Network config advice needed on how not to overload network

[CharlesRenault]

I've run 3 Cat6 and 2 Cat7 cable lines in place going from the 2nd floor to the first. [Nothing connected yet.]

Upstairs:
(1) wireless router
(2) smart network gigabit switch.
(3) NAS (gigabit connection)

Downstairs:
(1) router (as an access point)
(2) router (as an access point)
(3) two (2) 8-port gigabit switches (Netgear GS108)

Downstairs:
[There are several devices that would be connected by cable.]
(a) - Standalone DVR/Media Streamer
(b) - Blu Ray Player
(c) - 3 Printers
...
(d) 4 IP Cameras [between 720 and 1080] will connect to NVR, which connects to screen downstairs.

------

What is the best way to set up all these devices without bogging down the network?

I've been told various things like putting the HDTV Streaming on it's own network (its own router and SSID)?

I've been told to run separate cables from the 4 IP Cameras to a separate switch, to the NVR.

I'm open to any ideas.

Thank you very much.

 

[bill001g]

The wireless will be your largest issue in that there is only so much radio bandwidth and you cannot increase it. You already have 3 devices that are likely close enough to interfere with each other so they will have to run on separate channels on the 2.4g band but there are only 3 channels so none of them can use the wide band options. Pretty much you need to avoid any video streaming on the wireless because you likely have neighbors trying to share it also.

On the wired side of things I suspect you can cable it anyway you like and it will still work. a gigbit is a lot of capacity. You have to remember many hard drives can barely run that fast. Still if you wanted to run the cameras all the way to the downstairs switch directly rather than run it to the upstairs switch and then over a common cable that would be better I guess just because you have the cable. I suspect it will make no difference. When you start talking about running end user devices that can actually use a gig of traffic you run into all kinds of bottlenecks to make them really run that fast. The switches and routers have no issues at all running that fast because they are not doing anything to the data where the end devices are actually having to process it.

 

[CharlesRenault]

Thank you, bill001g.

Luckily, I dislike WiFi very much and use LAN only.

Wifi - I have it set exclusively for mobile phone and mobile gadgets.

All other devices are hard-wired.

My question is - should I have the IP Camera setup go to it's own exclusive [router, switch] -> NVR -> Screen and not have it at all on the same [router, switch] as the computers, printers, and NAS? Considering it might bog down the LAN.

Is there any validity to this ... even in an ideal setup?

 

[bill001g]

Assuming the cameras do not actual send ip broadcast traffic the other machines will not be affected. The traffic will be only send to those machine that are communicating. So if the cameras only talk to the NVR then other machines on the same switch would not see any of the traffic. The switch itself generally has the ability to run all ports at maximum in and out simultaneously so you are not going to overload the switch backplane. Switches or even the lan ports in a router never seem to be a bottleneck anymore.

You best bet is to do it as simple as possible the more complex you make it the more likely the complexity itself causes a new failure.

 

[Kewlx25]

Just to point out, cat7 uses shielding. If your network ports are not grounded, the shielding is nearly useless, which makes the cat7 worse than cat6a-UTP(unshielded). Even if they are grounded, if you have poor grounding, cat7 won't work correctly. Not to say your network won't work, but that it may be more susceptible to interference than if you used cheaper cabling. It is highly recommended that cat7 is grounded on both ends or the shielding may also not work.