Just starting out

[Alextee]

Hi all

Came across the Website and forum looking to set up a more efficient home network which I think is going to challenge me technically. So once I have my head around it, it would be great to share and get feedback on how messy it is.

To help discussions my planned set up will probably be mainly cat6 and wireless but I need to configure it more efficiently so here we go.

Proposed top level is as follows

ONT>modem/wifi router 3 Ethernet ports

One Direct connect to a TLink 8 port Ethernet switch next modem which feeds a NAS, TV, satellite TV box,Apple TV, AV reciever, blu ray!
One direct connect to another TLink 8 port Ethernet switch which feeds home printer, NAS backup, time machine, Mac running OSX and Windows, Work PC running windows
One direct connect to a TLink 4 port Ethernet switch which feeds another Apple TV ,TV and Bluray

Wireless connects various devices phones etc . I also use a system called serato music on the wireless to look up the NAS drive which holds digital music which feeds music on my macs.

Cables are in so Once I’ve sketched it all out properly I  will post.

Thanks

Al

[Home Network Guy]

Thanks for sharing your proposed design! Once you can post a diagram that will be helpful in visualizing how the network is laid out.

It sounds like you are planning to connect 3 different switches — one to each port of your modem/router. How are you planning to do that? You mentioned you have cables ran so are you running 3 different cables to 3 different locations with a switch at each location?

While that will work, alternatively you could buy one larger switch (16 or 24 port), connect one cable to the switch from the modem/router and then connecting all your devices to that large switch. Of course that requires you to have more cables ran to the location of your switch. If you only have a couple Ethernet drops ran and it’s too hard to run more, putting a switch at location is not necessarily a bad idea for a small, basic home network. Keep in mind that you will be sharing bandwidth if you put a switch at each location if you have multiple devices transmitting/receiving a lot of data.

If you want to separate your IoT or guest devices, you may want to get managed switches. It adds more complexity but it’s nice to have for improved security. However you would need a router that supports VLANs. The Internet Service Provider’s modem/router is not likely to support that type of more advanced functionality. It depends on how deep you want to jump into when creating your home network.