Home Network Design with PoE and Link Aggregation for NAS

[hypern]

Hi all,

Newbie to networking here… I have a design that I would like to achieve in my home and various rooms already have CAT6 cables laid. From what I require below, I think I may require a modem, a wired managed switch, wired switch with PoE and 2 wireless access points. I would like to keep my wireless access points separate from the rest of the equipment, so that when WIFI specs changes, I simply have to replace the access points.

The below are the equipment and cabling for the room. Please help to comment on my equipment proposed here and would there be any potential conflict in the settings? Thanks in advance!

Room 1
- Termination point for WAN connection, bandwidth 1 Gbps
- CAT 6 cables terminating in 4 other rooms terminates here, including the 2 specified below
- Wireless access point to provide WIFI for the home here
-> Equipment proposed:
1. Cisco RV325 Dual Gigabit WAN VPN Router
2. NETGEAR R7000Nighthawk AC1900 Smart WiFi Router
3. Modem

Room 2
- CAT6 to Room 1
- Synology RS814+, hope to use 4-port link aggregation here
- 2 PCs to use gigabit connection
-> Equipment proposed: Cisco SG200-08 8-port Gigabit Smart Switch

Room 3 (living room)
- CAT6 to Room 1
- 4 IP cameras using PoE terminates here
- 1 port to connect TV to home network
- 1 port to connect to SONOS Playbar
- Apple Airport Extreme: to use as wifi extender and also use the separate wifi network for guests
-> Equipment proposed: Cisco SG200-08 8-port Gigabit Smart Switch

 

[htismaqe]

Are the 2 PCs near the NAS heavy NAS users? Or are your heaviest NAS users in another area?

The reason I ask is that you seem to be proposing dropping 4xGigE for the NAS into a switch that only has 1GigE back to the core.

 

[azazel1024]

Are the 2 PCs near the NAS heavy NAS users? Or are your heaviest NAS users in another area?

The reason I ask is that you seem to be proposing dropping 4xGigE for the NAS into a switch that only has 1GigE back to the core.

Agreed. Also...quad link aggregation? Do you need that much back-up or have that many users? Keep in mind with link aggregation, you do not get any single connection speed improvements. IE the maximum performance of any single connection is 1Gbps. All you'll get is a max throughput increase for multiple connections, IE 4+ clients can thus push/pull 4Gbps through the NAS, but the maximum any one client can do at a time is 1Gbps still.

You'll need something other than that NAS if you want >1Gbps throughput to a single client (need something supporting SMB3+ AND Windows at the moment. There might be some iSCSI protocols I don't know of that can do multichannel). This is the reason I have a windows box as my server, because I CAN hit 2Gbps over my dual links because of Windows 8 + SMB Multichannel.

 

[hypern]

Agreed. Also...quad link aggregation? Do you need that much back-up or have that many users? Keep in mind with link aggregation, you do not get any single connection speed improvements. IE the maximum performance of any single connection is 1Gbps. All you'll get is a max throughput increase for multiple connections, IE 4+ clients can thus push/pull 4Gbps through the NAS, but the maximum any one client can do at a time is 1Gbps still.

You'll need something other than that NAS if you want >1Gbps throughput to a single client (need something supporting SMB3+ AND Windows at the moment. There might be some iSCSI protocols I don't know of that can do multichannel). This is the reason I have a windows box as my server, because I CAN hit 2Gbps over my dual links because of Windows 8 + SMB Multichannel.

Thanks for the replies. I might have heavy NAS work on the PC nearby and also streaming movies from my NAS in the living room. I could do with 2 link aggregation, but I was thinking, since there are 4 ports on the NAS, why don't I just use all the 4? Are there any downsides to aggregating 4 ports vs 2?

 

[azazel1024]

Power consumption* and extra cables required. That is about it. If you don't have the links in the backbone, either other devices connected to the same switch, or in the uplink to any other switches to the devices, there isn't really a point in doing it.

*I'll grant this is minor, probably all of 1-2w per extra link, but if it litterally can't do anything for you, there doesn't seem like much of a point.

 

[Dreamslacker]

Take note of the PoE power budget of the SG200-08P switch. It will only deliver a maximum of 32W across the ports.
That means 8W max per IP camera if you are not using a separate midspan injector. If your cameras are drawing full 802.11af power, that budget will only power 2 cameras.

 

[Dreamslacker]

Thanks for the replies. I might have heavy NAS work on the PC nearby and also streaming movies from my NAS in the living room. I could do with 2 link aggregation, but I was thinking, since there are 4 ports on the NAS, why don't I just use all the 4? Are there any downsides to aggregating 4 ports vs 2?

You won't use that kind of bandwidth even in the best case scenario.
All you have is 2 x GbE links from the 2 computers and 1 GbE uplink to the living room (your cameras share this link too if you're using Surveillance station so take note).
That's a total of 3 x 1GbE worth of incoming links to the NAS. Assuming your HDD array can even keep up, you only really need 3 ports in LACP if your goal is for bandwidth.

 

[htismaqe]

That's a total of 3 x 1GbE worth of incoming links to the NAS. Assuming your HDD array can even keep up, you only really need 3 ports in LACP if your goal is for bandwidth.

And that's assuming a direct 1:1 relationship.

Chances are 1xGigE into the NAS is good enough.