As referenced on other treads during house renovation I’m hard wiring Ethernet around the house.
I have received the following form the chap doing the work…
You have 25 Data points in total around the house. 8no. Data points on First Floor 3no. Data points in Kitchen 6no. Data points in Music Room (including office area to the front) 5no. Data points in Living Room 3no. Data points in Band Room + your internet feed to both panels and 2no. NAS So 29 connections in total.
You will have 2no. Patch panels (as max. 24 ports per panel), so yes, you will have 2no. switch panels.
I don’t think he is correct saying:
the ether net needs to be connected to the patch panel, surely it’s the switch that this is connected to (from a cable modem router)
similarly the NASs would not be connected to the patch panel?
also there are bigger patch panels than 24 no. ones?
Do I know even less than I thought about networking?
Yes, of course. Here is just a quick example (don’t take it for a true suggestion)
I would say that depends on placement. If the wiring closet is also housing the internet feed (aka cable modem router), then it should be able to plug directly into one of the switches it is sitting near. Same for the NAS.
Why 2 24 port switches instead of 1 48 port switch? Like this one
If you’re not going to have something plugged into every port on day one, you could always just start off with a 24 port switch (or smaller even) and expand as you grow. Having 30 patch points doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be using them, half my patch panel was empty fir a year or so, but most are occupied now. But of course if you think you’ll be using them all, get a bigger switch to start with. That said, if you think you’ll be using every socket on day one, you probably haven’t put enough in!
Can’t see what the worry is with 2x24 patch panels v 48. It’s just the cable terminations and most will just have short patch wires to your switch(es). It makes no difference how you do it really.
If you daisy chain switches just bear in mind - in the most basic home unmanaged type setup without fibre etc - you’ll be sending all traffic for the secondary switches down one wire, which will reduce bandwidth. But practically speaking you won’t notice unless you’re shifting huge data. I have a secondary 8 port switch in the office because I moved office setup to a different room that had fewer sockets, so I ended up with the kit that shifts the most data on a shared switch which connects to the main switch over a single cat 5. I can’t remember a time I really noticed TBH.
Personally I would get a ‘plus’ type switch rather than truly unmanaged. The web interfaces offer useful info like error stats and some other config options that can be useful without needing to be a certified network engineer to understand it.