Any suggestions for resolving patchy WiFi in a big four-floor stone-built house???

[heatopher]

Well, I'm really not in a rush, so I do prefer just to get it right if it's only a matter of paying a little bit more (as long as it's not, say THREE TIMES as much!). Which PoE devices consume more power? I suppose that I'd only be using it for access points. Not paranoid enough to feel the need for cameras everywhere :~)

 

[heatopher]

Oh, I had asked one more thing, by the way, about whether it's safe to connect a device (for example a network printer, or indeed just a laptop or PC) to a PoE port, if there's one or two left over. I edited that into that earlier post, but the replies came faster than I was expecting!!!

 

[tgl]

Sure, the device doesn't have to draw power from a PoE port.

 

[heatopher]

It's cheap all right, but if I'm reading the description correctly, the port speed is only 100Mbps ... sure that's enough for you? I'm a little worried about the 63W total power budget too, although that might be plenty depending on what you intend to connect to it.

OK, let me understand this thing....... Let's say that I decided to get two or three of these TP Link APs..... "Wireless speed up to 300 Mbps" (enough for domestic settings, right?) - that means that a PoE port at 100Mbps doesn't come up to scratch, I assume?

So then this switch (2.5 times the price of the one I mentioned :~) would be adequate? Or is 120W not enough power in theory for 8 ports?

Well, no rush, like I said!!!! Better to wait a bit, and get it right :~)

 

[heatopher]

And sorry - one more question and then I'll shut up - what's the difference between Passive PoE and PoE 802.3af, apart from £5 in the case of this and this?

 

[Tech Junky]

@heatopher

You need to calculate the POE needs based on what you're connecting. Some devices only need 15W and others might push 45W depending on what they're rated for.

The quick and dirty of it is look at the POE / POE+/ POE++ markings for an idea of what's needed.

For instance my AP needs POE++ to run at full power for the best performance. It will however work at a degraded speed with a lower rated power being supplied. Being that it wants 19W it could get away with using POE+ but, there might be something splitting the power draw across all 8 wires in the ethernet to keep the temp down or provide redundancy to keep it working if a wire failed.

The other side of the option here is to just use POE injectors and skip it on the Switch completely. The only downside is you need an AC outlet to plug the injector into at the location of the AP / device. The nice thing about injectors is they're cheap for a gigabit connection $13/ea vs the inflated cost of incorporating it in the switch itself. Seeing as though you can get a 5 port 2.5GE switch for $100 w/o POE vs ~$500 for one with POE. Once you hit a threshold it makes more sense to bundle it all into a single device.

 

[Tech9]

And sorry - one more question and then I'll shut up - what's the difference between Passive PoE and PoE 802.3af

Do not buy Passive PoE powered devices or Injectors! High risk of damaging your networking equipment, if you don't know what are you doing.

 

[tgl]

The other side of the option here is to just use POE injectors and skip it on the Switch completely.

Seconded. If you've just got a couple devices that need PoE, separate injectors are a way more cost-effective solution. I think PoE switches are aimed at people with, say, dozens of security cameras. They don't want to deal with dozens of wall warts or injectors, and they're willing to pay a premium for bundling the power and signaling into one box. Or at least the manufacturers seem to think that's the market. I haven't seen many PoE switches that didn't seem ridiculously expensive compared to regular switches.

 

[Tech Junky]

PoE switches that didn't seem ridiculously expensive compared to regular switches.

@heatopher
Same goes for N-BaseT 2.5/5GE port switches. I can pick up a quad port 5GE NIC for $200 but the same in a switch is over $500. I can get a dual port 10GE NIC for the same cost but, switches are much higher. This is where the DIY PC Router comes into play if you're looking for more than consumer grade connections but not quite spendy enough to pay up for the SMB / Enterprise gear for a couple of devices.

I haven't looked into it but, I'm guessing there might be a market for POE NIC interfaces which would be easy to accomplish by hooking up a SATA Power connector to the card like you do with TB to get 100W PD off the port. Speaking of which - $360 / 4 ports

4-port / 250W gig switch - $90 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089VDXQRW/?tag=snbforums-20
-- The POE injector I picked up is 10GE for $60 but that's because the AP is running at 2.5GE otherwise $90 for 4 ports would have been a better deal.

Sometimes it's easier to search using the "802.11xx" to get better results though.

 

[tgl]

Same goes for N-BaseT 2.5/5GE port switches. I can pick up a quad port 5GE NIC for $200 but the same in a switch is over $500. I can get a dual port 10GE NIC for the same cost but, switches are much higher.

Hmm ... I'm not sure that's an apples-to-apples comparison. A NIC will give you some I/O pipes, but a switch backs that up with switching fabric that can push bits from pipe A to pipe B --- and people expect it to also be able to push bits from pipe C to pipe D, concurrently, at full speed. There's a lot of hardware involved in that. Not to mention whatever management functions it might have. I think you really need to compare to the whole cost of that DIY router.

My own bias is that I'd prefer to spend my time on something other than building DIY network infrastructure. But hey, if that's something you find interesting, go for it.

 

[Tech Junky]

@tgl

Well, switching is based mostly on ASIC's offloading the packets vs sending them to be processed through the CPU on a router. That's where the speed comes into play.

ASIC's are why crypto farmers like ASIC miner machines because they handle the hashes quite a bit faster than the GPU method.

Backplanes just tie the ports together and should be 2X as much as the ports to handle full duplex

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Slot configuration provides 32gbps which is more than the combined 20gbps of the aggregate ports.

The issue with this method is if you need port density as each slot only gives you 4 due to the side of the opening. For a small network it's enough as you can supplement the slower devices with quad-1GE cards that are only 1X slots.

The other issue with some applications is the heat generated by some ports that will need additional cooling.

I have the AP / 5G Gateway connected to it with the ports split between WAN / LAN and there's no issues with hitting speeds. I have 2 ports bonded to the GW and when needed connect the laptop with a USB-C 5GE dongle and can max out the storage speeds over the wire at over 400MB/s on spinners.

Once you setup the box there's minimal maintenance if you choose to do so. Costs vary though depending on your requirements from $200 for a SFF PC + NIC to your unlimited budget where you want everything and then some more. I rolled several devices into a single box which those devices add up to ~$1000 which compensated for the parts costs on the initial build.

Collapsing things into a single box removed a lot of the bottlenecks and restrictions presented by off the shelf options.