Do you have to use a router for ip cams or will a managed switch work?

[Razer]

Normally a routerboard would not be recommended for home use, they are mostly used in commercial and long haul network setups, however, I get the feeling that Chust may have an interest in further networking knowledge since the routerboard was never mentioned in this thread (chust found it), and it will certainly do that.

For a good while we were using a MicroTik routerboard in the office for our fiber internet, and failover to secondary and with all of our crazy routing rules and such of which we have a TON. It could do everything we needed until we needed over 100 VPN tunnels, at that point it was worth upgrading but it is fantastic what that can do for the money, just not for the faint of heart or beginner!

Using gigabyte for your network "backbone" will improve latency and bandwidth, and as inexpensive as gigabyte hardware is now it makes little sense to invest in 10/100 hardware. Personally I use 10/100 POE switches with at least one gigabyte uplink port for cameras, this gives each camera full access to the entire 100mbps it is connected to with no contention (because the switches fabric is for gigabyte speeds). The importance of gigabyte speeds isn't for the cameras per se, it is for your networking backbone, a simple large file copy (like a movie) from one computer to another on a 100mbps backbone will saturate it easily and wipe out your camera connectivity (unless you are going to get into more sophisticated bandwidth management techniques).

Yeah, I was just wondering what he was having issues with specifically as I'd never had issues I can track specifically to the switch around performance. My networks have camera traffic as the primary usage, there are no local users usually and if there are then the cameras get their own network to keep the backbone free. With his cameras only and an isolated network I was just wonder what he was hitting that was requiring the move.

I am trying out some new 16 port POE switches now that are gigabit totally so in the future I'll have no worries anyway, but I have been getting by with basic ZyXel switches for a while now. I had tried out Cicso as there were 8 POE ports with two gigabit ports too, but they failed non stop. I have 8-10 of those sitting behind me that I've not even bothered to send back for repair as we cannot trust them at all. This was the Cisco sf302-08p specifically, and they were horrible and I have eventually pulled them all. Great warranty, too bad I needed it so much!

 

[Zxel]

I am trying out some new 16 port POE switches now that are gigabit totally so in the future I'll have no worries anyway, but I have been getting by with basic ZyXel switches for a while now. I had tried out Cicso as there were 8 POE ports with two gigabit ports too, but they failed non stop. I have 8-10 of those sitting behind me that I've not even bothered to send back for repair as we cannot trust them at all. This was the Cisco sf302-08p specifically, and they were horrible and I have eventually pulled them all. Great warranty, too bad I needed it so much!

Sorry on the trouble you had with the Cisco's, I currently use the Cisco SRW208p POE switches (8 POE and 2 Gigabyte uplinks) because they are inexpensive and can handle all POE ports active. Most consumer 8 port POE models can only actually provide full voltage/current to a subset of the ports available - most are limited to 4/5 ports at full spec. (this may have changed - been a while since I looked at the current models).

Now to be sure I do not recommend people go out and buy the same switches I use for thier home use (and commercial use for that matter), they are a discontinued model and have active fans that will be louder than people will normally tolerate, however, I was able to pick them up cheap on Ebay and none have ever failed on me and perform exactly as I expect (plus I really like Cisco - even if they are overpriced and elitist).

Having gigabyte POE ports isn't important to me (although it is a good future proof idea - one that may be helpful for the 4K+ cameras to come), there is no camera I've seen to date that has more than a 10/100 port (doesn't mean they don't exist somewhere). I'm more concerned that each camera has full access to the 100mbps speed it is connected by, which it does on switches with gigabyte uplinks (because the switch fabric is gigabyte). Technically a 4k+ camera still doesn't need greater than a 100mbps connection, however, they will probably (I hope) have them and it will indeed help on latency.

Sounds like you are going to have a fun time.

P.S. Who would have known that this thread would elicit such long discussions?

 

[Chust]

I got me a good deal on a gigabit wireless router with a wi-fi on/off switch during Amazon lightning deals. I agree if the switch says off it's off. I also upgraded to gigabit switches. I'm running smooth as butter! Also, I was using TP-Link Poe injectors for all my cams and decided to try a power adapter instead. Holy crap! What a difference it made at night with the IR! Doubled the IR output. Needless to say 4 of the injectors was returned and 3 more power adapters were bought. I have to tell you all, I tried the little router board out and man! If you have no job, no wife, no kids, and a degree in rocket science this is definitely a router for you! I guess they forgot the first rule of business K.I.S.S. or maybe i'm just getting old. Lol. Thought I would let you all know the route I went and Thank You all for the great advise!