To preface this post:
Now that I have finally stopped lurking and created an account, I can finally start asking questions and, if possible, maybe even answer some questions.
I am going to be undertaking a pretty large project, for me anyways, at my parents’ house. The project will involve a running structured wiring, setting up a couple cameras, setting up a servers for various things and maybe automating a few things like irrigation. My plan is to run at least two network drops to all of the rooms, four in the living room and office area. A cable TV drop in every room and probably two in the living room area and finally a phone drop to every room. Don't really need the phone but it could be nice to have just in case.
The first part of this project is going to be structured wiring. I plan on getting a Leviton 48 inch panel and placing it close to the circuit breaker box in the basement. I will be adding a server rack in the area as well. So these are all of the drops that I am planning to have around the house:
Total Drops:
I would like to do fiber drops to two areas, one being my bedroom and the other being the office. No one else in the house would really take the advantage of fiber so there’s no need to have it anywhere else. The drop to my bedroom is questionable depending on how big of a pain it would be and if the cost would be worth it but there’s a good chance that I would forego the drop to my bedroom and maybe do a second drop to the office.
In general, I would rather have too many drops than too few. I prefer to use a wired connection whenever possible for things like DVD players, Xbox, Apple TV, etc.
The next part of the project would be to setup the server rack. I plan on having a total of three servers to begin with. A pfsense box, a NAS server and finally a VMware server. Ideally I would like to have 10Gbe for the NAS and VMware servers, as of now I have no idea on what switch I am going to use. Definitely will need advice for the switch.
I currently have a server that I am hosting ESXi on and doubling as a file server. Specs are as follows:
The M1015 is being passed through to a FreeNAS VM. So far it’s been working pretty well.
I will probably convert my current server to be strictly a file server and then get two more servers for the router and VM host.
Router:
NAS Server:
VM Host:
So now I finally have some questions:
This is just the beginning, if you read all of that, thank you very much.
Sorry about the extremely long post but this is my first big network project. I will be starting to gather parts in the next few months. It will be a bit of a slow build out depending on whether a new job opportunity comes through. Either way, I will make sure to document everything. I will be adding details as I remember them
Thank You
Roman
- This post is going to be a very long.
- I have been lurking on here for a quite a while and it has been extremely helpful, this is an amazing community.
Now that I have finally stopped lurking and created an account, I can finally start asking questions and, if possible, maybe even answer some questions.
I am going to be undertaking a pretty large project, for me anyways, at my parents’ house. The project will involve a running structured wiring, setting up a couple cameras, setting up a servers for various things and maybe automating a few things like irrigation. My plan is to run at least two network drops to all of the rooms, four in the living room and office area. A cable TV drop in every room and probably two in the living room area and finally a phone drop to every room. Don't really need the phone but it could be nice to have just in case.
The first part of this project is going to be structured wiring. I plan on getting a Leviton 48 inch panel and placing it close to the circuit breaker box in the basement. I will be adding a server rack in the area as well. So these are all of the drops that I am planning to have around the house:
Total Drops:
- Network (Non-POE): 24
- Network Cameras (POE): 8
- Network AP (POE): 2-3
- Cable: 9
- Phone: 7
- Fiber: 2
I would like to do fiber drops to two areas, one being my bedroom and the other being the office. No one else in the house would really take the advantage of fiber so there’s no need to have it anywhere else. The drop to my bedroom is questionable depending on how big of a pain it would be and if the cost would be worth it but there’s a good chance that I would forego the drop to my bedroom and maybe do a second drop to the office.
In general, I would rather have too many drops than too few. I prefer to use a wired connection whenever possible for things like DVD players, Xbox, Apple TV, etc.
The next part of the project would be to setup the server rack. I plan on having a total of three servers to begin with. A pfsense box, a NAS server and finally a VMware server. Ideally I would like to have 10Gbe for the NAS and VMware servers, as of now I have no idea on what switch I am going to use. Definitely will need advice for the switch.
I currently have a server that I am hosting ESXi on and doubling as a file server. Specs are as follows:
- Supermicro X9SCM-F
- Xeon E3-1230 V2
- 32 GB RAM
- IBM M1015 flashed to IT
- 6x2TB WD Red
The M1015 is being passed through to a FreeNAS VM. So far it’s been working pretty well.
I will probably convert my current server to be strictly a file server and then get two more servers for the router and VM host.
Router:
- Supermicro X9SCM-F or X9SCL-F (whichever is cheaper at the time)
- Celeron G1610 or G2030
- 2x4GB RAM
- Install pfSense on USB
- NORCO RPC-230 2U
NAS Server:
- Supermicro X9SCM-F
- Xeon E3-1230 V2
- 32GB RAM
- 3xM1015(Need two more)
- Intel X520-DA2
- Not sure on the hard drives
- NORCO RPC-4224 4U
VM Host:
- Another Xeon E3 machine
- OR
- Something with two L5639s
- SSDs on a RAID card for the VM storage
- Intel X520
- NORCO 2U or 3U of some sort
So now I finally have some questions:
- Why are the Leviton Cat-6 patch panels so expensive? They are 160 for a 24 port, seems a bit excessive but they do fit nicely into the structured wiring panel. What are some other ones I could get that would also fit? Probably need 48 ports total in there.
- Should I get shielded cat6 or will regular be fine?
- Switch. No idea where to even begin on this. At first I settled on the HP 1810-48 but then I decided that I wanted to have 10GBe instead of truncking a bunch of 1Gbe connections together. Any ideas on switches that have 48 ethernet ports and 4-6 10GBe SFP+ ports? Also, POE would be fantastic so that way I don’t have to get a separate POE switch to run the cameras and Aps. I’s assuming I’m asking for a lot here and this will not be cheap.
- Should I run the management and other random things that will not take much bandwidth on a separate switch, such as a HP 1810-24?
- Is running three M1015s a bad idea? Should I get an expander instead?
- Finally, what should I do for the VM host? Another single E3 machine or get a couple of L5639s and find a motherboard to stick them in?
- How does one add a fiber drop to a room where a workstation would be able to get to it? Do they have keystone type jacks for fiber? No idea on this one.
This is just the beginning, if you read all of that, thank you very much.
Sorry about the extremely long post but this is my first big network project. I will be starting to gather parts in the next few months. It will be a bit of a slow build out depending on whether a new job opportunity comes through. Either way, I will make sure to document everything. I will be adding details as I remember them
Thank You
Roman
I had to run mine up a cavity wall, through the mess in the loft, then half way down a cavity wall, through the floor boards then down through the ceiling downstairs!