Home network setup - which route to take?

[P Zero]

Hi folks,

I'm just about to move into my own house, so I finally have the opportunity to tear up the floors and fill them with cables. I already have a network set up in my current rented place, but its sort of a mess and data ends up all over the place. I want to take the opportunity to build a proper, organised network to fit my needs;

• HTPC for media centre and gaming in the living room
• HTPC for media centre in the bedroom
• Work computer in the study
• Must have centralised data storage
• Server must have one raid array for sensitive data

I want to be able to use the HTPC in the living room for watching and recording TV, watching DVD's and Bluray's, listening to music and playing the odd game. This computer will be used the most, so its already pretty busy.

The work computer needs to be dedicated to working, ie, when it crashes I dont want it to disturb viewing on the other computers.

So apart from setting up yet another computer, I was wondering if I could get away with using the HTPC in the bedroom as a server too? Unlike the work computer and the HTPC in the living room, it wont get used much, just for watching the odd bit of TV or a movie, and it could be located in the study next door with the printer hooked up to it.

Sorry for the long winded explanation.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Knight Time]

I would be more inclined to use the lounge HTPC as the centralised data server. I have my server quite close to my bedroom and without the door shut I can hear the hard disks rattling at night when it's downloading torrents.

I would imagine that when you are using the lounge HTPC for DVDs etc that the load from the other computers would be very light.

[peterb]

The important bit is to make sure you get the cables and data ports in the right place - you can worry about where the servers go later. (One option might be a garage, or a spare bedroom, or a cupboard under the stairs)

Depending on the size of your living room, you may want to put at least two connection points at each end, or even two at each corner. Probably at least one if not two in each bedroom. The next decision will be where they terminate - ideally that will be where your broadband connection lives, and perhaps where the server might go. If it is purely a server, you can remote desktop into it and so it can be dead headed (no monitor) - it could even go into an attic space.

To do the job properly you should terminate the cables at a patch panel. You will have far more connection points than you will use at any one time, so you need to patch them to the ports on your switch as required.

You should be looking at installing Cat5e - good enough for Gigabit speeds if yoiu wish. Just take care over installation - don't crush the cable, and stick to a common cabling standard.

So Decisions are

1. Where are you likely to want to access the data/position client computers?

2. Where will the patch panel and 'network centre' be?

3. Where might you put the server(s)?

The more flexible you are with the wiring, the more scope you have for positioning the computers later.

Depending on the size of the study, that might be the place for the patch panel, work computer, file server, broadband router and any switches you may need.

[P Zero]

Thanks guys.

The study is next to the bedroom, so I was going to locate the server, patch panel and incoming broadband, telephone and television there so I can patch them to various locations throughout the flat. I dont have a loft or a garage, but the HTPC in the living room will be in a cupboard and the HTPC for the bedroom will be located in the study, so I don't think noise will be an issue.

I am most worried about load on the living room HTPC and work computer. If I'm playing a game in the living room, I dont want to have to pause torrents, etc.

I am not so familiar with the TV aspects of media centre. Am I able to specify a network drive as a save location for TV shows? Can I watch recorded TV shows from a network drive? And this is probably a long shot, but am I able to set another computer to recored a TV show from the one I am currently using?