SOHO Network & Infrastructure Design

[Glenn]

Hi, I am planning the following “rip and replace” upgrade for my SOHO network. I am interested in any thoughts / critiques. The network needs to support the following:

Existing Clients:
2x iPhones (but this will increase to 4x)
4x iPads
2x iMacs
1x MacBook Air
5x Apple TVs
3x Sonos speakers
1x Bluesound PowerNode
1x HP MFP Scanner / Laser Printer

Existing “Servers”
1x MacBook Pro as always on iTunes video server + CrashPlan client/server
2x Synology 413J (One as storage NAS, other as pure backup of 1st)
1x Whitebox Intel server as Sophos UTM (Main concern is Web-filtering as I have young sons) is also DNS & DHCP server & firewall

Existing LAN/Wireless
1x TP-Link 48port “dumb” switch
2x Airport Extreme AC routers setup as Wireless access points (UTM does routing)

With the obvious exceptions of the iPads/iPhones & MBA, all devices are wired to the existing switch with CAT6a

Services Required:
AFP, SMB, NFS File-sharing
iTunes Server (For Video on the ATVs)
Crashplan
Web Filtering & Firewall (Sophos UTM)

Upgrade Plan:
Mac Mini 7,3 running ESXi 6.0 / VM storage via iSCSI (or NFS)
Synology 415+ as iSCSI LUN for above ESXi host
1x VM Sophos UTM
1x VM OSX 10.X running the iTunes Server + Crashplan Client/Server
1x TP-LINK TL-SG2452 (VLAN Capable switch)
Reconfig Airport Extreme with Guest Network (not currently possible as existing switch doesn’t pass VLAN packets)
Reconfig existing 1x 413J as backup for 415+
Backup iSCSI LUN from 415+ to 413J
Rsync OSX 10.x to 413J as well (as I want local file level backup)
Crashplan off-site to Crashplan central as well as remote friends (as currently)
Act as Crashplan location to friends (as currently)

My ultimate plan is to reduce the amount of electricity I am using, while increasing the robustness of the entire infrastructure (as much as is possible)

Any thoughts on what I might be missing?

Thanks!

 

[System Error Message]

some tips you could do to reduce electricity is to use less devices at a time. If bandwidth or speed isnt your concern you can undervolt your systems or even underclock them, use 1 apple airport instead of 2 and not introduce additional devices to run 24/7.

You could also switch to a green switch. Other things you could do is have the servers sleep when idle or even hibernate and use wake on LAN. Sleep wont introduce any delay for requests but to boot from power down would have a significant wait before it is active.

You can also reduce wireless transmit power if every milliwatt is important and unplug clients when not in use. You should consider using just 1 switch only instead of 2.

 

[azazel1024]

some tips you could do to reduce electricity is to use less devices at a time. If bandwidth or speed isnt your concern you can undervolt your systems or even underclock them, use 1 apple airport instead of 2 and not introduce additional devices to run 24/7.

You could also switch to a green switch. Other things you could do is have the servers sleep when idle or even hibernate and use wake on LAN. Sleep wont introduce any delay for requests but to boot from power down would have a significant wait before it is active.

You can also reduce wireless transmit power if every milliwatt is important and unplug clients when not in use. You should consider using just 1 switch only instead of 2.

The issue is that WOL is going to require a manual request to wake the server. Wake on pattern match and such forth leads to frequent wakes from sleep. Also even the best systems are going to take 2-3s to resume from sleep and be functional on the network again.

I'd just set agressive drive parking (something like 10-15 minutes) on the server drives.

I'd eliminate devices on the network that aren't needed, from what it sounds like, you plan to have a Mac Mini, plus a 415 and a 413 (I assume ditching the second 413?)...if they are all running storage, that is extra devices. I'd just worry about running primary storage off the Mac Mini and the 415 backing it up and leave it at that. If you need tertiary onsight back-up, i'd hang an extrnal enclosure off the 415 and run it as a seperate volume backing up the internal volume on the 415 to that.

If you want them all, if the 415 and 413 are primarily backups, I'd make sure I have agressive sleep settings, possibly only having them awake during the window of backups (whether it is hourly, daily or weekly).

The SG2452 seems like overkill unless you have a lot more wired ports spread through your house than it sounds like. A 24 port switch sounds more up your alley. From what I know of that series of TP-Link switches, oversizing isn't going to greatly increase power consumption, but it will use a bit more power than a smaller switch.

I'd also disable the ports that are not actively in use (it won't save much, but it'll save at least a few dozen miliwatts per disabled port as it won't be constantly looking to see if there is a connected device).