POE Router - The crucial specs, Advice on how to buy Used unit

Fastb

Fastb

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Feb 9, 2016
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Seattle, Wa
All,

With your help, I’ve learned, experimented, etc. With cams hooked up temporarily, I could move them easily to dial in cam height/location/FOV. Temporarily: Cat6 cables strung out my 2nd floor office/shop, across the roof, thru garden, or down my inside hall.

Now I’m ready to;
- a) relocate the demarcation point from my office to a closet,
- b) pull cat6 cables behind walls, thru attic, etc (wifey doesn't see cables as "cool")
- c) upgrade my 8 port POE switch. I have 6 cams now, it’s not enough. And I may end up with 12 cams.

My post here is centered on item c), ie: POE Switch Guidance

Note: Current POE switch:
8-Port Gigabit PoE Switch,IEEE 802.3at/af, Max Output 124W

As a newbie, I over-bought for capabilities I don’t need (in hindsight). That switch is overkill. Namely, 8 Gb ports. (for cameras? Overkill). Each Cam's stream barely hits 100Mb.

This forum has advised to buy used eqpmt on e-bay. Why? IT departments are upgrading 10/100 gear and installing 1000Mb gear. So there’s a ton of used eqpmt that’s cheap and perfectly usable for a home cam system. Cool!

So here’s my shopping criteria. Comments welcome!
- My NVR’s single input port can handle 200Mb input stream from cams. (I’m only using a fraction of that now)
- Therefore, I think I need a POE switch with a switch-to-NVR port that exceeds 100Mb
- Some POE switches offer 10/100MB on POE ports. And Gb on the switch’s host port. Do I need that?
- If my NVR accepts 200Mb of video from cams, should I avoid a POE switch that only sends 100Mb to the NVR?

Maybe I got into the weeds. My bad.

Q1: What used POE switch specs should I look for when shopping on E-Bay?
Q2: Will a 10/100 POE switch throttle the video feed to my NVR (assuming 12 cameras max)

Fastb
 
Fastb said:
All,

With your help, I’ve learned, experimented, etc. With cams hooked up temporarily, I could move them easily to dial in cam height/location/FOV. Temporarily: Cat6 cables strung out my 2nd floor office/shop, across the roof, thru garden, or down my inside hall.

Now I’m ready to;
- a) relocate the demarcation point from my office to a closet,
- b) pull cat6 cables behind walls, thru attic, etc (wifey doesn't see cables as "cool")
- c) upgrade my 8 port POE switch. I have 6 cams now, it’s not enough. And I may end up with 12 cams.

My post here is centered on item c), ie: POE Switch Guidance

Note: Current POE switch:
8-Port Gigabit PoE Switch,IEEE 802.3at/af, Max Output 124W

As a newbie, I over-bought for capabilities I don’t need (in hindsight). That switch is overkill. Namely, 8 Gb ports. (for cameras? Overkill). Each Cam's stream barely hits 100Mb.

This forum has advised to buy used eqpmt on e-bay. Why? IT departments are upgrading 10/100 gear and installing 1000Mb gear. So there’s a ton of used eqpmt that’s cheap and perfectly usable for a home cam system. Cool!

So here’s my shopping criteria. Comments welcome!
- My NVR’s single input port can handle 200Mb input stream from cams. (I’m only using a fraction of that now)
- Therefore, I think I need a POE switch with a switch-to-NVR port that exceeds 100Mb
- Some POE switches offer 10/100MB on POE ports. And Gb on the switch’s host port. Do I need that?
- If my NVR accepts 200Mb of video from cams, should I avoid a POE switch that only sends 100Mb to the NVR?

Maybe I got into the weeds. My bad.

Q1: What used POE switch specs should I look for when shopping on E-Bay?
Q2: Will a 10/100 POE switch throttle the video feed to my NVR (assuming 12 cameras max)

Fastb
Click to expand...
Q1: What used POE switch specs should I look for when shopping on E-Bay?

Search HP ProCurve Poe on eBay. I'm cheap and rather spend extra on better cams. I've had good luck with the HP ProCurve 2600 series. These are enterprise level switches. You'll find 8, 12, and 24 port PoE's avalaible for about $25. - $75. They have Gigabit uplink ports too! These are managed switches, not that I know anything about that, but if you do it's available. I just reset to factory default and plug my cams in. Only caveat is these are noisy with loud fans, so probably best in a garage.

I can't speak to power efficiency, but I figure I'd be using about 5 watts per cam anyway.

Here's a 24/12 port:

HP J9086A ProCurve 2610-24/12PWR Networking Switch | eBay

Found another 8 port:

HP ProCurve Switch 2600-PWR (J8762A) PoE NEW OUT OF PACKAGING | eBay
 
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also keep in mind that many of these enterprise switches have very loud fans, you will not be able to place it anywhere near living spaces.
 
I have a luxul XMS-1008P bought used off ebay pretty cheap.

Switch itself uses 12 watts, cameras use 23 watts.
I measured the power consumption by the switch, and the switch tells me how much power it provides to the cameras.

I'm not sure if newer switches are more efficient, but this seems pretty reasonable power consumption for the switch.
It was discontinued for a POE+ version.

To answer your other question, you do need a gigabit port from the switch to your router. If you get a switch with just fast ethernet ports, it will limit the bandwidth to 100mb at most. 100mb is a theoretically limit, in real life you probably get something less than that.

Randy
 
I bought a used Cisco Cisco SF300-24P managed switch. It has 24 100 Mbps POE ports + 4 gigabit ports. It has its good and bad points. The good: Reasonable power consumption of about 20 watts not including the POE, good POE power budget of 180 watts, reasonable used prices. The older Cisco switches can be power hogs. The bad: (1) Fans are way loud. I replaced them with something reasonable, but the flow is lower. I'll be using less than half the POE power budget and it won't be in a hot room, so I'm hoping I get away with the reduced flow. (2) It's not possible to configure multiple VLANs with overlapping ports as it is with some switches. I think there's a way to do the same thing with the switch's level 3 features but haven't figured it out yet.

Conclusion: It's a good switch, but if I had it do do over I'd get one where a single port could be included in multiple VLANs.
 
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Oh, tigerwillow brought up a good point, fan noise. I switch is noisy because of the fan, so it lives in the garage. For my setup, this worked out. It would be a problem if I had to have it inside.
But on the good side, it supports vlan's, and you can assign one port to multiple vlans, so it is easy to implement a port based vlan scheme that isolates the cameras from the internet.
 
Fastb said:
Note: Current POE switch:
8-Port Gigabit PoE Switch,IEEE 802.3at/af, Max Output 124W
Click to expand...
You already own it why not keep it? There's no harm in gigabit, I strongly recommend gigabit uplink if nothing else.

Tell us the model of your current switch and how much you paid for it and we'll be able to give better advice. You have to be very particular with old switches off of ebay, they can waste so much power you'd buy a brand new one inside of 2 years.
 
Thanks everyone for the input and guidance. Esp re: noise and power consumption.

My modified approach:
a) 24 port fanless switch (which means a non-POE switch)
b) Fanless POE injector

HP Procurve 2610-24 (J9085A)
$44 including shipping.
The product went end-of-life in May 2012

Fanless !

Ports:
24 auto-sensing 10/100 ports (IEEE 802.3 Type 10Base-T, IEEE 802.3u Type 100Base-TX);

2 auto-sensing 10/100/1000 ports (IEEE 802.3 Type 10Base-T, IEEE
802.3u Type 100Base-TX, IEEE 802.3ab Type 1000Base-T); Duplex:
10Base-T/100Base-TX: half or full; 1000Base-T: full only

Power consumption: 41 W
Comment: In Seattle, cost is 9.14 cents per kilowatt-hour. Using 41W, electricity cost will be $2.70/mo. That doesn’t seem like a bank-buster.

Since this switch is non-POE version, it doesn’t have a fan. Nice and quiet.
Then I’d have to find a fanless midspan POE injector.

This seems to meet my criteria.
- (2) 1GB uplink ports
- Quiet
- Reasonable power consumption.

Sure, it's a two box solution. It seems better than daisy chaining together smaller fanless POE switches (4 or 8 port)

Q: Am I overlooking something?

Thanks again!
Fastb
 
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I went used, quality, quiet and low power.. here's how:

PowerDsine 9024G - HiPoe 24Port GigE Midspan -- Ebay Steal: $100 (power consumption: basically the cameras + few % loss)
Dlink 1210-48 - 48p Managed Floor Switch -- Ebay Steal: $60 (power consumption under load: 20W)

Working much better than the old cisco 48p floor switch I had that idled at 120W and was the loudest thing I had running.. now my terms of quiet are I cant hear it outside my server room thats been well sealed off in the basement
 
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I can't imagine a box that size drawing 41 watts and not having a fan. Going to be one hot box.
 
Fans aren't necessarily a bad thing and they aren't all loud. Ideally they change speed with temperature. Closed spaces like closets can get hot some form of ventilation may be required.
 
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Fenderman,

Wow, 14W vs 41W!
Plus:
- all ports are Gb
- fanless
- future-proof (compared to used eqpmt)

I'm trying to cancel my ebay order. On "non-auction" items, you have a 1 hour window - IF the vendor hasn't shipped.

Fenderman, thanks for reseaching a better alternative for me! Much appreciated.

Fastb
 
Fastb said:
Fenderman,

Wow, 14W vs 41W!
Plus:
- all ports are Gb
- fanless
- future-proof (compared to used eqpmt)

I'm trying to cancel my ebay order. On "non-auction" items, you have a 1 hour window - IF the vendor hasn't shipped.

Fenderman, thanks for reseaching a better alternative for me! Much appreciated.

Fastb
Click to expand...
No problem...I dont like seeing folks waste hard earned money..how many cams total do you really expect to run?
 
tangent said:
Fans aren't a bad thing and they aren't all loud. Ideally they change speed with temperature. Closed spaces like closets can get hot some form of ventilation may be required.
Click to expand...
They are on some switches...even modern switches...had to return a netgear poe switch a few years back (i think it was a 24 port) because the noise way to loud to have an employee sit near it..
 
@fenderman ,

I have 5 cams mounted temporarily. Learned a lot. They'll all have their mounting locations changed.
My 6th cam is a Dahua Starlight Bullet. I'm still figuring out the best location.
My cams cover 3 sides of my 6 sided house. I have a long driveway, in the woods, so a driveway cam may be tweaked. My 12mm IPC-HFW4431M-I2 bullet is aimed at the driveway, but maybe that's where the Starlight Varifocal gets mounted. Getting license plate images at night, at 75 ft, will take some work.

Long Answer - sorry.
I don't know how many cams I'll eventually have.
I started this journey by creating a system for a Gen'l Contractor friend who lost $15K in tools due to a weekend job site theft.
He flaked out - wanted cams scotch taped to walls w/ wireless, no wires at all, with 24/7 streaming. Impossible.
I said "Your father coulda asked in 1969 for a phone to to carry in his pocket, and connect anywhere"

This is long. Stay with me a moment.
So I set up a temporary system at my house.
My wife likes it.
IVS and real laser lines ring us when ppl are coming to my house (my former mock job site)

@nayr
Thanks for device recommendations. The products you mentioned might be 'quieter' and 'less power consuming' than your previous stuff. I looked into 'em, and while "quiet", they don't look "silent" or fanless. Still, appreciate the input!

@tangent
tangent said:
Fans aren't a bad thing and they aren't all loud
Click to expand...

My house barely has a crawl space. So cam wiring will mostly be in attic. Demarcation point for home-runs and patch panel location will be on 2nd floor. "Fanless" is highly desirable. Bedrooms nearby.

So we may end up with 12 cams, total.

Cams at house:

Wifey is worried the recent upswing in Coyotes puts our Pomeranian at risk.
We're lost many cats to 'yotes.
I can share coyote videos, when they cross IVS lines t our front porch!

Fastb
 
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