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Author Topic: help me design my wired home network.  (Read 3826 times)

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Offline Zac67

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Re: help me design my wired home network.
« on: November 01, 2011, 03:41:22 PM »
Cat.5 doesn't exist any more, it's just Cat.5E today. That cabling will be fine for up to gigabit Ethernet (as will Cat.5).

Keep in mind that a network connection is very versatile. Depending on the where you want to run the cabling you don't necessarily need to run all wires from a central point. You can run the router connection up to the living room with a single cable, put a network switch there and connect everthing else to that. As long as you've got enough throughput you can run as many 'connections' through a single cable. Most people are still fine with fast Ethernet (100 Mbps), but gigabit is nicer if you want to run media servers and such while still being very affordable.

I started out connecting everything to my router but one day 100 Mbps wasn't fast enough any more, so its integrated switch was complemented with a gigabit one. When the TV and Wii were added I ran a single cable to the living room and put a second switch there, connecting those, another PC and a laptop to the rest.
 

Offline Zac67

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Re: help me design my wired home network.
« Reply #1 on: November 01, 2011, 09:23:48 PM »
Quote from: freqmax;666137
There's a limit on how many switches that can be daisy chained or how high the hierachy can be.


Actually... No.
The limit is with hubs since collisions need to be detected for CSMA/CD. A switched network is collision-free. You shouldn't chain switches indefinitely though, it does hurt latency a bit.