Greetings,
I've been scouring the net for what bits and pieces I can. But I want to verify my choices.
I want to wire my house with Gig E. I will install wall jacks in 6 rooms, each with 6 ports. 4 of the ports will be used as inputs. 1 will be a dedicated ethernet uplink and 1 will be a dedicated RJ-11. The purpose of the uplink and RJ-11 is so I can move my DSL into any room, plug from the phone jack to the RJ-11, and it'll in-turn wire into the DSL modem in the closet. The same for the ethernet uplink, so I can switch to cable/satellite broadband and just plug it into any uplink rather than running another wire throught the house.
Question 1: That said, in the "datacenter" closet I will install a 24-port Gig E switch. Each of the wall ports will lead into the closet. The cabling I should be using is solid wire I gather. Should it be plenum? or is UTP sufficient (standard residential). There is a significant price difference.
Question 2: The wires should terminate at a patch panel? From the patch panel to the switch using no more than 3ft./1m patch cable, standard twisted? Some places mention a punch-down board or something like that? Is it necessary? Is there any reason I can't just terminate the wall cables with standard cat6 connectors and directly plug into the switch and avoid the patch panel all-together?
I thought about running a single wire to the walls, then using the 3COM wall-mount 4-port switch with 2 uplinks. Look exactly like what I'd need. But it is limited to T 10/100 and won't do Gig E. Also, it is $179 each box. I'd need 6 of them. The price is too high so I'll do it the old fashioned way.
Question 3: Do I run the cables directly through the walls or should I run them through something like PVC? Do I use a plastic or a metal box that the wall plate bolts to?
I will installing a vent into the door of the close for ventilation and will also install a fan into the room to help keep it cool in there, can get hot in the summer days. I might, but not sure, extend my standar A/C to vent the closet. I plan to put my NAS boxes in there, I have a few multi-terabyte RAID NAS devices that I'd like to move out of my computer room.
Thanks, Shawn