Home LAN and WiFi

[Rasbelin]

My new apartment is undergoing renovation right now. I need recommendations for how I should create a LAN, which consists of a wired gigabit Ethernet, as well as wireless N-class WiFi.

I'm looking to build a wired LAN to all rooms with CAT6 cabling and wall sockets (1 to 6 per room). This will mean a total of 20-24 wall sockets. I have 2-3 PCs, several VoIP phones, a network printer, some home entertainment devices and a NAS using the wired LAN. Also I need a secured WLAN for limited access by my own wireless clients (2-3 computers, later on maybe also CCTV) and a guest SSID that I can enable whenever it's needed for my guests.

My WAN connection is either ADSL or a cable modem, which will be hooked to a LAN switch in my tech closet. In there I will also place a NAS with RAID 1 or 5. As for WiFi, I was thinking of using at least one AP, maybe even two.

So what do I need help with?

- Which device should do the NAT and allocate local IPs with DHCP? A good LAN router or maybe just a prosumer grade wireless router?

- Is there any big differencies between wired LAN switches? If so, can you recommend me a gigabit switch with good peformance? Remember that I will have 2-3 concurrent wired clients with a high traffic volume. Also some occasional HD streaming on the top of that from my NAS to the DLNA enabled Sony HDTV.

- Which NAS would be good for 4 HDDs in a RAID 1 or 5 configuration? My desktop PCs and wireless clients host their files on the NAS and only have one HDD per device for apps, essential files and the OS.

- My primary wireless client is a threeband capable ThinkPad X220 (exactly the same as Tim's testbench), which means I'm looking for a prosumer grade AP. Any recommendations for two WiFi APs with support for two SSIDs (both being broadcasted from both APs)? I don't need any fancy storage support etc. Just solid performance and good firmware updates. Both APs don't have to be the same model.

Especially at least one of the APs should have support for an external antenna, as the AP is inside the lowered ceiling and thus requires an external antenna that can be mounted below the ceiling. The other AP will be inside the tech closet.

- I'd prefer to have a IPv6 enabled network which would be future proof. I'm most likely going to have IPv6 with my WAN. Which devices would be good for IPv6 compatibility?

 

[Rasbelin]

Hopefully I didn't ask something way too complex?

 

[thiggins]

Which device should do the NAT and allocate local IPs with DHCP? A good LAN router or maybe just a prosumer grade wireless router?

Any router will do this. Consumer grade is fine.

- Is there any big differencies between wired LAN switches? If so, can you recommend me a gigabit switch with good peformance? Remember that I will have 2-3 concurrent wired clients with a high traffic volume. Also some occasional HD streaming on the top of that from my NAS to the DLNA enabled Sony HDTV.

There is no difference in performance for switches. They all provide "wire speed" among all ports. Just watch how you connect your clients so that you don't max out the port speed for uplinks.

- Which NAS would be good for 4 HDDs in a RAID 1 or 5 configuration? My desktop PCs and wireless clients host their files on the NAS and only have one HDD per device for apps, essential files and the OS.

If you want all drives in one volume, that would be RAID 5, 6 or 10. RAID 1 is two drives per volume.

See How To Buy a NAS - The Short(er) Version - Updated 2011

- My primary wireless client is a threeband capable ThinkPad X220 (exactly the same as Tim's testbench), which means I'm looking for a prosumer grade AP. Any recommendations for two WiFi APs with support for two SSIDs (both being broadcasted from both APs)? I don't need any fancy storage support etc. Just solid performance and good firmware updates. Both APs don't have to be the same model.

Especially at least one of the APs should have support for an external antenna, as the AP is inside the lowered ceiling and thus requires an external antenna that can be mounted below the ceiling. The other AP will be inside the tech closet.

You don't want to be extending antennas via cable beyond a foot or so. Otherwise you lose too much signal. Look at the Engenius "smoke detector" style APs for ceiling mount.

- I'd prefer to have a IPv6 enabled network which would be future proof. I'm most likely going to have IPv6 with my WAN. Which devices would be good for IPv6 compatibility?

D-Link has the most routers with IPv6 support. Cisco is catching up. NETGEAR is the furthest behind.

BTW, people get burned out answering all these "what should I buy" posts, especially when it looks like someone hasn't done any homework to narrow the selection.

 

[Rasbelin]

Any router will do this. Consumer grade is fine.

Yes, which I of course knew about. I just checked for recommendations for which device should do it, so that the DHCP negotiation won't become an issue when a lot of components are involved.

There is no difference in performance for switches. They all provide "wire speed" among all ports. Just watch how you connect your clients so that you don't max out the port speed for uplinks.

Okay, I'll see what I end up with eventually.

See How To Buy a NAS - The Short(er) Version - Updated 2011

Thanks!

You don't want to be extending antennas via cable beyond a foot or so. Otherwise you lose too much signal. Look at the Engenius "smoke detector" style APs for ceiling mount.

I did look for the reviews first, before posting my questions, but since the EnGenius AP performs so awful, I don't see it being worth a shot. Way too many routers and APs don't offer the option to use external antennas, which narrows down my list of choices for the other AP.

I think I'll manage to use an antenna cable shorter than one feet. The surface of the lowered ceiling isn't that thick, maybe a few inches. I just need to find a good AP then.

D-Link has the most routers with IPv6 support. Cisco is catching up. NETGEAR is the furthest behind.

Initially I used the feature search, but it returned very few results and few were overall decent. Besides I couldn't find that much IPv6 discussion, so thought someone might have more experience about it.

BTW, people get burned out answering all these "what should I buy" posts, especially when it looks like someone hasn't done any homework to narrow the selection.

I'm sorry to bother you, but I did try to do at least some of my homework first. I just felt my setup is a bit more complicated than the average, so I thought it might be a good idea to ask for similar experiences. But I stand corrected, I'll try to look less of a newbie next time around.

 

[thiggins]

My last comment was directed at your second post "Hopefully I didn't ask something way too complex?".

You are of course welcome to post such queries. Just trying to offer a reason why you didn't get any responses.

EnGenius told me at CES they have new firmware that improves performance. I will test it eventually, but not anytime soon.

You are correct that external antennas are hard to find in N routers and especially for dual-band N. You need to extend all antennas. The router finder indicates which have upgradeable antennas.

 

[Rasbelin]

Right now I'm thinking of picking the following devices for my network setup...

# Routing, DHCP and primary WiFi AP (wireless clients: LAN and isolated guest VLAN enabled as necessary): Netgear WNDR4000 N750

- As D-Link's newest WiFi routers aren't yet available in Europe, I'll have to compromise and pick a Netgear router with limited (AFAIK static routes only) IPv6 support. I'm pretty sure I anyway want a newer router within a year or two as hopefully the range of the 5 GHz band gets serious development.

# Secondary WiFi AP (wireless clients: LAN, 2,4 GHz band only enabled): Belkin N750 DB

- Featurewise this is probably waste of money, but as I only need it as an AP and it doesn't do any routing, I'm fine with this. I'm mainly looking for the Belkin as a secondary AP that's focused on the range of my WLAN. It's there as an alternative to reach locations like Tim's locations E and F. The review results were pretty suprising!

# LAN switch: Linksys SLM224G (24 ports)

- This one should probably do just fine. I'll have some 20 or so LAN wall sockets that need their cables hooked up. Not that I ever use that many at once.

# NAS: Synology DS411+II

- I definetly don't want any fancy stuff like HDMI connectivity, warez clients (c'mon, there's really no other real need for people to want BitTorrent etc. on a NAS), not to mention my NAS isn't a Joomla or you name it server.

All I need is good vendor firmware support and excellent stability, besides performance that's among the top 5 in its class. It's not easy to choose between QNAP and Synology! I was looking at Cisco as RADIUS is tempting, but as the RADIUS server didn't work as per Tim's review, I don't put my dollars there.

Any thoughts regarding what I'm about to choose for my home?

 

[stevech]

Re WiFi APs... any old WiFi router can be re-purposed (configured) to be an AP.

You could start with an 8 port switch, then add another or go up to 24 ports when needed. Big price delta.

My home NAS choice was a DS212 - for speed, longevity, USB3, and great built-in OS/apps. I use two volumes with cloning, not RAID.

 

[Rasbelin]

Re WiFi APs... any old WiFi router can be re-purposed (configured) to be an AP.

True, but then again Belkin's router has excellent performance in terms of network coverage. Uplink and downlink speed is good even in though locations, as per the SNB review. Based on the charts, I don't get that performance with any older AP.

My home NAS choice was a DS212 - for speed, longevity, USB3, and great built-in OS/apps. I use two volumes with cloning, not RAID.

I'm looking for a 4-5 drive NAS as I'm planning to go with RAID 5 or 6. I want HDD redundancy, besides being able to do my regular backups via e-SATA or USB 3.0 and then moving them offsite.

 

[Rasbelin]

Nobody else interested in pitching in?

 

[edavid]

I'm looking to build a wired LAN to all rooms with CAT6 cabling and wall sockets (1 to 6 per room). This will mean a total of 20-24 wall sockets.

You don't really need so many RJ45 jacks per room. You can always add switches if needed.

- Which device should do the NAT and allocate local IPs with DHCP? A good LAN router or maybe just a prosumer grade wireless router?

Watch out, many routers have very limited static DHCP table size (in the stock firmware). Netgear is OK though.

- Is there any big differencies between wired LAN switches? If so, can you recommend me a gigabit switch with good peformance?

Make sure your switches have jumbo frame support.

- Which NAS would be good for 4 HDDs in a RAID 1 or 5 configuration? My desktop PCs and wireless clients host their files on the NAS and only have one HDD per device for apps, essential files and the OS.

I would think you would want a real PC as a file server - faster than any NAS, and cheaper too.

Especially at least one of the APs should have support for an external antenna, as the AP is inside the lowered ceiling and thus requires an external antenna that can be mounted below the ceiling. The other AP will be inside the tech closet.

What is the ceiling material? I wouldn't think it would have significant attenuation. Measure it before you go crazy with antennas.

 

[Rasbelin]

My home network has evolved. WiFi is now handled by one single D-Link DAP-2690 and I run WPA2 with RADIUS. I have one single SSID for both bands.

Now my problem is that I'd like to add one more AP on the 5,2 GHz spectrum to broaden the coverage of my private network. Sure, easily done, but the problem is that I'd like to run the same AP/router for 2,4 GHz and create a public unencrypted guest SSID with network isolation and WAN access only. I'd prefer to have a captive portal and passcodes for my guests, but I guess I'm then limited to Intellinet GuestGate MK II? So it seems I either need two more pieces of hardware or scrap either the 5,2 GHz expansion or my fancy guest network?

I have a bricked Asus RT-N66U collecting dust, but it's as said bricked, thanks to dd-wrt going bonkers, so I can't use it anymore. Too bad the Asus firmware didn't allow both network isolation and WAN only.