Cable Forum - View Single Post

zovat · 31-03-2005, 14:18

Personally I would recommend running a cable per device.

One reason behind this is that although you only have 10Mb cards, if you have too many devices on one hub then you may get performance degradation.

If you choose to put only 1 cable per office, then put in switches rather than hubs, as these will limit any bottleneck effect.

The other reason for using a cable/device is flexibility.....
If you get someone who needs a couple of extra devices in that room for a week or so (or even permanently) then you can add a switch to an existing cable, however, if you already have a switch, and add a switch to one port of the existing switch (daisychaining) you will reduce the bandwidth avilable to those devices dramatically.

Oh and cost - a bigger router/switch and a few extra cables will cost less that a smaller router and a number of switches/hubs for the rooms.

(and apart from anything else, it just looks nicer when all the switching/routing kit in centralised)
If you are installing VOIP phones, most of these have a "hub" connector themselves, so that you can run both the phone, and the PC off of the same cable.

If you are going to have a printer shared from the PC, then no network required, but that will slow down the PC if others print to it.

Where possible, I would run the printers on a seperate cable from the patch panel. This is mainly because printers can take up a lot of bandwidth, and I hate the idea that a room can go slow because of a printer.

As always, these are my opinions only..

31-03-2005, 14:18	#10
zovat Inactive Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Bracknell Age: 54 Services: NTL Telephone 3M Broadband - CM Sky TV Posts: 1,246	Re: Building a network in a small office. Personally I would recommend running a cable per device. One reason behind this is that although you only have 10Mb cards, if you have too many devices on one hub then you may get performance degradation. If you choose to put only 1 cable per office, then put in switches rather than hubs, as these will limit any bottleneck effect. The other reason for using a cable/device is flexibility..... If you get someone who needs a couple of extra devices in that room for a week or so (or even permanently) then you can add a switch to an existing cable, however, if you already have a switch, and add a switch to one port of the existing switch (daisychaining) you will reduce the bandwidth avilable to those devices dramatically. Oh and cost - a bigger router/switch and a few extra cables will cost less that a smaller router and a number of switches/hubs for the rooms. (and apart from anything else, it just looks nicer when all the switching/routing kit in centralised) If you are installing VOIP phones, most of these have a "hub" connector themselves, so that you can run both the phone, and the PC off of the same cable. If you are going to have a printer shared from the PC, then no network required, but that will slow down the PC if others print to it. Where possible, I would run the printers on a seperate cable from the patch panel. This is mainly because printers can take up a lot of bandwidth, and I hate the idea that a room can go slow because of a printer. As always, these are my opinions only..