Home networking project

[benners]

I am soon to start renovations on a house I have bought. Whilst I have the ceilings down and the floor boards up I am going to run CAT5e cable to all the rooms and have 2 network points in each.

The idea is to use a 24 port gigabit switch with POE (Netgear GS724TP - 100EUS Pro-Safe, maybe) 2 ports for each room but use an 8 port gigabit switch in the living room instead of running 8 lengths of cable. I always wanted to tinker with IP cameras so the idea is to have External POE IP cameras outside (Front and Back) and internal IP cameras in other rooms with some software (AXIS?) to monitor and\or get a DVR to record the outside. One question is this, do I really need to use a patch panel to terminate the connections? I was just going to plug straight into the switch.

I have never attempted anything this big so I could use some advise. I have Googled and got a list of bookmarks going but wanted to ask for others opinions\advise.

Cheers

[rendrag]

need? no. You do not need to terminate the cables into a patch panel. You could just as easily terminate the ends of the wire into an RJ-45 jack and plug them into whatever switch you want. The beauty of a patch panel, and why I chose to terminate into one with my house project, is that it looks much cleaner.

I have a finished basement "office" where all my gear is. I didn't want a bunch of wires coming out of a hole in the wall, so I fastened my patch panel right into the hole I cut so that it sits flush on top of the sheetrock and all the wires are hidden. I thought it looked much cleaner. Then I run individual wires down from each port on the panel to a 24-port gb switch mounted in a 13U APC rack with some other stuff. Every 6" or so of exposed cable I use a velcro tie-wrap so that it looks neat and tidy. This allows me to run multiple lines to various places in my home, but knowing that the lines aren't active yet, I don't necessarily need to run the cable from the patch-panel to my switch.

It depends on your situation though. If you're setup is just in a utility closet and you don't care about neatness, then you don't need a panel. Just make sure you use some kind of labeling system on the cables (whether you use a patch-panel or not) because you'll quickly forget which cable run goes where.

[benners]

need? no. You do not need to terminate the cables into a patch panel. You could just as easily terminate the ends of the wire into an RJ-45 jack and plug them into whatever switch you want. The beauty of a patch panel, and why I chose to terminate into one with my house project, is that it looks much cleaner.

I have a finished basement "office" where all my gear is. I didn't want a bunch of wires coming out of a hole in the wall, so I fastened my patch panel right into the hole I cut so that it sits flush on top of the sheetrock and all the wires are hidden. I thought it looked much cleaner. Then I run individual wires down from each port on the panel to a 24-port gb switch mounted in a 13U APC rack with some other stuff. Every 6" or so of exposed cable I use a velcro tie-wrap so that it looks neat and tidy. This allows me to run multiple lines to various places in my home, but knowing that the lines aren't active yet, I don't necessarily need to run the cable from the patch-panel to my switch.

It depends on your situation though. If you're setup is just in a utility closet and you don't care about neatness, then you don't need a panel. Just make sure you use some kind of labeling system on the cables (whether you use a patch-panel or not) because you'll quickly forget which cable run goes where.

Thanks for the reply. I am a bit anal about neatness and cable layout and I think it would also be easier. Less crimping of RJ45 I can just punch the connections into the panel and buy some patch cables.

I'll look for a 48 port panel, that way if I need to I can always get another switch. I still dream of a world where fridges are connected to the net and the Gas and Electric meters are read online so no moving of furniture or waiting in for meter readers.