[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by MADBMWX3

Before walls come completely up ( I assume you are using sheet rock), take a picture of where the wire is going. I did this and it paid dividends when I connector went bad and I was able to pin point where it was behind the wall.

I did this exact thing with both of my homes which were new construction. Not only does it help in tracking down how the cabling is run, but also the mechanicals such as plumbing. And it really came in handy with my primary home when I had some renovations done. The architect needed to know how a certain area of my house was framed. I happened to have video of that section and that was all he needed to come up with the appropriate plans.

[wdb]

Originally Posted by MADBMWX3

Before walls come completely up ( I assume you are using sheet rock), take a picture of where the wire is going. I did this and it paid dividends when I connector went bad and I was able to pin point where it was behind the wall.

Technically there should not be any connectors behind the walls. Any connections should be in junction boxes and those boxes should be accessible and visible. That's true for electrical connections, not sure what the code says about cable/POTS/data wiring.

I took pictures of the garage walls, post-wiring and pre-drywall, so that I'd know where the wires ran.

[Stubbie Blue]

My house was built in 2007 and I'm very thankful that the original buyer put in 2 x Cat5e and 1 x RG6 in every room. I run everything I can over gigabit ethernet and even go out of my way to buy devices that have ethernet like my smart TV and Roku. I also have some PoE cameras where I used a flat ethernet cable to run under the window frame to the outside. You don't really need to run a ton of lines to each room because if you need more ports like in an office, you can just daisy chain a $20 8 port gigabit switch.

It has been running rock solid for the past 12 years and I don't think wireless has caught up yet. I tested my laptop using iperf3 over an AC1750 router on the 5GHz band and it only got around 130 megabits. Also, the 2.4GHz band drops out every time I use my microwave.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by dreamingat30fps

If you have that shit in your closet then I'm guessing you most certainly need some cat7 cabling.

Well, right now Cat7 cabling is pretty useless. Before anyone jumps on me about this, hear me out. Right now 10GigE is the fastest network speed supported over Category cabling. Cat6 up to about 55 meters, Cat6a, and Cat7 all support 10GigE. The next speed up is 25GigE. There is no IEEE spec out that dictates 25GigE over Category cabling. 25GigE is a pretty recent Ethernet speed. But the older faster specs of 40Gig and 100Gig don't have any IEEE standard spec on running over Category cabling. Right now the only copper based cabling which supports 25GigE, 40GigE, and 100GigE are coaxial based copper cabling called Twinax/DACs. And the ends of these cabling terminate into transceiver type connectors: 25GigE uses SFP28, 40GigE uses QSFP+, and 100GigE uses QSFP28. Cat7 based on what I've read has been tested to support 40GigE up to 50meters and 100GigE up to 15meters. But again that was lab testing and there is no IEEE spec out nor any hardware manufacturers that have put out RJ45 based physical medium.

For my data center, the slowest connection between switches are 10Gig running over SFP+ DACs. I do have 2 twisted pair copper connections going between one switch in my data center to a 10Gig switch in my office running 10Gig in a LAG. All other connections between switches are 40Gig over QSFP+ DACs. My servers are also 40Gig attached. And I do have one switch which is 100Gig.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by wdb

Technically there should not be any connectors behind the walls. Any connections should be in junction boxes and those boxes should be accessible and visible. That's true for electrical connections, not sure what the code says about cable/POTS/data wiring.

I took pictures of the garage walls, post-wiring and pre-drywall, so that I'd know where the wires ran.

I agree, there should not be any couplers inside of walls. If there are, the contractor got lazy and didn't run the proper length of cabling...probably ran out of cable and didn't want to go back and re run it.

But as far as I know, because Category cabling is low voltage, I do not think it's against code to have couplers in the wall nor does it require a junction box. But I think it varies with locality because I seem to recall either where my primary house is or my vacation home that the county required any runs of low voltage wiring in the home to also be permitted. But can't remember as this was years ago.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by Stubbie Blue

My house was built in 2007 and I'm very thankful that the original buyer put in 2 x Cat5e and 1 x RG6 in every room. I run everything I can over gigabit ethernet and even go out of my way to buy devices that have ethernet like my smart TV and Roku. I also have some PoE cameras where I used a flat ethernet cable to run under the window frame to the outside. You don't really need to run a ton of lines to each room because if you need more ports like in an office, you can just daisy chain a $20 8 port gigabit switch.

It has been running rock solid for the past 12 years and I don't think wireless has caught up yet. I tested my laptop using iperf3 over an AC1750 router on the 5GHz band and it only got around 130 megabits. Also, the 2.4GHz band drops out every time I use my microwave.

While there's nothing wrong with running a switch off of a single GigE link to provide more GigE ports at a particular location, be aware you're sharing bandwidth/speed across all those devices to that one single GigE uplink. For many, this should not be a problem. This is why in business applications, multiple uplinks are grouped together as a single logical connection called a LAG (link aggregation group). LAGs provide more bandwidth but does not increase the speed of the connection. This is an important point which many IT professionals still get wrong. Many think grouping 8 1GigE connections into a LAG gives 8GigE. No. It gives 8Gigabits of bandwidth but no 8GigE speed.

Also you cannot connect more than 1 Ethernet connection to a switch that is not a managed switch. The reason is you'll introduce a switch loop which will in short order bring your network to its knees with infinite frame flooding. Even with managed switches on both ends, you have to either configure spanning tree or LAG to allow this to work.

[MADBMWX5MC]

Originally Posted by wdb

Technically there should not be any connectors behind the walls. Any connections should be in junction boxes and those boxes should be accessible and visible. That's true for electrical connections, not sure what the code says about cable/POTS/data wiring.

I took pictures of the garage walls, post-wiring and pre-drywall, so that I'd know where the wires ran.

Well in that case, I am glad I took them pictures...

[pennsiveguy]

Another thing to remember if you're doing any of the wiring yourself is to keep the low voltage wires away from the high voltage conductors. Don't run your UTP wires right alongside or in the same conduit with high voltage wires. Avoid running them parallel, and if you have to do so then make sure there's 6" or so between them. The magnetic field from the high voltage conductors can create noise in the UTP circuits that'll make them flaky. It'll be hard to diagnose and even harder to fix.

If you're having a contractor do the wiring, make sure they do it right. Don't count on the inspector to catch their errors, because there are some inspectors who don't give a rat's hindquarters about low voltage wiring and don't inspect it diligently.

[bosstones]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

I did this exact thing with both of my homes which were new construction. Not only does it help in tracking down how the cabling is run, but also the mechanicals such as plumbing. And it really came in handy with my primary home when I had some renovations done. The architect needed to know how a certain area of my house was framed. I happened to have video of that section and that was all he needed to come up with the appropriate plans.

Totally agree. Did it w/ my townhouse when it was built and did it for our current house when it was built. Knowing where all the gas, plumbing (supply, drain, breather), electrical (AC & DC), HVAC ducting, etc... is sooooooo useful.

To the OP and not that it hasn't already been covered but what to do really depends on your lifestyle, preferences, and construction type. I don't mind WiFi for some device use (e.g. Ring, tablets, etc...) but for things like IP cams...I go hardwired. It's not that hard to jam WiFi so it becomes useless for security if you have WiFi-only security stuffs.

Run empty conduit and PVC in a wall(s) so you can add wiring in the future w/o having to break into drywall. I have a 2" EMT pipe running from my primary breaker box to a large distribution box in my attic. This greatly minimizes the work to pull new wire for additional AC circuits in the future. I also have a 2" PVC pipe run from the basement to the attic for low voltage (same idea as the 2" conduit). These + the pre-drywall pix will make life easier.

If running Eth wiring, go at least Cat6. Like zx10guy said, you can still run 10GbE over it for shorter runs and it should be plenty good for most home owners.

Go Cat6 for coax.

Pre-wire for security system if you think you might want one. Same for in-wall speaker wire.

[eluded]

I'd run fiber to all the rooms. Copper wire just doesn't have the throughput that fiber does.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by eluded

I'd run fiber to all the rooms. Copper wire just doesn't have the throughput that fiber does.

See my discussion about fiber in an earlier post. While running fiber seems to be an attractive option, it's not the best solution for home use. Heck many businesses and government agencies don't use fiber to the desktops. Just because it's fiber doesn't mean it's faster or has more throughput when comparing like for like transport medium. As an example, using OM3 fiber provides no throughput/speed advantage over using Cat6a for 10GigE. The only thing fiber does provide is lower latency but that's not because of the fiber itself. It's because the ASICs used in switches for 10GbaseT are inherently slower latency wise versus the ASICs used for pluggable connectivity. We're talking about a few microseconds of latency versus about 500 nanoseconds for pluggable. But for a home user, this difference won't ever be noticed.

Other than a desktop which you can add in a fiber NIC, you'll be looking at buying media converters to allow devices to connect into the fiber plant plus the expense of the fiber itself and the network hardware, it just makes no sense in a home setting. I'm not your typical home user and I have all the networking equipment to utilize fiber. But I'm not running any fiber except in my server rack where Fiber Channel requires the use of fiber for my SAN.

[wdb]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

Other than a desktop which you can add in a fiber NIC, you'll be looking at buying media converters to allow devices to connect into the fiber plant plus the expense of the fiber itself and the network hardware, it just makes no sense in a home setting.

Not to mention that as soon as you introduce converters, any speed advantage vanishes.

I had people telling me to pull fiber back when I did our house in the early 2000's. I still wouldn't be using it. It sounds sexy but I agree that it is largely a waste of money for 99.997% of residential situations.

[1MOREMOD]

Dont forget the wiring for heated stripper pole.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by wdb

Not to mention that as soon as you introduce converters, any speed advantage vanishes.

I had people telling me to pull fiber back when I did our house in the early 2000's. I still wouldn't be using it. It sounds sexy but I agree that it is largely a waste of money for 99.997% of residential situations.

I've never seen any reduction in performance using media converters at various jobs I've held. But what media converters do introduce is another failure point. I have had media converters fail. And troubleshooting some of the failures was a headache as the media converter acted as if it was on and functioning.

But as I've said, I would run Cat6a if you're doing any new cabling install. One of the key things about the various speed protocols is the frequency requirement of the cabling. Cat6 is certified up to 250MHz but can still carry 10GigE up to 55 meters. Cat6a is certified up to 500MHz. And Cat7 is certified up to 600MHz. The incremental improvement to go to Cat7 over Cat6a is to me not worth it given the uncertainty of what the next IEEE spec will be for the next fastest Ethernet speed will be. Most likely this will be 25GigE. And when will 25GigE become affordable enough for home use is to be determined. But I can safely say it's probably at least 10 years out.

[RickFLM4]

So OP, clear enough what you should do?

[corn18]

Originally Posted by RickFLM4

So OP, clear enough what you should do?

Yup. 2xCat6 to key rooms, RG6 for those cable / sat TV folks to any room with a TV. Run a conduit from the basement to the attic. Then use non of it once I move in.

[eluded]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

But I'm not running any fiber except in my server rack where Fiber Channel requires the use of fiber for my SAN.

Sounds like some serious storage =)

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by eluded

Sounds like some serious storage =)

It is. The storage array is a Dell/Compellent SC4020 with 25TB of storage. It was 50TB but I decided to offline the DAS shelf because I didn't need all of it online at once. Main reason why I'm running the SAN is for shared storage for my VMware vSphere 6.5 cluster. I need shared storage to be able to do various things such as vMotion. I have some other SANs in my collection which I had used for other projects: NetApp FAS3020, Equallogic PS6100 and PS4000, and a MDS 3800i.

[eluded]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

It is. The storage array is a Dell/Compellent SC4020 with 25TB of storage. It was 50TB but I decided to offline the DAS shelf because I didn't need all of it online at once. Main reason why I'm running the SAN is for shared storage for my VMware vSphere 6.5 cluster. I need shared storage to be able to do various things such as vMotion. I have some other SANs in my collection which I had used for other projects: NetApp FAS3020, Equallogic PS6100 and PS4000, and a MDS 3800i.

Nice collection. I miss the good ole days.

[JasonCSU]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

It is. The storage array is a Dell/Compellent SC4020 with 25TB of storage. It was 50TB but I decided to offline the DAS shelf because I didn't need all of it online at once. Main reason why I'm running the SAN is for shared storage for my VMware vSphere 6.5 cluster. I need shared storage to be able to do various things such as vMotion. I have some other SANs in my collection which I had used for other projects: NetApp FAS3020, Equallogic PS6100 and PS4000, and a MDS 3800i.

Damn, that is some serious storage for a home network. I use similar equipment in my company's data center.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by JasonCSU

Damn, that is some serious storage for a home network. I use similar equipment in my company's data center.

One of the perks of my job field/area. Not every Sales Engineer needs to go to the extreme I have but I try to stay relevant and hands on. It shows when I speak to clients/customers and why I've been pretty successful thus far. The equipment is also my own personal work demo lab. I have run a number of demonstrations in front of customers from my home lab/network if I have Internet access.

Not to mention, I'm a tech nerd and love doing this crap on my spare time.

[Dog Face Pony Soldier]

Originally Posted by corn18

Yup. 2xCat6 to key rooms, RG6 for those cable / sat TV folks to any room with a TV. Run a conduit from the basement to the attic. Then use non of it once I move in.

Corn, make sure you're having them run at least 2 (I'd run 3) CAT6e to every TV location. You don't want to be relying on WiFi for streaming video. This should be considered a standard setup in 2020. I'd go so far as saying I'd be concerned if your low-voltage contractor didn't recommend this without your suggesting it.