Ubiquiti Unifi layout

I'd take a 24 port switch over 3 8 ports every day of the week.
And mounting equipment is preferred 10 times out of 10.

Since you're building new, you have the perfect opportunity to make a great centrally-located gear closet with proper cooling/ventilation and wire/cable access. A rack is the way to go here. You would have the option to add rack mounted cooling, UPS, or any other gear in the future without having to "make space" for it.

How much square footage are you covering with that many APs? I have 2 and they have great coverage inside and out. I have a half acre lot and have good WiFi anywhere on my property with both APs inside.

quote:

---

I don't know that for a home network that you need to go an enterprise like environment with a rack mounted switch. For a whole home, it is a single point of failure for both wired and wireless, and I don't believe you'll ever exceed the capabilities of using the 60W 8-port switches. I am running 4 8-port switches in my media cabinet, every room gets two drops for versatility, but I'm using 4-port Flex mini switches in each room, which are also managed. Only do the home theater and computer desk areas get their own 8-port switches. If you're also adding cameras it's even better to try and segment things a bit. You don't want to have that switch go down and lose whole house network connection, wired and wireless, along with security cameras/recording capability.

---

Damn now you got me worried. It all has a single point of failure though in the modem.

Btw this will be run off of att gigaBit fiber.

quote:

---

Since you're building new, you have the perfect opportunity to make a great centrally-located gear closet with proper cooling/ventilation and wire/cable access. A rack is the way to go here. You would have the option to add rack mounted cooling, UPS, or any other gear in the future without having to "make space" for it.

---

House is spray foam with walk in attic, plan is to create central hub that everything runs back to and that is easy access. attic is temp controlled and will have plenty of room to allow cooling. I will have room for cooling and other items but was hoping to not do a rack but if that's the way I should go I will. It's not really that much difference in price.

quote:

---

Damn now you got me worried. It all has a single point of failure though in the modem.

---

Right, it's a home network, you don't need full redundancy. And honestly, has anyone ever had a switch fail? I'm sure in a datacenter with hundreds or thousands of switches, they fail on occasion, but the rates have got to be low. I've had numerous consumer routers fail, but only the wifi has ever stopped working. Every single one of them has maintained its switching and routing capabilities. And that's walmart quality gear. I've got a 16port PoE Ubiquiti switch operating in a non-climate-controlled warehouse that has lived through multiple summers of 90+ degree temps and 100% humidity, its only protection from the elements being it lives in a cabinet with two exhaust fans.

quote:

---

House is spray foam with walk in attic, plan is to create central hub that everything runs back to and that is easy access. attic is temp controlled and will have plenty of room to allow cooling. I will have room for cooling and other items but was hoping to not do a rack but if that's the way I should go I will. It's not really that much difference in price.

---

If you really don't want a rack for whatever reason, don't get one. But if it was me, it wouldn't matter if I had a 48port rack mount switch, or if I had a fleet of little 8 port switches, I would put it all in a rack. If the little switches don't have rack kits, I'd put them on a rack shelf. It just makes a much neater job.

Especially if you're worried about single points of failure, then you're going to want a UPS, in which case a rack mount model is a much cleaner look than the alternatives.

quote:

---

If you're also adding cameras it's even better to try and segment things a bit. You don't want to have that switch go down and lose whole house network connection, wired and wireless, along with security cameras/recording capability.

---

So while I would probably go with a single rackmount switch as opposed to multiple smaller ones, I do like redundancy and failover systems where necessary. I have put a lot of thought into cctv systems in this regard, and it kind of baffles me that nobody is making the type of gear that I'm about to describe (or if someone does make it, I haven't been able to find it, and I doubt it would be within a homeowner's budget).

A typical security camera system has multiple cameras that feed to a single storage system. They are usually all supplied power by a single PoE switch, as well. There are multiple single points of failure, and also each camera has only a single connection to the storage system.

Why don't we have fully distributed cctv systems? Each camera could be its own self-contained, fully functional cctv system, with camera, storage, battery backup, wifi, as well as PoE.

Typically, your storage is mostly fixed, so adding more cameras reduces retention. If each cam brings its own storage, total capacity grows as you add cameras. Data redundancy is achieved by pooling storage and duplicating data across nodes. Wifi allows each node to also function as an AP, or it can bridge to a node in a detached building. You could eliminate a PoE switch as a single point of failure by powering each node with its own PoE injector. In the case of total power loss to the cam, it can go into low-power "trail cam" mode to continue taking snapshots on motion, periodically duplicating data to nearby nodes via wifi.

BoM isn't too outrageous, either. If you use a RPi type of device, camera module, ssd, battery pack, poe injector, you're looking at around $200-250 retail in parts per unit, plus housing.



Anyway, that's the type of shite I think about in my downtime.

Single point of failure is that pipe coming in the house really... Ubiquiti also has the ability to tie in cellular to your network as a fallback. But, you still can maintain a more bulletproof infrastructure on your own. Even if internet goes down, you still maintain your internal network. If a singular switch goes down, you lose everything. If you had one of a bunch of smaller switches fail, you can always bandaid your network until you get replacements with another switch.

As big as your house is, that's your call but you can easily get away with smaller switches and centralized media hub.

Yea not sure I need to fully manage using the gateway, but that's something I can decide last min. Not gonna go full enterprise system.

Anyone know why I need a firewall? Shouldn't the supplied att router have one?

FTR this will be typical home network. Streaming and internet. We do a little work at home but not much.

Glad to know I am on the right track. I'll decide little later on the rack or no rack.

quote:

---

I also doubt you will need 5. I only have 2 in 4K sqft. 3 would probably be ideal, but the 2 currently does cover the area. Their range is pretty impressive.

---

Well I only need 3 in the house, but I have a 4 car garage and a Porte cache and I want to make sure I have signal across the whole back yard.

I'll have 3 in the main house, 1 in the MIL suite that will cover back yard and garage and then 1 in the Porte cache.

quote:

---

Lol at all these nerds talking about single point failure on a home network. Yet they only have 1 cell phone, 1 car, 1 house....all single point failure items in their life.

---

Your heart is a single point of failure in your lifespan, but it doesn't mean you can't take care of it and do what's possible to keep that from happening. 1 cell phone - not a single point of failure, unless you base your life on it. 1 car - get in an accident, breakdown, get a rental. 1 house - get a rental or stay with friends or family until situation is resolved.

Bottom line is to protect yourself from the most adverse of situations, even if you can't control them, at least that's how I handle my life. You can handle yours however you please. Nerds or not, it's called experience.

quote:

---

1 cell phone - not a single point of failure, unless you base your life on it. 1 car - get in an accident, breakdown, get a rental. 1 house - get a rental or stay with friends or family until situation is resolved.

---

and, your single switch goes out, buy another....

That was the point that flew well over your head. If you were to take the redundancy protocol of enterprise level It, you'd be carrying multiple phones, have multiple cars with a few following everywhere you go, and you'd own the whole neighborhood.