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Home Automation Hub/Server

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  • 19-10-2011 4:03pm
    #1
    BMD
    Registered Users Posts: 146 ✭✭


    Hi,

    I have cat 5e and coax cables to all the rooms in my house routed back to a central point in my utility room.

    I want to be able to do the following;
    - access internet in all rooms
    - stream videos/photos to all rooms
    - network print from all rooms

    Can anyone advise on what I need to do next and the type of equipment I would need...patch panels, server etc. I would appreciate exact recommendations as I am not very familiar with this area

    Space is fairly limited..plenty of room for a hub/switch but not much for a server. There would be in the region of 25 cat5e cables and 20 coax


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    #2
    Stoner
    Registered Users Posts: 10,952 ✭✭✭✭Stoner


    there is a home AV forum BTW. I will fire some suggestions at you, there maybe better value and better kit, but what I recommend will do the job i suggest, you just might do it cheaper, or with different stuff etc but this is a working option.

    Are your cables terminated? or do you need a patch panel and terminations at each end? if not this will cost you a few bob to get someone to terminate the bales at each end. I would recommend a patch panel in the utility room and not to simply terminate an RJ45 point on the end of each cable.

    An electrician or data guy will terminate them for you. I would recommend dropping off one or two of your 25 points to as you can get a 24 port patch panel for fairly cheap. and the next size up would be 48 port, but the data guy will address that for you. this will set you back a bit of cash.

    If you want all 24 points on the network you will need a 24 port switch to share internet access and to network your PCs, this will be powered, you will need 24 patch leads to patch each point from the patch panel into the switch. You will not need a managed switch IMO, netgear make decent switches here is one here
    http://www.dabs.ie/products/netgear-24-port-gigabit-10-100-1000mbps-smart-73T9.html
    http://www.dabs.ie/search?q=patch%20leads

    You can plug your broadband router into this switch. Any PC that you have plugged into a terminated RJ45 wall point will be able to receive internet access after that.

    If you want to stream music and video i would recommend a NAS drive, the NAS drive will allow you to map a network hard drive onto your PCs, so they will all share a harddrive on the network, allowing you to have a rough network, you router will handle DHCP issues, hand out IP addresses etc but will not resolve that same amount of info that a server will but you will have shared access to a hard drive, plus the NAS drive will use less energy and allow you remote access from outside the house to your info. The NAS drive will also take up a port on the switch.

    A NAS drive I like is this
    http://www.dabs.ie/products/d-link-sharecenter-shadow-2-bay-network-storage-7CCN.html?q=sharecentre once again just my opinion
    you will need two hard drives, see if the firmware will allow 2 x 3TB drives best get them now as 6TB is better than 4TB :)

    It's worth the extra few bob over the 320, there are plenty of NAS drives out there though, just make sure it can handle the streaming you want, itunes server DNLA compliant etc. you can use it to download torrents and send an offsite back up of certain files.

    You should have a wireless router too, so you have wireless options in the house. You might use more wireless access and cut down on some terminations and get smaller switches etc. I use 10 GB connections in my house.

    In addition to the wireless router that my ISP gave me I also have a wireless router with 4 GB ports, i use it to extend my wireless network and offer me GB to four devices, (media PC, PS3, Xbox and TV) this is shared GB but I don't use them at the same time so its a good way to get 4 wired connections and extend the wifi at the same time. Plus it's dual band so i have two wireless network options, B/G/N running at the same time, N is a little faster and frees up bandwidth on the B/G wireless network less people are sharing it so its faster for everyone as wireless is a shared network, the more people using it in a house the slower it will be, so popping out two networks might be an option for you.

    http://www.dabs.ie/products/linksys-by-cisco-e3000-high-performance-wireless-n-dual-band-router--cable-broadband-connections--75S8.html?refs=4294948694-50468

    I'm suggesting this as you might have a big house if you have 25 data points and the ISP router might not be able to get around the whole place.

    You can pop your movies music and photos on the NAS and share them via the mapped network drives ( the easy way) of you can use a UPNP/DNLA enabled media player, android phones will also stream media over your wireless network once you install a UPNP player from the android market (free)

    there are cheaper options, ubuntu servers
    http://www.google.ie/#hl=en&sugexp=kjrmc&cp=14&gs_id=1o&xhr=t&q=ubuntu+servers&pq=ubuntu&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=ubuntu+servers&aq=0&aqi=g1g-s1g1g-v1&aql=f&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=f2e4bc6270788372&biw=1680&bih=949

    myth TV

    http://www.mythtv.org/

    but I just like the window set up, the upnp/dnla service is also very handy as it runs in addition to windows so i can share media over a MS windows OS PCs and notebooks or over simpler devices that use DNLA (my phone and TV).

    Over all I like my media PC using a mapped NW drive over a GB network, this way i can watch HD movies without issue over my NW, the other cheaper options are great, but you can end up fluting around with them a bit, plus if other people in the house are not tech minded they will break you heart with requests etc. I nearly prefer messing with stuff to watching movies, but I've been told on more than one occasion that I'm not the only one living in this house you know. The other options are very good too and have advantages, but if you are not tech minded I'd avoid them.

    I dont know what you want to do with the coax, possibly a coax patch panel option to share sky movies etc? there are great options out there, try the home AV forum, personally I have just wired individual point to point arrangements certainly sharing/presenting a saorview antenna here would be good, but with the SKY box you'd need to have the IR signals etc popped around the place too, like i said lots of options depends on how much money to want to spend but look in the other forum first for ideas, there are some home AV multi patch panels there, but 25 points is a lot IMHO


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