A few months ago I got a new Denon 4308 receiver. Of course, it has an ethernet connect for firmware updates, Internet radio, etc.

My DirecTV HD DVR also has an ethernet port, eliminating the need for the telephone connect.

So I pulled 2 cat-5E cables and connected them to the switch I have in my study where all the other computer equipment in the house resides.

No problem, and everything is working wonderfully.

Now I have decided to upgrade my TV with a new Panasonic 50pz850 plasma, which also has an ethernet port (for IPTV). There also may be a PS3 in my future - again, another ethernet port!

So here's the choice - would you:

1. Pull 2 more cat-5e cables? Doable - the run is about 125' - but not something I look forward to with glee, crawlspace, etc. Plenty of open ports on the terminating Gig-E switch.

2. Put a small 4 or 5 port switch where the entertainment equipment resides to connect everything, and uplink it using one of the existing cat-5e cables I've already got in place?

Any bandwidth considerations?

Which path would you take (and why?)? Tradeoffs?

Thanks!

Tom

Option 2. First, the PS3 is wireless, so no need to have a cable for it. Second, what are the chances that all of those devices will be hitting the internet at the same time? Pretty slim, I'd bet. Additionally, your router/switch will probably be 100Mb, so there's no worry about speed back to your main router. Finally, the bottleneck in all of this is your internet connection. If you've got cable, you're probably maxed out at 10Mb/sec. Your network inside the house is exponentially faster than the internet connection itself. You'll be fine.

I agree. Invest in a good 8-port ethernet hub (gigabit for future possibilities). Both Newegg and tigerdirect are good options. I've only had to pull 2 cat5e cables, one going to the family room feeding an 8-port hub which serves a PS3, media server, HD-XA2, DirecTV HR20-700, and ipod dock for internet radio. The other cat5e feeds a hub down in the basement theater, feeding another PS3, A35, and ipod dock.

I've got both a wired and wireless network with about 14 devices on the network. I've never seen a slowdown unless I'm trying to do too much at once, but it's rare. I've got about 2 terabytes of HDD space (redundant for backup) on my office server feeding lossless music files (about 14,000 tracks) as well as a number of DVDs (mostly TV series on DVD) that I can access anywhere at any time, even remotely when I'm on vacation.

The only bad thing is my energy bill.

I've always wonder why people dont put their modem/router with their rack??

To be a bit clear. A hub is not the same as a switch. You want a switch. The only time you would want a hub is if you're doing any type of packet sniffing on your network.

As far as the choices, it really depends on how you envision your network use. If you use a single uplink connection with a switch located with your equipment pulled back to your central switch backbone, then you can run the risk of over saturating that uplink connection. Again this depends on the type of network traffic which is going over that connection. This would be an issue say if you were doing a lot of large file transfers or high data rate streaming. But as others have said, if the connection link is primarily seeing internet traffic, then you're fine having all the traffic going over a single link.

The option of pulling additional network drops gives you flexibility in your datacom infrastructure. I have multiple drops pulled to various locations to allow for the ability to either use a drop for network or for phone.

Again, it's up to what you think you'll be doing with your network.

I've always wonder why people dont put their modem/router with their rack??

Like this? :D

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b173/zx10guy/computer%20network%20stuff/netrack.jpg

Thanks for the thoughts - so another switch it is then.

Currently everything (including the 2 runs from the Denon and DirecTV receiver all terminate in a NetGear GS108 10/100/1000 switch, then into a Secure Computing SnapGear Firewall, then into an Actiontec DSL modem.

So I'll get another NetGear from Newegg and take one of the lines as an uplink and plug everything in the entertainment area into the new switch.

Thanks, folk! I appreciate the reassurance and advice!

Tom

NetGear GS108 10/100/1000 switch

nice choice, I've got one myself, not a single issue.

Like this? :D

image snipped

Care to give a run down of what you've got there?

Just curious.

Now, to add value to this thread:

I'd do what everyone else is suggesting, a nice little switch. As someone above pointed out, the rate-determining-piece-of-equipment is your connection to the Internet.

--Mike

Care to give a run down of what you've got there?

Just curious.

Now, to add value to this thread:

I'd do what everyone else is suggesting, a nice little switch. As someone above pointed out, the rate-determining-piece-of-equipment is your connection to the Internet.

--Mike

From top to bottom (left to right): Cisco 1841, Cisco 2611XM, Cisco 1841, Cisco 3560, Cisco 2960G, Netgear FS526T, Netgear FS526T, Multi-Link phone switch, Westell DSL modem (forget what model), Netgear FVS338, Cisco ASA 5505, and Cisco ASA5505. The remaining rack mounted items are just PDUs and the item below the last Netgear switch is my patch panel for phone and console access to both my ASA5505s.

To be clear about the bottleneck issue, yes in most situations (especially home setups) the main limiter is your WAN or ISP connection. But if you do lots of local network file transfers, you can run into a situation where you start degrade network performance over a single GigE uplink connection. Again, it depends on the applications being used and the network topology. Some people try to get around this by ensuring their network design takes into account devices which will be doing large transfers between each other by locating these devices on the same switch. Traffic going through the switches back plane usually will not be large enough to saturate most switch's back plane throughput. Other methods are to invoke jumbo frames which leads to other challenges and issues. Or finally, the use of aggregated links.

Just to be sure I'm doing this the *smart* way then:

Agreed and understand about the DSL link being the slowest data path/bottleneck.

So with 2 runs from the entertainment area to the upstream switch, 1 run should be the uplink from the (new) local switch, which would connect the DirecTV receiver, Panasonic Plasma TV, and whatever else might show up. The other run should probably connect from the Denon receiver directly to the upstream switch, which also would be connected to any future A/V server, since that's most likely to be the connection for any streamed A/V, including Internet radio, etc.

That make sense? Or inconsequential?

Thanks, guys!

Tom

...I've got about 2 terabytes of HDD space (redundant for backup) on my office server feeding lossless music files (about 14,000 tracks) as well as a number of DVDs (mostly TV series on DVD) that I can access anywhere at any time, even remotely when I'm on vacation.

The only bad thing is my energy bill.

Schroedk,

What type of software/hardware are you using to access your DVD's in your home network? I've been looking into a Kaleidescape setup to access music & movies throughout the house, but it is a pricey setup...

Schroedk,

What type of software/hardware are you using to access your DVD's in your home network? I've been looking into a Kaleidescape setup to access music & movies throughout the house, but it is a pricey setup...

I'm probably fairly low-tech with this regard, but I have two MediaGate MG-35 units (one in the family room with a wired connection, one in the master bedroom on a wireless bridge), each with a 500gb drive of its own. I also have Tversity installed on my office computer, which I use to stream all my content to both my DirecTV HR20-700 (for music only) and my two PS3's (one in the family room, the other in the basement theater, for music/pics/video).

I rip video in divx almost exclusively, since most of my material is TV on DVD stuff (and the movies are primarily for my daughters who don't care about quality, and it's easy to copy over to DVD-RW discs for their car DVD player), with some VOB files thrown in. For music, I have two separate music files, one with lossless WAV for the MG-35 in the family room, which is hooked up to one of my A/V receivers and a 5.1 speaker setup, and one with 320kbps MP3 files of the same material for the PS3's and my iPods.

With all the new devices coming out that are capable of streaming media content, it's getting fairly redundant now. In my family room, I've got the HR20-700, a PS3, and the MG-35, each of which can stream music and photos, and two of which can stream video (divx). The MG-35 is the most versatile with codec playback, but since I've been sticking divx/mp3/wav, it's not a big deal.

For highest-quality DVD/BD/HD-DVD, I still use a dedicated machine for playback. I know some people copy those to their servers to, and are able to playback in HD, but I'm not going to that extreme.

From top to bottom (left to right): Cisco 1841, Cisco 2611XM, Cisco 1841, Cisco 3560, Cisco 2960G, Netgear FS526T, Netgear FS526T, Multi-Link phone switch, Westell DSL modem (forget what model), Netgear FVS338, Cisco ASA 5505, and Cisco ASA5505. The remaining rack mounted items are just PDUs and the item below the last Netgear switch is my patch panel for phone and console access to both my ASA5505s.

To be clear about the bottleneck issue, yes in most situations (especially home setups) the main limiter is your WAN or ISP connection. But if you do lots of local network file transfers, you can run into a situation where you start degrade network performance over a single GigE uplink connection. Again, it depends on the applications being used and the network topology. Some people try to get around this by ensuring their network design takes into account devices which will be doing large transfers between each other by locating these devices on the same switch. Traffic going through the switches back plane usually will not be large enough to saturate most switch's back plane throughput. Other methods are to invoke jumbo frames which leads to other challenges and issues. Or finally, the use of aggregated links.

So the next question would be, why? You running a call center over there or something that requires high availability, what's with all the redundant equipment? Please tell me all that's not just for a home network... :eek:

Just to be sure I'm doing this the *smart* way then:

Agreed and understand about the DSL link being the slowest data path/bottleneck.

So with 2 runs from the entertainment area to the upstream switch, 1 run should be the uplink from the (new) local switch, which would connect the DirecTV receiver, Panasonic Plasma TV, and whatever else might show up. The other run should probably connect from the Denon receiver directly to the upstream switch, which also would be connected to any future A/V server, since that's most likely to be the connection for any streamed A/V, including Internet radio, etc.

That make sense? Or inconsequential?

Thanks, guys!

Tom

From what I'm understanding in your post, the DTV receiver and Panny would share the new local switch and your Denon would directly connect to the remote/backbone switch. If this is correct, the DTV and Panny would be able to communicate over the local switch with minimal chance of not being able to achieve the full expected transfer speeds. But if both devices are pumping data through the uplink connection to the remote switch, then both devices are going to have to contend with each other's grab at the available link bandwidth. The Denon would be insulated from this bandwidth contention as it has a dedicated link to the remote switch.

So the next question would be, why? You running a call center over there or something that requires high availability, what's with all the redundant equipment? Please tell me all that's not just for a home network... :eek:

Well, first, I work as a Network Engineer. And yes, all that gear is running as my home network....well sort of. The idea started from my last job. The company refused to buy any lab equipment for me to do my job properly and to allow me to learn/try new things in networking. So along the lines of other Network Engineers who are CCIE certified, I decided to start my own lab at home. The gear grew from the initial ASA5505 firewall to an 1841 to both an 1841 and a 2611XM....etc, etc. Much of the gear I got on great discounts as I was able to negotiate and pull strings. The three routers (1841s and the 2611) are only really set up as a lab environment. The 2611 is my internet simulator where I pass traffic between the 1841s through the 2611 via T1 cards.

The other gear is actively running as my "production" network. Because part of my job is to create secure networks, I just translated my work knowledge/experience into creating my home network layout. I have three different security zones in my home network. I isolate both my wireless networks via these security zones using VLANs. Each VLAN has a firewall present to control traffic going and in out of the VLAN. I've been running this topology for about 3 years with enhancements implemented over the 3 years as money allowed. I also host a few servers on my home network which provide collaboration services (email, message board, file sharing, and chat), DNS, streaming of music and video, and VoIP. In addition, I have 3 VPN solutions running with 2 of them over standard remote client IPSEC connections and 1 via a web VPN protocol.

In addition to being able to practice and play with various technologies, I have used the network gear to do some proof of concepts and problem solving with work projects I decided to do at my leisure at home.

And yes, I'm aware I have a better network than many small to medium businesses sitting at home. When I was hired at my current company, they were halfway joking and halfway serious about using my home infrastructure as their off site data storage as the security is there along with fault tolerance in data redundancy and power (everything I have is running on rather large UPS'.)

Like this? :D

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b173/zx10guy/computer%20network%20stuff/netrack.jpgThat is way bitchin' Won! Where did you source that wall-mount telco rack from?

That is way bitchin' Won! Where did you source that wall-mount telco rack from?

Thanks. I actually made it. I looked at the various offerings on the market and didn't want to spend $300+. A friend mentioned music shops sell the side rails for pretty cheap. So a trip down to Guitar Center for the rails, shelves, and rack screws then a trip to Lowes for some aluminum, brackets, screws/nuts, and concrete bolts ended up with what I have in the picture. Total cost was about $60 for a 16U wall rack.

Tom:

Have you thought about this?

http://www.lanshack.com/Network-Splitter-Pair-P47C56.aspx

Tom:

Have you thought about this?

http://www.lanshack.com/Network-Splitter-Pair-P47C56.aspx

Using that option is automatically disqualified if GigE is a requirement. I also looked into this option when I was faced with either doing what is proposed in your link to pull a PSTN connection to multifunction printer I only had one run of Cat5e to. Eventually, I sucked it up and ran a second line to the printer for two reasons. First, every LAN drop I have in my house can be dual purpose as either a PSTN line or a LAN drop. Making this one drop different than the others would screw up this standard. Second, having a PSTN connection go through the same Cat5e cable could cause a potential hazard for the NIC connected over the LAN connection due to an overvoltage caused by the ringing voltage on the PSTN line when a call comes in.

I've always wonder why people dont put their modem/router with their rack??

That is what I did! Works great. Only my main PC is wireless.