch due to the simple fact that they have run for a lot of hours and they use a hell of a lot of power.

 

 

@OP: For a home user, where you dont need 99.999% uptime, just get a cheaper d-link DSG or netgear switch and just reboot it every half year or so - but I would never use TP-link for anything, I have had too much trouble with random errors on their products.