10/100 vs gigabit PoE switch

[Video1]

I'm trying to organize my media closet right now. I have a need for 78 ethernet connections, Currently my 14 security cams are hooked up to a LTS NVR. I'm going to be building a PC to run Blue Iris. The Blue Iris Wiki says I can use a 10/100 24 port ethernet switch. Is there any reason to move up to a gigabit PoE switch? Those quite a bit more expensive. I've been find 48 port PoE gigabit switches in the $400 and up range. I did see some older refurbished Cisco 2960 series gigabit PoE switches under $100, but they are at end of life according to Cisco. I have no idea if that's a bad thing for my application.

I have 4MP cameras right now, and will be adding 6 more cameras - two facing back towards the house, two observation cams, and two for LPR duty (probably the 5421E Z12 everyone here favors). Do I need gigabit for the cameras? If not I can get a 24 port switch that's less costly and get a non-powered gigabit switch for the rest of it.

 

[aesterling]

I bought an “end of life” Cisco SF250-48HP off Craigslist for $30 and it works great. No need to gigabit in my case - just cameras. I use the single gigabit port to connect to my BI pc. If it eventually dies, I’ll just find another old cheap one.

No need to spend hundreds on something new unless you really know you need something specific.

 

[Old Timer]

I have a couple end of life switches in use. Have had no problems whatsoever.
I like having commercial grade equipment, it outlasts consumer grade by a long shot!

 

[smoothie]

I'm trying to organize my media closet right now. I have a need for 78 ethernet connections, Currently my 14 security cams are hooked up to a LTS NVR. I'm going to be building a PC to run Blue Iris. The Blue Iris Wiki says I can use a 10/100 24 port ethernet switch. Is there any reason to move up to a gigabit PoE switch? Those quite a bit more expensive. I've been find 48 port PoE gigabit switches in the $400 and up range. I did see some older refurbished Cisco 2960 series gigabit PoE switches under $100, but they are at end of life according to Cisco. I have no idea if that's a bad thing for my application.

I have 4MP cameras right now, and will be adding 6 more cameras - two facing back towards the house, two observation cams, and two for LPR duty (probably the 5421E Z12 everyone here favors). Do I need gigabit for the cameras? If not I can get a 24 port switch that's less costly and get a non-powered gigabit switch for the rest of it.

With 14 cameras it will depend on their resolution, frame rate and bit rate settings if a 10/100 is acceptable or if you need a 10/100/1000 switch. The determination is one of bandwidth aggregation, all 14 cameras will have to talk to the Blue Iris machine over 1 Ethernet connection (the connection between the BI PC and the switch that the cameras are connected to). Determine the bandwidth being used by each camera and add it together to find the total bandwidth needed between the switch and the BI PC. Keep in mind that a copper based Ethernet connection will start to experience issues before it reaches the full speed due to network utilization, many factors determine when utilization becomes an issue but for copper it is usually around 40% to 60% of total bandwidth. Given that you are planning on adding more cameras with higher megapixel counts even if you don't "have" to have a gigabit switch now I think you will need one pretty soon.

You could add a second network card to the BI PC and either LAG (Link Aggregate Group) them together if the switch and NICs on the BI PC support this or you could use a different IP address range for 1 NIC versus the other and have half the cameras on the first IP range and half on the other IP range. But this will only buy you some time before you have to move to a gigabit switch. If you add enough cameras it is possible you may need to employ this technique with gigabit connections as well.

EOL, or End Of Life, means that availability of support and spare parts by the manufacture has ended for that piece of tech. In your situation using an EOL Cisco is perfectly fine in my opinion. If the switch works there is a good change it will work for a long time and when it does eventually die you may be able to buy a replacement power supply or whatever off eBay or Amazon and if not simply replace it entirely. There can be third party spare parts made for popular platforms long after EOL has occurred. All of my own equipment is past EOL if that helps.

 

[sebastiantombs]

10/100 will probably be fine for camera use, probably until after you're looking at the dirty side of the grass. A gig uplink is a reasonable precaution. Given that Cisco builds their stuff to last, a used/refurb will last a long, long time. End of life can also mean we found a way to do it better/cheaper and just built a new model we want to sell.

 

[Video1]

Thanks for the detailed reply. The 4MP cameras are running at 2688x1520 @ 20 FPS. As it is, the system does suffer from a weird slow down then speeding up of the images on video every so often. I haven't been able to figure out the cause. I do run the cameras on a substream and then if I'm viewing one camera in detail, then it's switched over to the main stream. I agree with you. I figure with the new cameras and the old ones already running at their max resolution, extra bandwidth is always a good thing. All the ethernet in the house is CAT6 and the new ethernet out to to the new cameras will be CAT6e.

I've ordered the Cisco 2960. It turns out Cisco still has software updates available on their website for the unit until November. I'll make sure all the software is updated before then. It was $98 for the switch. I can't find anything else for that kind of price that has gigabit PoE.

With 14 cameras it will depend on their resolution, frame rate and bit rate settings if a 10/100 is acceptable or if you need a 10/100/1000 switch. The determination is one of bandwidth aggregation, all 14 cameras will have to talk to the Blue Iris machine over 1 Ethernet connection (the connection between the BI PC and the switch that the cameras are connected to). Determine the bandwidth being used by each camera and add it together to find the total bandwidth needed between the switch and the BI PC. Keep in mind that a copper based Ethernet connection will start to experience issues before it reaches the full speed due to network utilization, many factors determine when utilization becomes an issue but for copper it is usually around 40% to 60% of total bandwidth. Given that you are planning on adding more cameras with higher megapixel counts even if you don't "have" to have a gigabit switch now I think you will need one pretty soon.

You could add a second network card to the BI PC and either LAG (Link Aggregate Group) them together if the switch and NICs on the BI PC support this or you could use a different IP address range for 1 NIC versus the other and have half the cameras on the first IP range and half on the other IP range. But this will only buy you some time before you have to move to a gigabit switch. If you add enough cameras it is possible you may need to employ this technique with gigabit connections as well.

EOL, or End Of Life, means that availability of support and spare parts by the manufacture has ended for that piece of tech. In your situation using an EOL Cisco is perfectly fine in my opinion. If the switch works there is a good change it will work for a long time and when it does eventually die you may be able to buy a replacement power supply or whatever off eBay or Amazon and if not simply replace it entirely. There can be third party spare parts made for popular platforms long after EOL has occurred. All of my own equipment is past EOL if that helps.

 

[bp2008]

10/100 ports are just fine to connect individual cameras. But for 14 cameras all connected to one switch, you would want that switch to have at least one gigabit uplink port for you to connect to the BI computer (or to another gigabit switch).

 

[smoothie]

...It turns out Cisco still has software updates available on their website for the unit until November. I'll make sure all the software is updated before then...

You are welcome to update the software on the switch but honestly I wouldn't lose any sleep about it and I wouldn't worry when Cisco stops providing software updates. Your switch will, I assume, live in your private internal network behind a firewall so the attack vector is virtually zero. Your switch isn't going to be exposed to the open internet nor to unknown client traffic, it will be entirely for your private use so the only traffic that switch will be exposed to is from devices and users you know and trust.

If this switch was going to be placed in a corporate environment where it was exposed to the open internet such as being outside a firewall to facilitate web servers or was going to exposed to unknown user traffic such as a hotel or airport then it would be very important to keep the software up to date.

This is the part of any networking related conversation where I state pedantically that if you want to, or already do, remotely access your home network including the cameras from the outside world DO NOT utilize port forwarding but instead invest the effort and time to build a VPN and use that. Think of the difference between port forwarding versus a VPN like the difference between a gaping hole where the front doors of your house should be versus a reinforced heavy steel bank vault door. Okay, okay, I am done preaching....for now

 

[smoothie]

10/100 ports are just fine to connect individual cameras. But for 14 cameras all connected to one switch, you would want that switch to have at least one gigabit uplink port for you to connect to the BI computer (or to another gigabit switch).

@bp2008 is absolutely correct and I should have been more exacting in my response, even the most exotic and powerful cameras would struggle to fill a 100Mbps pipe. I too was meaning to convey that each camera is fine on 10/100 but in aggregate they could saturate a 100Mpbs and so a 1000Mbps would be the superior connection to use.

 

[Ron C]

I bought an “end of life” Cisco SF250-48HP off Craigslist for $30 and it works great. No need to gigabit in my case - just cameras. I use the single gigabit port to connect to my BI pc. If it eventually dies, I’ll just find another old cheap one.

No need to spend hundreds on something new unless you really know you need something specific.

I agree. I am using Cisco 2960-s (1Gb) switches, they are PoE, and you can get them between $50-$100 for a 24 port one. they are EOL, but it's Cisco. with VLANs etc it is pretty easy to set things up that you can use the full bandwidth instead of moving everything through a little service provider's router.

 

[Video1]

Excellent information. Thank you so much!

As to the building of a VPN.......hmmmmm........I just looked that up. It's kind of confusing. I'm sure I'll figure it out. Can you point me to a good resource on how to do this that's easy to understand?

You are welcome to update the software on the switch but honestly I wouldn't lose any sleep about it and I wouldn't worry when Cisco stops providing software updates. Your switch will, I assume, live in your private internal network behind a firewall so the attack vector is virtually zero. Your switch isn't going to be exposed to the open internet nor to unknown client traffic, it will be entirely for your private use so the only traffic that switch will be exposed to is from devices and users you know and trust.

If this switch was going to be placed in a corporate environment where it was exposed to the open internet such as being outside a firewall to facilitate web servers or was going to exposed to unknown user traffic such as a hotel or airport then it would be very important to keep the software up to date.

This is the part of any networking related conversation where I state pedantically that if you want to, or already do, remotely access your home network including the cameras from the outside world DO NOT utilize port forwarding but instead invest the effort and time to build a VPN and use that. Think of the difference between port forwarding versus a VPN like the difference between a gaping hole where the front doors of your house should be versus a reinforced heavy steel bank vault door. Okay, okay, I am done preaching....for now

 

[samplenhold]

Can you point me to a good resource on how to do this that's easy to understand?

VPN Primer for Noobs

The internet is a force of nature; no video surveillance system made was designed to be exposed to those forces.. NEVER FORWARD PORTS to your NVR or Cameras, doing such things not only exposes you to severe security problems, but everyone else on the internet too.. Hackers dont want your video...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[smoothie]

The VPN primer @samplenhold linked is an excellent thread to utilize. Additionally these boards are full a tech people who can help answer questions and perhaps even help get the VPN up and running. I personally use pfSense with OpenVPN which can be run on old desktop hardware with a couple of aftermarket Intel Pro/1000 network cards. It is extremely powerful, flexible and feature rich. But it can get complicated when you start adding what are called "Packages" in the pfSense world which add additional functionality and features.