Expanding my home network..

failurbydesign

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I have a Netgear wireless n router with the standard 4 or 5 ports on the back. Im going to hard wire each room in my house with 1-3 cat5e ports. How can i gain more ports for the hardwired cat5 and still keep my wifi, from what i read i will need a switch? Not sure how it can work, but any advice will help!!
 
Just plug a switche into the existing router hard ports. You can daisy chain multiple switches together or get one big one. Which approach is cheapest will depend on how many total ports you need. 5 port switches are dirt cheap, 8 port switches start getting a little pricey, after that your into commercial equipmnet that can get down right nasty on pricing.
 
Yeah, like leejend said. You can hook a switch up to the router and have as may as 250 computers hooked up to the network ..
 
Also, while you're doing the hard wiring, you might as well run cat 6 cable and get gigabit switches... you know, future proofing.
 
That is a good point, Dreamliner ..
 
Thanks for the replies!

So all i have to do is connect the switch to any open port on my wifi router? Thats it?

The reason i'm using cat 5e is that at my work we have to use cat 6 (as of 2010), so we have 12 extra brand new rolls of cat 5e (which i get one or two)... which is great since its free! :)
 
Yep, just hook the switch up to an open port on your router ..
 
Cisco/Juniper might be overkill for a home network. Netgear has some decent SOHO switching. I suppose it depends on what your needs are.

Very hard to give a good recommendation without stating needs and budgets.. from earlier in the thread, I'm assuming you don't need any managed type switches or layer 3 capability.. so, you're really looking for just a basic SOHO switch - which is why I say Cisco/Juniper are probably overkill.
 
He asked for good switches :)

well, Technically he asked
Whats a good switch to use?

Which implies (at least to me) "what's a good switch to use [for my situation]?" rather than just a blanket, open-ended discussion type question like "what are good switches in general?"

:) :p :rolleyes:

**note: just giving ya a hard time Lord :p
 

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Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
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