[turtle]

So I'm currently running Cat6 throughout my house and am going to need a gigabit switch to handle the traffic. I'm going to get a patch panel for the wiring to the utility room and then have it rack mounted with the switch and server. As of now there are a few HDD and a TC in there for my network and TM backups.

So my dilemma is about the switch. Which switch is the better one for me? I don't need to have a managed switch and I want gigabit speeds even when non-gigabit devices are running on it. I had been running only Linksys/Cisco Small Business switches but I just had to get a cheap one for my media cabinet and got a D-Link 5 port gigabit. So basically I'm open to any brand that isn't going to fail in short order and it rack mountable.

Since my 4 wire phone lines are already run through the house I'm not re-running them with the data lines, but I am adding coax if there isn't a drop near where the wall jacks are going.

Any other tips for me other than the switch?

[709]

I've always had great luck with Netgear. I have 1 8-port and 2 5-port switches, one of which I've had for 5+ years and another 3+ (the other is new). There's a rack-mountable 16-port switch for 170 bucks here (though you'll want to use the affiliate link ), but I'm sure there are kits to mount an 8-port switch in a 1U rack space if you need less ports.

[Eugene]

++ rep for Netgear's ProSafe line.

[turtle]

Cool. I think I'll look at the 24-port variant of the ProSafe line. I'm not actually sure it'll meet my needs, but I can get another smaller port count add on later if needed. I have heard good thing about the ProSafe line but totally forgot about them until you guys reminded me about them in this thread. Thanks!

[PB PM]

Another plus for the Netgear ProSafe line.

[Yontsey]

turtle, as someone who's about to own a house, could you post some steps and materials you used to do this? I'm interested in possibly doing this to my house. It should be fairly easy for me because all of the bedrooms are on the same side of the house, upstairs and down, and the living room is right by my bedroom where the switch would be.

I'll be running wireless but it's never bad to have ethernet ports in walls just incase for things like Xbox, ect ect.

[turtle]

Sure, I'll even post part numbers and a link to buy them so you can see exactly what I'm using. Just not tonight. I'll try to post tomorrow though. My plan is to have two jacks per room though I haven't set that in stone yet. I'm going to have some rooms without connections just because.