[SOLVED] multiple hub based hone network?

[James Blonde]

I live in an old house with thick walls, so wifi isn't great, and I've not really had much success with mesh either and powerline was unreliable, so I'm thinking of going to ethernet, or a mix of ethernet and wifi. Given the house configuration, time and skill limitations, It could get messy!

I've got fibre to the property, which links straight into my provider supplied (UK - EE) wifi router. I was using the remaining 3 hub ports in the router to a couple of devices, as well as a TP-Link 8 port hub. The 8 port hub was providing data to all of the local devices - TV, speaker, freeview box, home server, my one remaining Powerline adapter (running to the garage)

I have 2 other rooms with significant amounts of network capable kit in it. My office (main gaming PC, work laptop, speakers, etc) and print room (backup PC / server, large format printer). These were both connected via wifi, though the print room was REALLY slow being through a thick wall. My office is connected using a fibre provider mesh puck, and running an ethernet cable from that to my PC (laptop and speakers on wifi)

What I'm thinking of doing is buying 2 more hubs - one 5 port for the print room, and one 8 port for my office.

• The existing 8 port hub would stay where it is and power my home media setup.
• The 5 port would be connected directly to the router via 10m ethernet cable and run to the print room, where it would connect my printer, backup PC and relocated home server.
• the new 8 port hub would be connected to my wifi puck in the office, and connect to my PC, laptop, speakers, etc. Ultimately I'd use ethernet here too, but that would require a lot of cable routing through / around / over the house
• Everything else (remaining speakers, tablets, laptops, etc) will run off wifi.

Fairly large volumes of data can flow from and to any of these main devices - I do photography, so copy between servers and PCs for backup, tend to backup my main PC to my backup PC, home server, etc, and have a large media and music library (backed up across devices) to stream to the TV via Plex, etc.

I obviously know nothing about networking. Hubs seemed the simplest option, but Is this going to work properly with more than 1 hub? should I have gone for switches? Am I going to run into any pitfalls?? Should I be doing something else here?

(FWIW, I also got a free ASUS RT-AX82U - AX5400 Dual Band WiFi 6 Gaming Router with a laptop I bought, that I haven't used because I just couldn't be bothered with having to reconfigure my wifi setup. Is this worth replacing my EE router with?)

 

[bill001g]

Where did you even find "hubs". They haven't been sold in many years. You likely have switches.

In general I suspect you will have no issues. Only issue would be if you think you would exceed 1gbit between the switches. Not real likely for most people. You would need switch with 10gbit ports then and it greatly increases the price so be really sure to actually measure your usage before you spend the money.

You should check that all your switches run at 1gbit.

 

[James Blonde]

I refer you to the phrase "I obviously know nothing about networking " Clearly I didn't even read the name of the items I bought, which all have the word "switch" in them (as well as hub - so I'll excuse myself a little maybe?) But I'll get my coat and I'll leave this post here to highlight my own ignorance, stupidity and illitir.... Ilitaric.... ill.... inability to read.

I mean you're right - all the stuff I'd read said hubs had basically vanished and I realised switches would be the better solution, but just assumed hubs were what I had and switches were more complicated. Apparently not if I can make them work!

In which case, great! They're all 1gbit, and can't see any need for more at this point.

The only other question I'd probably ask is, what's considered good network cable?? I see Cat 7 and Cat 8 cable for sale on Amazon, but I seem to remember seeing something saying it was probably all cheap rubbish and you'd be better off with high quality cat 5 or cat 6? But how do you know what's good? Because I'm going to need some decent lengths as straight line distances are probably 10m, and I need to go up and down walls, through floors, etc - so maybe 20-30m? I did get some cheapish 10m flat cable just to get me up and running but I suspect it's not what I'd want to run under floors I don't want to have to lift again!

 

[bill001g]

Cat7 cable was never fully certified. Cat8 is only used in data centers where they have 40gbit ports. Almost all the cat8 cable you see being sold on places like amazon is not actually certified cat8 cable.

You need nothing better than cat5e. Cat6 is ok if you can get it cheaper but it will not run any different.

Key is the cable must be pure copper (no CCA) and must have wire size 22-24 (no flat or thin cables). The flat cable you purchased is not actually ethernet cable even though they pretend it is. The wire size is like 30 or 33 which automatically disqualifies it. Since it is does not meet the certification standards there is no way to predict if it will work. The only reason they can sell this most this crap cable is only being used at very short distances so they can get away with it.

If the vendor selling the cable does not have the information about what the cable is made from and size find another vendor. All the legit vendors know about the fake cables and make it a point to show they are valid....and of course cost more because there is more copper metal in their cables which is why we even have all the fake cable to begin with.

 

[James Blonde]

Brilliant, thanks bill001g - it's what I suspected and what you've confirmed! The cheap stuff did it's job to get me going, but will run quality cable properly through the house.