Home network advice

[ChrisStapleton]

I have recently rewired the house to put a number of cat 6 cables running to each room and to tv points etc. Now I want to put the necessary hardware in place and was hoping you guys could offer some advice to ensure I've covered all the bases first and know what to be looking for when making purchases.
The network will mainly be used to have a central file store that syncs with an online service for file backup, to share print/scan resources to all and to distribute our media between tv outlets.
The house itself is quite large so one wireless router is not going to be sufficient. I have run cat 6 cable to focal areas on each floor so that I could install a number of access points.

I have brought all the cat6 cables (about 30 in total if that matters) to the basement and plan on locating my central server there. I would like to keep the footprint as minimal as possible and have been trying to identify if I would be better off with a tower server or a rack server. I'm not familiar with these items so not sure what the differences are and what sort of spec would be needed to ensure I'm well future proofed.

So far, I reckon that I need the following:
Modem
Router
1 48 port or 2 24 port Gigabit Switches
Server with file store
Wireless Access Points
Possibly 24U Cabinet

Any suggestions from anyone on the above scenario and things I should watch out for? I've had issues in the past when I bought wireless routers and tried to get them to work together only to find that they are incompatible and I needed to go out and purchase others. It's scenarios like that I would like to avoid here so appreciate any assistance.

 

[kanewolf]

Have you brought all the in-wall cabling to a patch panel? That should be step 1. Is there labels on each end identifying the cable, that should be step 2. Is there a map with the patch panel identifying where each cable goes, that should be step 3.

Rack mount hardware will usually be noisier than tower because of smaller diameter, faster spinning, fans.

Think about a POE switch. You could power your access points via POE and avoid the wall-wart power supplies all over.

Look at the UniFI system from Ubiquiti for you access points. Since you have WIFI access points you could get a wired only router. The MikroTik HEX can handle very high speed WAN -- https://mikrotik.com/product/RB750Gr3

A commercial NAS might be a better solution than a "roll your own". The setup time for a commercial NAS is much quicker than DIY.