Am I thinking right? (putting in a new network at my business) - Page 1

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Am I thinking right? (putting in a new network at my business)

Posted: 4/8/2014 7:22:04 PM EDT

Building currently has no wiring run, built in '85. I just wanted to run my setup by you guys and make sure it makes sense.

There will never be more than 5 hardwired computers. If we need more than 5, we'd be moving.

First, my list of stuff.

Asus RT-N66U wireless router.
Netgear GS116 Gigabit Switch
Western Digital EX4 NAS 16TB

Broadband cable comes in the back. I was thinking leave the cable modem where it is, run cat 6 to my 'server area'. Connect from modem to router. From router to switch. Switch to NAS. Then run drops everywhere I need them for computers and equipment, with connections back to the switch.

Currently I am running everything wireless, but I have a new printer coming in that requires a hardwired network connection. We are also currently storing all our files on drop box. Not ideal, but it's working OK.

Am I missing anything? Does what I'm planning on doing make sense?

Posted: 4/8/2014 7:43:48 PM EDT

[#1]

Sounds ok, no need for CAT6 between your modem and router, CAT5e would carry the bandwidth fine and be quite a bit less $$$

Posted: 4/8/2014 7:53:21 PM EDT

[#2]

Quote History

Quoted:
Sounds ok, no need for CAT6 between your modem and router, CAT5e would carry the bandwidth fine and be quite a bit less $$$

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I bought a 500' spool of CAT6 for a couple bucks more than a 100m (328') spool of CAT5e AND got a free crimping tool.

Figured it wouldn't hurt.

Posted: 4/8/2014 7:56:01 PM EDT

[#3]

What you are planning would work but i personally would not recommend(depending on various factors of course).

Do you have a network/server admin?

If you do have a dedicated admin, then i would recommend at least soho level hardware(the NAS should work, though I personally prefer synology or qnap)
Home user level hardware does work, but it does not let you do all the nifty things that let you secure your network.
Also, is the Asus only going to be used for wireless connectivity?
Also, is gig speed a deal breaker?

Is the data you are dealing with critical?
If you need this data and network connection to be up for long periods of time, then go soho.

What downtime is acceptable?
see above

Posted: 4/8/2014 8:23:24 PM EDT

[#4]

Quote History

Quoted:
What you are planning would work but i personally would not recommend(depending on various factors of course).

Do you have a network/server admin?

If you do have a dedicated admin, then i would recommend at least soho level hardware(the NAS should work, though I personally prefer synology or qnap)
Home user level hardware does work, but it does not let you do all the nifty things that let you secure your network.
Also, is the Asus only going to be used for wireless connectivity?
Also, is gig speed a deal breaker?

Is the data you are dealing with critical?
If you need this data and network connection to be up for long periods of time, then go soho.

What downtime is acceptable?
see above

View Quote

I have essentially no idea what you said.

I'll try to answer your questions though.

No, no admin. Just me. Only 2 employees.

Asus will be used for wi-fi, primarily my wife's iPad and my Android tablet - and to serve as the router for the network switch.

Gig speed isn't a deal breaker, although all of the computers have gigabit network cards.

Data critical? Isn't it all? If we lost it, it wouldn't kill us. Our CRM/POS software stores all of the customer and financial data on a remote server. It's a PITA to access (time), so the idea is to have it accessible in house. If the server burned up in a fire, we would be capable of recovering the bulk of our data.

I don't know what SOHO means and what would be different in what I'm trying to do.

Posted: 4/8/2014 8:27:13 PM EDT

[#5]

Small Office/Home Office

Posted: 4/8/2014 8:47:22 PM EDT

[#6]

Quote History

Quoted:
Small Office/Home Office

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OK. So what's the difference?

My goals are this:

1: Connectivity between all computers in the office.
2: Connectivity to my equipment that receives print files via ethernet.
3. Shared storage.

Posted: 4/8/2014 9:30:31 PM EDT

[#7]

Well in that case the stuff you have selected will work

. The stuff I would suggest would require some moderate network knowledge(over the home use stuff), but it would only over complicate things. Though I would recommend looking at synology or qnap for your has solutions, they are pretty good. Also, definetly setup the firewall rules on the Asus router

Posted: 4/8/2014 9:33:31 PM EDT

[#8]

Quote History

Quoted:
Well in that case the stuff you have selected will work

. The stuff I would suggest would require some moderate network knowledge(over the home use stuff), but it would only over complicate things. Though I would recommend looking at synology or qnap for your has solutions, they are pretty good. Also, definetly setup the firewall rules on the Asus router

View Quote

OK. Cool.

In the future, I plan on needing much more 'professional' equipment. For now, I don't. I'm not really doing crazy stuff with lots of people.

Posted: 4/9/2014 4:01:27 AM EDT

[#9]

What you are doing is better than 70% of my small business clients.

Just remember that a NAS is not a backup, it is a copy, and a place for sharing.

Posted: 4/9/2014 4:37:56 AM EDT

[#10]

You should give Synology a serious look.

Posted: 4/9/2014 5:05:10 AM EDT

[#11]

While I don't want to discourage you from doing what you planned, since it will be better than wireless, just note that you don't need to have a wired connection to every computer just because your new printer will be wired. You can still plug it into your router/switch and use the wireless computers to print to it.

Other than that I think your setup is just fine for a small office. It will be more secure than wireless anyhow.

Posted: 4/9/2014 7:22:10 PM EDT

[#12]

Done.

Took all freaking day. Ran 9 separate drops and built 4 patch cables, all new wiring.

I can't figure out for the life of me how, but I managed to get all of the wiring right the first time! I've never built ethernet jacks or plugs before. My eyes were going sideways.

Sure am happy it all works!

Posted: 4/9/2014 10:21:16 PM EDT

[#13]

So far, it's working.

I'm sitting at home, uploading files to my server at the office. Cool!

If I decide to, the WD NAS has 3.0 USB ports. How hard would it be to backup the files on there daily, and take them home, using an external USB hard drive? As in, what I would think would be effective, would be to somehow set it to automatically back up the data at 11pm (or some other arbitrary time), and swap back up drives in the morning? That way I always have a drive offsite with my data.

Suggestions? Worth doing? Waste of time?

Posted: 4/10/2014 3:20:24 AM EDT

[#14]

Depends on how critical your data is. If it is data that doesn't change that much day to day you could go to weekly backups but if the data is constantly changing then yeah daily. Also, how much data are we talking here? Could you do your backups online(as in connect to home network and upload to hard drives there) without breaking your data caps from your ISP?

Posted: 4/10/2014 4:26:39 AM EDT

[#15]

USB drives fail all the time, we do a lot of recovery work on them. If you do use them then you need to replace them yearly.

Cloud backup is money well spent if you want to keep your data safe.

Posted: 4/10/2014 5:09:12 AM EDT

[#16]

I'll second the cloud storage. You could set an FTP transfer or use third party transfer software to back up your nas to the cloud every night.

Posted: 4/10/2014 8:21:02 AM EDT

[#17]

We had a client doing "regular backups" onto a second drive, but they never tested them. When their main computer drive took a dump, we had to reload data from a 6 month old offsite backup, and they spend oodles of time reentering data by hand.

I would try it. 2 1TB usb drives, SyncToy (or equivalent), and swap them out regularly. Then, once a year, get a new USB drive.

I'd say you can never have too many backups, but only if you can find them and date them accurately. A misfiled or mislabeled backup you can't find or use does you no good.

Posted: 4/10/2014 8:36:55 AM EDT

[#18]

Look into Crashplan.

Posted: 4/12/2014 9:39:19 PM EDT

[#19]

Kudos for doing it yourself. That's a great learning experience in my estimation. There's some good advice here, especially concerning backup strategies. I would only add that you do need an offsite solution. Any of the "cloud" (I add quotes because I have come to fucking hate that word) backup offerings should do the trick for you considering that you currently will have a relatively small amount of data to backup.

Also, it has been mentioned but I want to emphasize it: Test your restoration/recovery process and data! Make SURE that you can restore your data to a working state. Do this say, once per quarter.

Posted: 4/15/2014 2:03:34 PM EDT

[#20]

Quote History

Quoted:
Look into Crashplan.

View Quote

This!

I use it for all my backups and it keeps versions of your files, too, in case you need an earlier copy. Great for irreplaceable files like family movies, photos, etc.

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Am I thinking right? (putting in a new network at my business)

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