Building a home network- opinions on set up

[Jade10145]

Hi Guys,

I am in the process of fully networking my house and building a few low profile HTPC's for the bedrooms . I would like some opinions on on the set up I have in mind.

1- Current Set Up

I have a HP Mediasmart that has servered me faithfully for years. It currently resides in my humid unfinished basement next to my router (Verizon Fios Actiontec) and my wifi access point (Linksys E2000). The Hp is connected to the Linksys at 1GBps. The reason I did this is because the Actiontec only has 100Mb ports and I'm going for a 1GBps network. The Actiontec is used strictly as a gateway. From the Linksys there is a network run to another switch (Netgear 5 port). The netgear switch is connected to the HTPC, and XBox 360 and a PS3.

For remote streaming I am using the HTPC that is connected to the switch. Streaming is via remote potato. All files are stored on the HP (running WHS). So remote streaming goes HTPC - WHS - back out the HTPC.

2- Proposed set up

I will be purchasing a trendnet 8 port switch. 1 port will be connected to the HP Mediasmart, one to the wifi access point and one to the switch that the HTPC and other deviecs are connected to. The wifi access point is going to be moved to my second floor since the reception from the basment is just terrible.

As for the other ports, I am planning on doing a run to the second floor where it will be connected to another HTPC yet to be built. The other run will be to my bedroom and my second bedroom. May do double runs since I will still have some ports left over.

Questions

1- I am trying to get the HP Mediasmart out of my musty basement and into the finished part of the basement where the HTPC is. Ideally I would like to build a rack of some sort to house all the components. I have seen a few examples of homemade racks that can be made from Ikea tables or A/V style furniture or towers. I was thinking about putting all the components (trendnet switch, router, hp mediasmart) into a bookshelf style case with a glass door. Basically this would be node zero.

My concerns are heat and noise. Since it will be in the same room as the HTPC it needs to be quiet. The Hp mediasmart packed with 4 drives is pretty damn loud IMO. As for heat I am thinking I could cut out pieces of the back out of the bookshelf for ventilation from the exhaust. The bookshelf would ideally be deep enough to let some air into it for the front intake.

I was also maybe thinking of leaving the components in the basement and just building a rack there. Only issue is humidity. Is there someway I could keep everything away from the humidity? Some sort of moisture blocker. Any experience with component placement would be greatly appreciated.

2- So the HTPC is connected to the HP Mediasmart. When streaming remotley I am hitting the HTPC, the HTPC is retrieving the file from the HP Mediasmart, and the HTPC is streaming the file out. I am wondering if this set up would hurt network performance considering that the HTPC has to grab the file from the HP and then send it out.
Probably a stupid question but I'm just wondering.

If it is hurting the performance I am thinking about building another server with better specs then the HP Mediasmart. It's great for storage but it really doesn't have that much horsepower even after upgrading the cpu and mem. If I were to build a new server I would try to find a set up to have it be the only machine on 24/7. So in other words all the HTPC's in the house would sleep and only be awake when I needed them.

3-What are your thoughts on this set up as a whole? Anything that can be down better?

[Venom51]

Hi Guys,

I am in the process of fully networking my house and building a few low profile HTPC's for the bedrooms . I would like some opinions on on the set up I have in mind.

1- Current Set Up

I have a HP Mediasmart that has servered me faithfully for years. It currently resides in my humid unfinished basement next to my router (Verizon Fios Actiontec) and my wifi access point (Linksys E2000). The Hp is connected to the Linksys at 1GBps. The reason I did this is because the Actiontec only has 100Mb ports and I'm going for a 1GBps network. The Actiontec is used strictly as a gateway. From the Linksys there is a network run to another switch (Netgear 5 port). The netgear switch is connected to the HTPC, and XBox 360 and a PS3.

For remote streaming I am using the HTPC that is connected to the switch. Streaming is via remote potato. All files are stored on the HP (running WHS). So remote streaming goes HTPC - WHS - back out the HTPC.

2- Proposed set up

I will be purchasing a trendnet 8 port switch. 1 port will be connected to the HP Mediasmart, one to the wifi access point and one to the switch that the HTPC and other deviecs are connected to. The wifi access point is going to be moved to my second floor since the reception from the basment is just terrible.

As for the other ports, I am planning on doing a run to the second floor where it will be connected to another HTPC yet to be built. The other run will be to my bedroom and my second bedroom. May do double runs since I will still have some ports left over.

My thoughts are drop a dehumidifier in that unfinished area or get busy building out a small equipment area. Set the humidifier so that is can self empty outside the foundation via either it's built in mechanism of a condensate pump underneath it that it drains into. Keep anything that you don't touch very often in that location. Pull new drops for any area you want hardwired back to that location. Drop in a a nice managed gigabit switch.

Such as this -->http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-PowerConne ... 3a74d6df58

At a $125 bucks it will be a switch you can keep around for a long time. Also unlike a non managed switch you'll be abe to use the tools in it to help diagnose packet loss or poor performance between devices. It also gives you traffic prioritization, Link Aggregation groups and other tools to keep the network performing well.

Pick up a 19" Telco rack and some mid mount shelves. They can be had cheap and make a nice place to locate the switches,routers and servers. All those things with fan noise that you don't want to listen to in your living space.

Questions

1- I am trying to get the HP Mediasmart out of my musty basement and into the finished part of the basement where the HTPC is. Ideally I would like to build a rack of some sort to house all the components. I have seen a few examples of homemade racks that can be made from Ikea tables or A/V style furniture or towers. I was thinking about putting all the components (trendnet switch, router, hp mediasmart) into a bookshelf style case with a glass door. Basically this would be node zero.

My concerns are heat and noise. Since it will be in the same room as the HTPC it needs to be quiet. The Hp mediasmart packed with 4 drives is pretty damn loud IMO. As for heat I am thinking I could cut out pieces of the back out of the bookshelf for ventilation from the exhaust. The bookshelf would ideally be deep enough to let some air into it for the front intake.

I was also maybe thinking of leaving the components in the basement and just building a rack there. Only issue is humidity. Is there someway I could keep everything away from the humidity? Some sort of moisture blocker. Any experience with component placement would be greatly appreciated.

I covered this above.

2- So the HTPC is connected to the HP Mediasmart. When streaming remotley I am hitting the HTPC, the HTPC is retrieving the file from the HP Mediasmart, and the HTPC is streaming the file out. I am wondering if this set up would hurt network performance considering that the HTPC has to grab the file from the HP and then send it out.
Probably a stupid question but I'm just wondering.

If it is hurting the performance I am thinking about building another server with better specs then the HP Mediasmart. It's great for storage but it really doesn't have that much horsepower even after upgrading the cpu and mem. If I were to build a new server I would try to find a set up to have it be the only machine on 24/7. So in other words all the HTPC's in the house would sleep and only be awake when I needed them.

There's nothing particularly wrong with doing that. You are just asking more of the HTPC as it has to retrieve the file from the Mediasmart and then pass it alond to you. As long as disk IO on the Mediasmart is fast enough and the HTPC has enough processing overhead to cover the file transfer than you should be fine. Going forward if you build a newer Windows Home server you can build out something that's a better performer than the Mediasmart and just stream directly from it. Combine a couple of NIC's than can be teamed and a Link aggregation group at the switch and you can easily build a 2 gig link to the server that will be hard to saturate in a home environmnt.

3-What are your thoughts on this set up as a whole? Anything that can be down better?[/quote]

If you look around on Ebay you can buy surpluss equipment like I did and build some serious hardware for home use without breaking the budget. I bought a few of Rackable servers sans Hard drives for next to nothing when you look at the hardware specs.

At $249 these are fantastic machines and all you need to do is add hard drives and you Copy of WIndows Home server 2011. -->http://www.ebay.com/itm/RACKABLE-2U-SER ... 1c27481241

That's 2 Quad core Xeons and 16 gigs of memory for $249 bucks. Dirt cheap. You'll spend more on the hard drives than you did the entire rest of the machine. You can even go as far as I did and hard mount 2x2.5 inch solid state drives inside the server for the Host OS and keep all 4 drive bays available for storage. Use the onboard raid controller to run those in a Raid 1 and you got rendundancy for your host OS.

Team the 2 onboard Gigabit nics and you've got a Windows Home server that's a great performer for not that much cash. I just can't see buying cheap unmanaged 8 port switches and consumer grade little media servers when there is much better equipment available on the slightly used market for nearly the same or not that much more cash.

[STC]

^ And that just controls his laundry machines

[Venom51]

^ And that just controls his laundry machines

No...That's a whole seperate rack of stuff. That rack is what we use to flush the toilets.

There's a reason you never hear me on here complaining about pixelization and poor performance.

[Jade10145]

Thanks for the input everyone.

Venom, I have seen your set up before, and well quite frankly it had me speechless. Hahaha I actually showed it to my wife to be and mentioned thats what I wanted in our house someday. Needless to say she doesn't have the same excitemnet as I do when it comes to network set up lol.

You make a good point about buying used better equipment as opposed to consumer level brand new. The price difference really isn't much. Looking at that server and the amount I paid for my HP Mediasmart with just one drive (even on sale when Circut City was going out of bussiness) makes the point to me.

I went ahead and picked up the switch that you mentioned. It's going to be a learning experience. I have dealt with unmanaged consumer grade switches in the past so this one is going to be new to me. Not a bad thing really, it will be good experience for the future.

"My thoughts are drop a dehumidifier in that unfinished area or get busy building out a small equipment area. Set the humidifier so that is can self empty outside the foundation via either it's built in mechanism of a condensate pump underneath it that it drains into. Keep anything that you don't touch very often in that location. Pull new drops for any area you want hardwired back to that location. Drop in a a nice managed gigabit switch. "

Trying to avoid putting a dehumidifier running 24/7 if I can. It might be the only solution possible though. I went and bought a temp/humidity meter just to quanify how much humidity is down there. Last time I checked it was somewhere around 60-70 percent Relative Humidity. Not great but within the operating range of the equipment. It's non condensing. I have also been researching ways to get the humidity down. Possible by just making sure the door is closed to the unfinished part of the basement. At this point there isn't any mold growth or anything like that on the bare concrete thank goodness.
There seems to be a lot of opinions regarding what exactly is a "healthy" humidity level and ways to get it down. Any thoughts?

Do you think with the switch I also might as well get a patch panel? Still have to think about the clients as well. Would like to go light weight on the front end.

[Venom51]

Thanks for the input everyone.

Venom, I have seen your set up before, and well quite frankly it had me speechless. Hahaha I actually showed it to my wife to be and mentioned thats what I wanted in our house someday. Needless to say she doesn't have the same excitemnet as I do when it comes to network set up lol.

You make a good point about buying used better equipment as opposed to consumer level brand new. The price difference really isn't much. Looking at that server and the amount I paid for my HP Mediasmart with just one drive (even on sale when Circut City was going out of bussiness) makes the point to me.

I went ahead and picked up the switch that you mentioned. It's going to be a learning experience. I have dealt with unmanaged consumer grade switches in the past so this one is going to be new to me. Not a bad thing really, it will be good experience for the future.

"My thoughts are drop a dehumidifier in that unfinished area or get busy building out a small equipment area. Set the humidifier so that is can self empty outside the foundation via either it's built in mechanism of a condensate pump underneath it that it drains into. Keep anything that you don't touch very often in that location. Pull new drops for any area you want hardwired back to that location. Drop in a a nice managed gigabit switch. "

Trying to avoid putting a dehumidifier running 24/7 if I can. It might be the only solution possible though. I went and bought a temp/humidity meter just to quanify how much humidity is down there. Last time I checked it was somewhere around 60-70 percent Relative Humidity. Not great but within the operating range of the equipment. It's non condensing. I have also been researching ways to get the humidity down. Possible by just making sure the door is closed to the unfinished part of the basement. At this point there isn't any mold growth or anything like that on the bare concrete thank goodness.
There seems to be a lot of opinions regarding what exactly is a "healthy" humidity level and ways to get it down. Any thoughts?

Do you think with the switch I also might as well get a patch panel? Still have to think about the clients as well. Would like to go light weight on the front end.

Don't be intimidated by the the thought of a managed switch. The service tag on the switch will be you key to handling everything related to the switch. Make sure the first thing you do is verify it has the most current firmware on it. Both of mine did not and they did not function completely correct until the latest firmware was put on them.

If all you equipment falls within those tolerances than don't worry about the humidity.

You don't neccessarily have to put in a patch panel. You can just put ends on the cables. I prefer to use a patch panel.

[bmblank]

Patch panels are super nice. Especially if you're considering using the same system for other uses, like phone line. Rj-11 pops right in the rj-45 keystone jack, now you can have landline wherever you have a jack.

[Venom51]

Patch panels are super nice. Especially if you're considering using the same system for other uses, like phone line. Rj-11 pops right in the rj-45 keystone jack, now you can have landline wherever you have a jack.

Good point. That's exactly what I do with our vonage line. I have our Cordless base station patched to the vonage box mounted on the equipment board in the server room and patched to an RJ45 at a central location in the house.

[STC]

Yep. I fitted our place with at least two Cat5e and COAX in every living area. All in-wall. I used keystones.
Everything goes to a 48 port panel.

[Jade10145]

Cool thanks guys for all the ideas. I think I will ultimatley go with a patch panel. Would I use the same cat 5e that I will be using everywhere else to connect the switch to the patch panel? I would be making really short jumpers I assume.

Also I ended up buying the switch, Dell PowerConnect 5324. I need to buy a RS-232 crossover cable with a female Db9 connector to be able to set the thing up initially at least. My thought was I could buy a db8 female to usb connector. But from my research it seems that such a thing doesn't exist, is this right? Would I need to buy the cable and an adapter to change it from male to female.

[Venom51]

Cool thanks guys for all the ideas. I think I will ultimatley go with a patch panel. Would I use the same cat 5e that I will be using everywhere else to connect the switch to the patch panel? I would be making really short jumpers I assume.

Also I ended up buying the switch, Dell PowerConnect 5324. I need to buy a RS-232 crossover cable with a female Db9 connector to be able to set the thing up initially at least. My thought was I could buy a db8 female to usb connector. But from my research it seems that such a thing doesn't exist, is this right? Would I need to buy the cable and an adapter to change it from male to female.

Yep or you can just pick up a some premaid Cat5 cables.

Email me your address and I'll mail you one.

Kenny dot Duval at gmail dot com

[Jade10145]

Cool thanks guys for all the ideas. I think I will ultimatley go with a patch panel. Would I use the same cat 5e that I will be using everywhere else to connect the switch to the patch panel? I would be making really short jumpers I assume.

Also I ended up buying the switch, Dell PowerConnect 5324. I need to buy a RS-232 crossover cable with a female Db9 connector to be able to set the thing up initially at least. My thought was I could buy a db8 female to usb connector. But from my research it seems that such a thing doesn't exist, is this right? Would I need to buy the cable and an adapter to change it from male to female.

Yep or you can just pick up a some premaid Cat5 cables.

Email me your address and I'll mail you one.

Kenny dot Duval at gmail dot com

Hey Kenny,

Thank you for the offer but I ended up buying a crimper kit and I have a ton of old cat 5e laying around that I should be putting to use.