If your backyard doesn't get great signal from your current setup then I would definitely say add an access point would be a great addition. Beauty of your setup it that it will be easy to find out and add latter if needed.
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unplugme71's home network build thread
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If your backyard doesn't get great signal from your current setup then I would definitely say add an access point would be a great addition. Beauty of your setup it that it will be easy to find out and add latter if needed.
The house was originally built in the mid-90s. I purchased the house this past summer. The previous owner had put in fresh carpet and neutral colored walls.
I have been living in the house while doing all the work myself. Putting in the drops is fairly easy since the house is a ranch with an attic and decent sized crawl space. All the wiring is passed through the attic.
Since I'm re-doing all the rooms with colored walls and new flooring, I am not worried about running the drops as much. If I make a hole too big, I patch it up and prep it for paint.
All the wiring is Cat6. Purchased from Monoprice.
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It most likely won't. Worst case I will run another drop to the sunroom for the wireless access point.
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Just picked up two Mac Mini 2.6Ghz, 8GB, 1TB HDD on sale today. I will be installing OS X Server for primary/secondary DNS, DHCP, Open Directory, and a few other services.
Ended up getting the Sonnet Mac Mini rack that supports 2 of them in a 1U enclosure.
Mostly waiting on equipment. Some is on backorder or new arrival, so may take 3-5 weeks to arrive. I'm going to try and take more pictures of all the cable drops and such and post up this weekend.
Nice work, nothing beats wired GigE. All stationary devices that can be wired are wired at my place. Worth the effort.
Wish I could do something like this in my place. Without a full on renovation, it's not going to happen.
Take a 1 gang low voltage mounting bracket, put it up against the wall, and punch down the corners to mark it on the wall. Then get drywall blade and cut the opening out and put the 1 gang bracket in the wall and secure it. It's the orange colored ones at home depot without a box so you can still fit your fingers in the wall cavity to pull the wires. And if for whatever reason you can't do it, then just put a blank plate on and no one will notice.
Tiling can be a bit hard if its on the wall, but I don't know of any rooms that have tiling other than bathrooms and kitchens. And if you want Cat6 in the bathroom, well then, maybe you are spending too much time in there
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Update: 2/21
So I've been working on remodeling my bedroom now. Finished pulling up the carpet and pulling all the staples out of the plywood.
Hoping to finish laying down the new laminate tomorrow and figure out what color to paint the walls next week.
By then my storage array should have arrived and I can mount the mac mini's.
Take a 1 gang low voltage mounting bracket, put it up against the wall, and punch down the corners to mark it on the wall. Then get drywall blade and cut the opening out and put the 1 gang bracket in the wall and secure it. It's the orange colored ones at home depot without a box so you can still fit your fingers in the wall cavity to pull the wires. And if for whatever reason you can't do it, then just put a blank plate on and no one will notice.
Tiling can be a bit hard if its on the wall, but I don't know of any rooms that have tiling other than bathrooms and kitchens. And if you want Cat6 in the bathroom, well then, maybe you are spending too much time in there
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Update: 2/21
So I've been working on remodeling my bedroom now. Finished pulling up the carpet and pulling all the staples out of the plywood.
Hoping to finish laying down the new laminate tomorrow and figure out what color to paint the walls next week.
By then my storage array should have arrived and I can mount the mac mini's.
Fitting the plates is no issue for me, but feeding the wires is a nightmare. the internal walls in my house are plasterboard dabbed and dotted to sort of honeycomb cardboard. Too small to run wires down. The exterior walls are filled with polystyrene balls which is a nightmare if you try and do any alterations.
And I was thinking kitchen not Bathroom. We also have a solid concrete floor downstairs which means running cables under floor boards is a no no down there.
Brick walls and plaster here. Planning on getting exactly 2 runs of ethernet in the house: one going directly through a brick wall and around the outside of the house to the living room, and one going under the floor boards on the middle floor to a bedroom. Anything else and extensive drilling is required, and brick dust is a bitch
Hard drives should be arriving via UPS today. Not sure when my storage array will ship. Says preparing for shipment for a few days now. At least I'm not in a rush for it. I've updated my first post with the equipment list so far.
As for my bedroom, the flooring is finished. Still deciding on paint color.
As for my bedroom, the flooring is finished. Still deciding on paint color.
I had a similar problem, i decided to sand down the outlet plate, put plastic primer on it and then spraypaint it with an appropriate paint to match my wall color exactly. Came out great, you could always do that if you wanted to change colors of the plates. 1h effort, very low input of material
It's only one outlet, the one in the sunroom. I might give it a shot if I can't find anything online.
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My storage array should be arriving today as with the rest of the hard drives!
I wonder if the UPS driver knows what I'm building and thinks i'm crazy.. haha
And here's 4 WD RE 4TB and 1 WD Purple 4TB.
Nice way to spend over $1200 just on drives
That's what deterring me from upgrading my current network rig. Need the redundancy, but the cost of good drives these days...
Today has been somewhat of a slow day. I connected the ground terminals on both the PDU to the UPS to my copper plumbing. Should provide for adequate ground. I'll throw on a caution sticker once I find one. Waiting for the Mac Mini's to finish up their secure erase on the drives (about 2 hours remaining).
Picked up additional TB to Ethernet cables and HDMI to DVI. USPS delivered more Ethernet cables too!
I wanted to do full redundancy from power, to network, to storage, to servers but between the cost and electricity usage, it just wasn't feasible. I've already spent over 12k on my setup and I'm not 100% complete yet. The only true redundancy is DNS and DHCP services across two Mac Mini's. However, if power were to fail, or my ISP goes down, there's no network service.
I have two fiber connections into the house. Unfortunately my Ubiquiti USG only accepts one (single WAN port). The other fiber line goes straight to my Apple Airport providing guest services and "internet of things" that I don't want on my private network.
Eventually Ubiquiti will make a dual WAN USG I'm hoping and I will upgrade to that.
Picked up additional TB to Ethernet cables and HDMI to DVI. USPS delivered more Ethernet cables too!
That's what deterring me from upgrading my current network rig. Need the redundancy, but the cost of good drives these days...
I wanted to do full redundancy from power, to network, to storage, to servers but between the cost and electricity usage, it just wasn't feasible. I've already spent over 12k on my setup and I'm not 100% complete yet. The only true redundancy is DNS and DHCP services across two Mac Mini's. However, if power were to fail, or my ISP goes down, there's no network service.
I have two fiber connections into the house. Unfortunately my Ubiquiti USG only accepts one (single WAN port). The other fiber line goes straight to my Apple Airport providing guest services and "internet of things" that I don't want on my private network.
Eventually Ubiquiti will make a dual WAN USG I'm hoping and I will upgrade to that.
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