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Royseen66
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Help me create my new 10G home office network

Tue Nov 23, 2021 11:10 pm

I need 10Gb network for my home office that I have on my second floor and I'm living on the first floor where my Internet 50Mb Internet connection is. All devices should be able to reach each other, so I guess there is no need for any VLAN. I have a list of my equipment except for all of my devices on WIFI. For the moment 10Gb is most important on the second floor but I like to plan a little for the future so my first floor should be 10Gb ready.

1st Floor
• Internet connection 50Mb 1x1Gb
• AP Wifi 1x1Gb
• Smart TV 1x1Gb
• HTPC (upgrad to 10Gb later) 1x1Gb (1x10Gb)
• Link to 1st floor 1x10Gb
Total ports 4x1Gb 1x10Gb (2x10Gb)
I guess a switching router will be needed here. Any MT suggestions?

2nd Floor
• Workstation for video and photo editing 1x10Gb
• Server hosting video and photos 1x10Gb
• Qnap NAS backup 2x1Gb
• AP Wifi 1x1Gb
• Link to 2nd floor 1x10Gb
Total ports 3x1Gb 3x10Gb
Is there an MT switch that meets these needs? Any MT suggestions?
Last edited by tangent on Wed Sep 20, 2023 4:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: fixed title
 
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Re: Help me creat my new home and home office network

Wed Sep 20, 2023 3:07 pm

All devices should be able to reach each other, so I guess there is no need for any VLAN.

Everything in MT's lineup can handle VLANs, so it doesn't affect things one way or another.

However, I will say that since your smart TV presumably only needs to talk to the Internet for updates and content, I'd isolate it. I see no reason it should be able to see the rest of your home network, especially your office equipment. VLANs are one good way to do this; not the only one, but a solid choice.

1st Floor

You want one of MT's router-class devices here. The only narrowing criterion of relevance is the 10G link to the second floor, which rules out all of the home WiFi gateways, which would otherwise be on the menu. I think there are only two sensible choices here.

The low-cost option is the RB5009, serving double duty as the home's Internet gateway and living space Ethernet switch.

Use the 10G SFP+ for the the 2nd floor link. If you can run new cable, MMF is the optimal choice here, for a bunch of reasons. If you must use existing wiring and it happens to be Cat-6E or better, you might be able to get 10G speeds over it, but it requires use of power-inefficient RJ45 to SFP+ modules, which may shut down or down-regulate themselves to 1G or lower if not kept cool enough.

Dedicate the RB5009's lone 2.5G Ethernet port to the HTPC and scrap the plan to upgrade it to 10G. The chance of anything worth the label "HTPC" having more disk bandwidth than that approaches zero. I realize you want fast transfers of bulky A/V to/from the office, but unless this is an utter badass of an HTPC — to the point that it probably shouldn't be called an "HTPC" any more — you'll have trouble enough saturating 2.5G.

The RB5009 is utter overkill for a 50 Mbit/sec Internet link, but none of the more suitably-sized routers have the SFP+ you need for the 2nd floor link. Now, in principle that might push you to a separate switch and router to isolate the 10G LAN-only traffic from the Internet traffic, but the combo is likely to be as expensive or more, and it may require you to mix RouterOS + SwOS besides, creating a management headache.

For instance, the CSS610 + hEX S combo will give you a 10G fiber link to the office plus 1G fiber to the Internet router. The combo is slightly cheaper than the RB5009, and the router should last you until your Internet link hits the 300-400 Mbit/sec range at least. The downside is that the two devices run different OSes with entirely different management interfaces. Even if you can cope with the many weaknesses of SwOS relative to RouterOS, wouldn't it be better to put your finite time into learning one OS?

To solve that, the best current RouterOS-capable upgrade from the CSS610 is the CRS310-8G+, which is as expensive as the RB5009 all by itself, so why not go all-in-one to begin with? The only way I can justify this combo is that offloading LAN traffic has assorted benefits, and it gets you that second 10G link you claim you'll be able to justify on your next HTPC upgrade. 🤷‍♂️

Another way to go is to step up to the CCR2004, which is even more ridiculously overpowered for your Internet routing task, but it's the least expensive way to get two 10G links in a single router-class box at the moment.

2nd Floor

Having isolated the routing to the 1st floor, the main problem you're left with here is that you've fallen into a longstanding hole in the product line: more than two 10G links but less than "lots" for the compute core and the backbone links, plus a bunch of 1G for the low-bandwidth devices nearby.

The CRS309-8S+ is the closest thing in the line at the moment, but you'll have to add three 1G RJ45 SFP modules, bringing the total up by another $60-80. Despite being older than the CRS310-8G+ recommended above and having a lower product number, it's a much more powerful switch internally, justifying the cost.

I describe this as a hole in the product line because the next-most sensible option requires you to jump to the CRS328-24P, which trebles the number of ports and adds PoE to all but the fiber ports. Total overkill, but it sure does make the home office look badass. The cost difference isn't as big once you consider the copper SFP modules required by the CRS309 to meet your goals, which aren't needed with the CRS328. Who knows, maybe you'll find use for PoE here and can justify the incremental cost to get it.

Ideally, there would be what we might call a CRS310-4S+-6G model to serve this type of need, a class of product I've been advocating for years, only to have people say, "Who needs that?" Thou and me, my friend, but oh well. 🙄

Qnap NAS backup 2x1Gb

Plan on upgrading that to 10G before you do the same for the HTPC. It's much better RoI, and you've got the fourth 10G port on the 2nd floor to allow it now.

Workstation…Server…2x10Gb

I've been assuming through all of this that you haven't got the 10G NICs for these yet. Get fiber ones, not 10G copper. They run cooler and will be more reliable, provided you can protect the cabling. For a home office, it should suffice to run the cables around the baseboard, behind the furniture. All I'm saying is, with fiber, you can't run cables under a rug like you can with copper. Ask me how I know.
 
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Re: Help me create my new 10G home office network

Wed Sep 20, 2023 5:44 pm

Mikrotik routers with S+ ports
Screenshot_3.jpg
Switches Mikrotik with S+ ports
Screenshot_5.jpg
 
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Re: Help me create my new 10G home office network

Wed Sep 20, 2023 6:32 pm

Mikrotik routers with S+ ports…Screenshot_3.jpg

What's the point of this screenshot? If all you wanted is to list all possible options, why not link to this page and save the bandwidth and vertical space in this thread?

Switches Mikrotik with S+ ports…Screenshot_5.jpg

Ditto, except that your screenshot is somehow filtered, missing options at both the low and high ends.

If you increase the filter to 4+ ports to better match the OP's desires, you get this page. The only options there that I didn't cover in my prior post are even more overkill for the stated purpose than the CRS328 I did mention, plus the netFiber 9, which is a CRS310-1G-5S-4S+ in an outdoor box, and I did cover the indoor CRS310 line.

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