New RCA HSDB2A 3MP Doorbell IP Camera

[misally]

For 10 Gbps switches, highly recommend the MS510TX. It's got 2 10G ports plus several 5/2.5 so lots of options, and excellent management, including per-port bandwidth use over SNMP that I can stream to Zabbix and monitor what devices are using what ... which is great. Only $250 which is way cheaper than a reasonably featured competitor.

 

[rafale]

I'm thinking to do fiber where I'll put the rack, together with NAS and a server. In the rooms and externally (cams and external plugs) just cat6. Why do you need fiber in every room?

To me it would be future proofing.... optical fibers will not have the limitation of copper as it relates to shielding interferences limiting frequency. I myself have already converted my infrastructure to 10/5gig but using very good quality 20 year old CAT5 wires (not even CAT5E). I got POE to go almost everywhere replacing all these crappy wallwarts (AC/DC transformers) many devices come with which generate a lot of noise in their DC line and unwanted RF emissions. (I discovered some interfere with my zwave network).

 

[alexdelprete]

To me it would be future proofing.... optical fibers will not have the limitation of copper as it relates to shielding interferences limiting frequency. I myself have already converted my infrastructure to 10/5gig but using very good quality 20 year old CAT5 wires (not even CAT5E). I got POE to go almost everywhere replacing all these crappy wallwarts (AC/DC transformers) many devices come with which generate a lot of noise in their DC line and unwanted RF emissions. (I discovered some interfere with my zwave network).

Makes sense, but the question is: in the kids room or other rooms, what the hell do you have to connect? A media player, maybe a PC or a console, those work with ethernet. All the rest of the devices are pretty much wireless. Plus, with ethernet, like you said, you can provide power on the cable. I love fiber, don't get me wrong, but in every room it doesn't make sense. Probably I will have the rack and the living room, where I have a 12 port switch, connected through switch-to-switch fiber, but fiber to a standard client device doesn't make sense for me. Unless I'm missing something...

 

[alexdelprete]

For 10 Gbps switches, highly recommend the MS510TX. It's got 2 10G ports plus several 5/2.5 so lots of options, and excellent management, including per-port bandwidth use over SNMP that I can stream to Zabbix and monitor what devices are using what ... which is great. Only $250 which is way cheaper than a reasonably featured competitor.

Very flexible product. Interesting. I like the fact that you can mix a lot of types of cables/speeds/etc.

My friend @David L chose TP-Link.

 

[rafale]

@alexdelprete, no you are not missing anything and are completely correct. It's overkill
Just a pipe dream of what potentially could be in the future and yeah we would lose POE if we do that which I failed to mention above but I meant to. I am trying as much as I can to reduce wifi as well even going MOCA to streaming locations. It frees up wifi bandwidth for devices which need it. Wire up everything which can be wired. Switch to POE everything which can be.

PS: I am running a bunch of Netgear MS510TXPP (POE version of the switch mentioned)

 

[David L]

I'm thinking to do fiber where I'll put the rack, together with NAS and a server. In the rooms and externally (cams and external plugs) just cat6. Why do you need fiber in every room?

I have 5 Managed switches, for a complete Enterprise setup, the switches would be connected via fiber ports instead of Ethernet ports. Much, much, much faster network I even have 2 SFP ports on my room switches of which I could use one to connect to my workstations via a 10Gb Fiber NIC. Of course this is a bit over kill for a home network, but I have the switches that can do this. I would assume at 10Gb I should get extremely fast file transfer speeds.

 

[alexdelprete]

@alexdelprete, no you are not missing anything and are completely correct. It's overkill
Just a pipe dream of what potentially could be in the future and yeah we would lose POE if we do that which I failed to mention above but I meant to. I am trying as much as I can to reduce wifi as well even going MOCA to streaming locations. It frees up wifi bandwidth for devices which need it. Wire up everything which can be wired. Switch to POE everything which can be.

PS: I am running a bunch of Netgear MS510TXPP (POE version of the switch mentioned)

You're talking to an ethernet fan. Wired connections all the way. And PoE is amazing.

If I build a new house, it'll have etherne ports literally everywhere and a full rack in the basement.

Anyway, my mesh network nodes will connect to the mesh master through ethernet, instead of wireless. That should really improve things.

 

[alexdelprete]

I have 5 Managed switches, for a complete Enterprise setup, the switches are connected via fiber ports instead of Ethernet ports. Much, much, much faster network I even have 2 SFP ports on my room switches of which I could use one to connect to my workstations via a 10Gb Fiber NIC. Of course this is a bit over kill for a home network, but I have the switches that can do this. I would assume at 10Gb I should get extremely fast file transfer speeds.

So fiber only for backbone (switch-to-switch). That's how you do it. You should have two connections for redundancy though. And two core switches. Edge switch connects to two separate core switches. That's how you do it in enterprise environments. But it's probably overkill in home environment.

 

[David L]

So fiber only for backbone (switch-to-switch). That's how you do it. You should have two connections for redundancy though. And two core switches. Edge switch connects to two separate core switches. That's how you do it in enterprise environments. But it's probably overkill in home environment.

This is true, so not fully redundant network, but (switch-to-switch) via fiber. So I looked at the switches I have and the SFP ports are only Gig, not 10Gig anyway, so it would not be a 10Gb network anyway. I like the switch @misally posted. Good price too.
But really no need for 10Gb in a home network unless you are pushing alot file traffic, in my opinion. I am like rafale, dreaming, it would be nice though, I would have some bragging rights

 

[alexdelprete]

This is true, so not fully redundant network, but (switch-to-switch) via fiber. So I looked at the switches I have and the SFP ports are only Gig, not 10Gig anyway, so it would not be a 10Gb network anyway. I like the switch @misally posted. Good price too.
But really no need for 10Gb in a home network unless you are pushing alot file traffic, in my opinion. I am like rafale, dreaming, it would be nice though, I would have some bragging rights

Yes but when I'll pass the fiber cable I want to make sure it supports 10Gb so when time comes,you only change the transceiver on the switches. Future proof. That's what I like about fiber.

 

[TechBill]

I have 5 Managed switches, for a complete Enterprise setup, the switches would be connected via fiber ports instead of Ethernet ports. Much, much, much faster network I even have 2 SFP ports on my room switches of which I could use one to connect to my workstations via a 10Gb Fiber NIC. Of course this is a bit over kill for a home network, but I have the switches that can do this. I would assume at 10Gb I should get extremely fast file transfer speeds.

You're talking to an ethernet fan. Wired connections all the way. And PoE is amazing.

If I build a new house, it'll have etherne ports literally everywhere and a full rack in the basement.

Anyway, my mesh network nodes will connect to the mesh master through ethernet, instead of wireless. That should really improve things.

In my previous home, I used to have a rack in the basement and in fact I am selling my rack off on Craigslist which you can see over at 27U Server / Audio Rack Cabinet - computer parts - by owner -...

We used it to managed our modem, router, switches, DVR home entertainment, and security cameras setup. Each computer or devices would be connected via Ethernet. We did have a wifi but we tried to avoid using it as much we can

We decided to get rid of the rack and focus on building a good wifi mesh in our new home but all the security cameras and DVR still on cat6 ethernet cable to a PoE switch along with my home automation hub and RaspPI to link the home hub to Apple Homekit.

With a good wifi mesh, none of my family have any issue with data transfer or streaming what they want to watch. We have Apple TV (our HomeKit hub), 4 Smart TVs, 4 FireTV, all of us are iPhone users (We have 4 kids), 8 laptops, 5 tablets, and only 1 desktop. All of our kids have game console like Xbox and Nintendo switches (all 4 have their own switches. We also have 2 video phone (using Powerline Ethernet plugs).

We may have to reboot our network 2 or 3 time a year because our ISP modem would lock up and create an ip conflict but other than that we have ZERO issue with our network and wifi mesh setup. Instead of a rack, we have a shelf with modem, 2 hub, PoE switch, camera DVR and a router.

Anytime we need to transfer large files or data, we use USB3 drive now .. no need to tied up our network with file transferring and it not often we need to transfer huge files or data from one computer to another. We do have Western Drive NAS drive but we stopped using it after using USB3 drive more often so it sit in drawer unplugged.

I believe a good wifi mesh setup is the way to go in future.... Look at telephone, many homes still have telephone wires inside of it walls but how many of those homes still actually have a working telephone plugged into it. My folks who are both in the 80's no longer have telephone plugged into the wall and finally gotten rid of it last year realizing that smartphone is the way to go so our family took time to teach them and they were willing to learn it. Now my dad who's 88 is a pro on iPhone.

 

[misally]

Very flexible product. Interesting. I like the fact that you can mix a lot of types of cables/speeds/etc.

My friend @David L chose TP-Link.

View attachment 73750

Yes, I'm running 10G across Cat5e from one end of the house to the other with no issues. And if the run can't support 10g, then you can downgrade it to 5g which apparently can support longer distances. But in my experience thus far, Cat 5e is doing just fine if it is what you already have in place.

To be fair, I've never saturated it with traffic, I got the 10G backbone switch<->switch so that multiple devices could each get 1G from the NAS if doing wired file transfers.

 

[David L]

Yes but when I'll pass the fiber cable I want to make sure it supports 10Gb so when time comes,you only change the transceiver on the switches. Future proof. That's what I like about fiber.

Yeah, as a cable contractor for a good part of my life, we ran single mode fiber for our long runs and multi mode fiber cable for MDF/IDFs. I have used both ST and LC connecters/transceivers. Since I have not played with the fiber ports on my switch, fyi, some switches with fiber slots/ports, when used, will take the place of one ethernet port, so if you used all 4 SFP slots/ports, you would only have 20 Ethernet ports available. Just something to think about.
Be sure if you want 10Gb that your switch's SFP ports support it. This is my 24 port POE+ switch:

JetStream 24-Port Gigabit L2 Managed PoE+ Switch with 4 SFP Slots

JetStream 24-Port Gigabit L2 Managed PoE+ Switch with 4 SFP Slots

www.tp-link.com

 

[David L]

Yes, I'm running 10G across Cat5e from one end of the house to the other with no issues. And if the run can't support 10g, then you can downgrade it to 5g which apparently can support longer distances. But in my experience thus far, Cat 5e is doing just fine if it is what you already have in place.

To be fair, I've never saturated it with traffic, I got the 10G backbone switch<->switch so that multiple devices could each get 1G from the NAS if doing wired file transfers.

So I was looking to build a PC this year and noticed the motherboards I looked at have 2.5Gb NICs, pretty kewl, but switch needs to support that speed. Needless to say, I am passing this year and waiting for 11th Gen Intel Procs that support the new PCI-E 4.0 Video cards and M.2s out.
I watched yesterday the new 3070 videos cards sell out in minutes.

 

[alexdelprete]

I believe a good wifi mesh setup is the way to go in future...

I agree, but only for clients and IoT devices, and with mesh nodes connected to the mesh master through gig-ethernet. For NAS, server-to-server connections, and fiber internet connections, you want to go with cables and possibly, fiber.

 

[alexdelprete]

Yes, I'm running 10G across Cat5e from one end of the house to the other with no issues. And if the run can't support 10g, then you can downgrade it to 5g which apparently can support longer distances. But in my experience thus far, Cat 5e is doing just fine if it is what you already have in place.

To be fair, I've never saturated it with traffic, I got the 10G backbone switch<->switch so that multiple devices could each get 1G from the NAS if doing wired file transfers.

I'm a member of an italian forum about telco and all tech surrounding the topic, cables included, there are a lot of real experts that also work for big telco providers or companies that install telco infrastructure. They have a nice wiki and recently they wrote an article about cable types, speeds, etc. (Come scegliere un cavo di rete - FibraClick Wiki)

In the abstract below, there's a table underlining the basic characteristics of the various types of cables vs length/speed.

Conclusions are:

1. All cat.6 cables support 10gbps, it depends on the distance
2. Cat 5e can also support 10gbps on short distance and with good quality cables
3. Cat 6A supports 10gbps also at long distance

They basically conclude that a Cat 6 quality cable is more than enough for most of the home scenarios.

They wrote the article because of all the hype around Cat7/Cat8 that is more expensive and often low quality.

Since I have to start from scratch, I think I will opt for a good quality Cat 6 or, if the price is not significantly higher, Cat 6A.

 

[rafale]

The CAT rating is just a test. The cables I have at home are CAT5, very old (~20y) and have been able to support 10Gbps over 50m easily. I suspect that back when they were installed CAT6 or maybe even CAT5e didn't exist. A very good quality (shielding, pure copper for POE, low gauge (thicker) even with lower CAT rating will go much longer ways than a dubious high CAT rating cable...

 

[alexdelprete]

The CAT rating is just a test. The cables I have at home are CAT5, very old (~20y) and have been able to support 10Gbps over 50m easily. I suspect that back when they were installed CAT6 or maybe even CAT5e didn't exist. A very good quality (shielding, pure copper for POE, low gauge (thicker) even with lower CAT rating will go much longer ways than a dubious high CAT rating cable...

Correct, that's why they wrote that article. Many people are buying expensive Cat7/Cat8 cables thinking they're better, while they're probably worse quality respect to old Cat5e cables from a good vendor.

 

[KC8DKT]

Yeah, that UPS does/will handle the POE switch and alarm system my problem is the Doorbell is on a transformer in the attic which is not UPSed. No biggie, one day I will run electrical wire from the MDF UPS to feed it. One Day
10Gig NICs have come down in price quite a bit, it is the switches that are expensive. I should of ran fiber to the rooms since I have 4 SFP ports on my main switch.

I did a power up test on my RCA VDB with my switch (catalyst 3750G-48 managed POE) with no problem in manual power/port mode. This was tested with the VDB ONLY, no chime. I plan to hook it back up to the switch as soon as I get a working wireless chime I like to replace the mechanical chime I have now. I have a hacked APC unit for powering the switch (all cams but the VDB are POE) and a mini ThinkCentre M720q that runs BlueIris. So junking the transformer soon I hope. They sell POE extractors if your POE-Switch does not let you over ride the port/power setting that should work just as well. Just be sure to check the voltage, mine defaulted to 48vac in over-ride mode!

 

[David L]

I did a power up test on my RCA VDB with my switch (catalyst 3750G-48 managed POE) with no problem in manual power/port mode. This was tested with the VDB ONLY, no chime. I plan to hook it back up to the switch as soon as I get a working wireless chime I like to replace the mechanical chime I have now. I have a hacked APC unit for powering the switch (all cams but the VDB are POE) and a mini ThinkCentre M720q that runs BlueIris. So junking the transformer soon I hope. They sell POE extractors if your POE-Switch does not let you over ride the port/power setting that should work just as well. Just be sure to check the voltage, mine defaulted to 48vac in over-ride mode!

Thank you for the POE Tip. I just got my POE Switch yesterday and found the POE Wattage section...Awesome, so I can set a value/limit there...