Need recommendation for home networking equipment

[vjeko]

I’d appreciate a recommendation for new networking equipment to cover 4 floors including the cellar.

At the moment I have the following equipment:
Location - cellar rack
- ISP router acting as modem (location cellar rack)
- Asus RT-N16 router (router + cellar/1st floor wifi)
- TP-link gigabit switch

Location – 2nd floor
- Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH (access point 2nd/3rd floor wifi)

With the update in equipment, I would like to cover several needs:
- more professional equipment with more advanced functions from which I would learn more about networking
-better control and logging, tagged VLANs, gigabit lan, wifi -ac, firewall
- better wifi coverage (maybe I need 3 access points)
- would like to connect the following separate networks:
(1) home automation (5 fixed ports + Wifi) ,
(2)video/audio streaming
(3)visitors (4 fixed ports + Wifi),
(4)my network (5 fixed ports + wifi ),
(5)VoIP phones (5 fixed ports + wifi )
(6)test network (3 fixed ports + wifi)
. Ideally I would like separate SSID’s for each Wifi network and authentication via mac or wap depending on network.
-preferably fanless

Together with the networking equipment in the cellar, I will have a server running vmware with backup + backup NAS. Network cabling is cat5E which I don’t intend to change for now.

Two additional questions:
(a)Should I run all the above networks into one switch (with tagged vlans) ?
(b)Which equipment would you suggest ?

 

[j_h_o]

I'd do:

• Netgear R7000 flashed to Shibby Tomato (with VLANs, etc.) or a pfSense for your router,
• Cisco SG300 series switch with PoE, and set up VLANs,
• 2 Ubiquiti APs - UAP-AC-Pro or UAP-AC-HD (new)

 

[pyro_]

I would potentially consider a strait ubiquiti unifi setup. One of their usg routers, unifi switch and their aps. Might also use one of their cloud keys to make it easy to setup and not need a separate vm for the unifi controller. Fairly easy to setup and one pane of glass and place to go for all networking equipment

 

[CreoleLakerFan]

I'd do:

• Netgear R7000 flashed to Shibby Tomato (with VLANs, etc.) or a pfSense for your router,
• Cisco SG300 series switch with PoE, and set up VLANs,
• 2 Ubiquiti APs - UAP-AC-Pro or UAP-AC-HD (new)

Agree with all of the above, except the recommendation for SG300. An SG200 will be cheaper, and eliminate unnecessary features (L3 routing, DHCP server, etc), which should really be run on something like pfSense.

I have a similar setup as the OP at home. Two floors, 4000+ sq ft, Cat5e strung throughout the home.

I use SG200-26 and SG300-10 switches for Ethernet connectivity. I am using an ASA-5506x as my firewall/UTM, and also use it to route between VLANs. Previously I used a pfSense VM for those functions. Unifi-AC-Pro for WiFi, plan on adding another for better coverage soon.

The main switch in my wiring closet is an SG200-26. I actually don't use the PoE version, but instead use the PoE injector that came with my Unifi AC-Pro. The SG300's were used in a lab environment, which has since been expanded to a full rack with production grade switches. I never used any of the advanced features on the SG300's ... wasted money. Currently they are connecting back to the main switch with trunks - I have one in my office and I have one in my guest room where my ESXi All-In-One server is running (the wiring closet has poor ventilation).

A note on the Cisco SMB line of switches - make sure you get them up to the latest firmware and have all of them running the same revision, otherwise trunking does not work.

 

[wildchild]

Agree with all of the above, except the recommendation for SG300. An SG200 will be cheaper, and eliminate unnecessary features (L3 routing, DHCP server, etc), which should really be run on something like pfSense.

I have a similar setup as the OP at home. Two floors, 4000+ sq ft, Cat5e strung throughout the home.

I use SG200-26 and SG300-10 switches for Ethernet connectivity. I am using an ASA-5506x as my firewall/UTM, and also use it to route between VLANs. Previously I used a pfSense VM for those functions. Unifi-AC-Pro for WiFi, plan on adding another for better coverage soon.

The main switch in my wiring closet is an SG200-26. I actually don't use the PoE version, but instead use the PoE injector that came with my Unifi AC-Pro. The SG300's were used in a lab environment, which has since been expanded to a full rack with production grade switches. I never used any of the advanced features on the SG300's ... wasted money. Currently they are connecting back to the main switch with trunks - I have one in my office and I have one in my guest room where my ESXi All-In-One server is running (the wiring closet has poor ventilation).

A note on the Cisco SMB line of switches - make sure you get them up to the latest firmware and have all of them running the same revision, otherwise trunking does not work.

Please make sure you are aware of the limited l3 routing on the sg series switches.
As layer 2+ they rock though

 

[CreoleLakerFan]

Please make sure you are aware of the limited l3 routing on the sg series switches.
As layer 2+ they rock though

Yes, that was the point of the recommendation of SG200's over SG300's.