New Home Network

[valgorn]

Hello,

I'm new to networking, but not computers and recently started working from home. After recent troubles with my IP phone (wireless) blanking out on customers and using devices to stream Netflix (wireless), I'm seeing that creating a small home wired network might fix or make things go faster.

I've been researching quite a bit and wanted to get peoples advice on a couple of issues:

I've researched a couple of possible switches and the follow two look nice:

D-Link DGS-1024D - I like the price better, but I don't think it'll handle IP6V. Should I start to worry about switches needing to use IP6V?

Cisco SLM2024T-NA - I know there's a 194 page document to this, it's twice the price of the Dlink, and it's a light managed switch. But would this be true overkill for a home network? Or would this be a better option than the D-Link? Perhaps this will give me an excuse to start learning networking a bit more...lol.

Cat 5e vs Cat 6 - I see that Cat 6 can handle longer distances, but that's not an issue since I live in a small home. Any future benefits of using Cat 6 instead of Cat 5e?

Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[thiggins]

You don't need to worry about IPv6 and switches. Or IPv6 at all for the foreseeable future on home networks.

Any unmanaged switches will work fine. They'll all provide the same performance.

CAT6 cable will give you a bit more noise margin for Gigabit Ethernet than 5e. But to get the full benefit, you'll also need to use all CAT6 connectors and be careful with termination and cable routing.

 

[valgorn]

Thanks Tim, for the info!