Upgrade Your Router by Adding a Network Switch 

Looks well thought out, arranged and cable managed etc. I'd say more than good enough imo. Especially for a room dedicated to just this one task.

Nice video Brett

Surprised you didn't go with POE, it's always a good option to have in the future.

I wanna start building my smart home network and Im gonna copy your network room. Haha

Brett, how were you able to plug your TV into the network switch? The TV's ethernet cable has to be extremely extremely long, from the living room, to this little room? Thanks for an answer!

I dont think he has any unused port. 😂

Where are the cooling vents/holes on the switch? Obviously they should be top and sides if mounted appropriately :) and this one is NOT mounted appropriately.....

you can always get an anti dust cover...

@@noest1431 Maybe simple preparation before performing the job would be good too? ;)

I would rotate the switch 90deg so ports are protected from dust but lights easily viewed

Wow this a great summation! I always felt that using an unmanaged switch wouldn't take advantage of his gig internet and would have to share that data rate cross all 15 devices if he had all of the ports active. Not as dumb of a switch as I thought. I currently have the same 8 port switch that he replaced and only have devices connected that don't need gig speeds. I might see if a more demanding device can access the full duplex through one of my switch's ports.

Yeah but can I still get porn 😆

Thank you! It has been a great way to keep everything organized.

You mean to say, you have to make sure there is only one DHCP server in the network.

@@Engineer9736 No I meant to say bridge mode. You're mixing DHCP with NAT. They aren't the same thing. There is a reason it is called double NAT not double DHCP.

@@5280Woodworking what do these letters stand for DHCP & NAT thanks 👍

@@davidbell7094 20 years ago you could not google these terms. Today you can.

@@ggttuuxx you are the styoooobid

Lol.

You'd be amazed to see a switch weighing 150kg and having 192 ports. 🙃

You lost me at dmz 😂

Thanks 😎✌️

Do you have to setup DMZ when running WiFi and Ethernet. Which systems are you running under DMZ, gaming?

This video is about adding a switch to your network. WTF does DMZ have to do with a switch when a Level 2 switch doesn't even have an IP address?

@@dennisanderson8663 lol ¡

If you upgrade from an older router, you can disable the routing functionality on the old one and basically just use it as a switch/wireless access point. Good way to repurpose older stuff

These switches by TPLINK are superb. I bought them for a project and theyve seriously out performed. Don't expect more than the box claims tho

^^^^^ YES!!!! WTF??? WHY???

Llllllllllllllllllllllllll llllllllllll!!!!!! llllllllllllllllllllllllll llllllllllll to work on it for a while now but I'll be there in about a half hour to work on it again in a restaurant tpp to bed

Yes this

🤫

Excellent question and I just recently did this in my parents home and will see if I can turn the footage into a full video about it. We bought Cat 5e cables in 100' lengths and started at were the switch was and use some fish line to route it through the attic and then drilled a hole in the frame of the wall to drop the cable down in the rooms. Then you need a crimper to crimp each end of the cable. There are quite a few videos on this you can find by searching "how to run ethernet cable." It can certainly be done DIY but for more hard to reach places and installer might be worth the price.

Yep! Saves thirteenth minutes of your life.

Will do!

Second this, I want to do this myself

Support this comment!

@@TechWithBrett cat6?

Eagerly waiting for this one!!

Great idea. I have a Wifi point but it is just mesh. No port available on it.

I believe the answer to this is no. Reason being, most residential Internet Service Providers (ISP) give you one public IP. That IP allows you to access the internet and the amount of bandwidth your ISP has allocated to you. Your modem (unless it has a built in router) has no ability to create or manage a private network or private network addresses. A basic switch also has no ability to dynamically manage a network. That is what the router does. If you plug the switch into the modem before the router, multiple devices into the switch and then the router, whichever device grabs your public IP first will be the only device with internet as there is only one IP address available and nothing left for the other devices to use. By connecting the modem to the routers WAN port, it will get the public IP and bandwidth from the ISP, then it creates a private network and assigns private IP addresses to each device on your network as well as manages all the traffic to ensure each device maintains a clean connection to the internet as well as doing its best to allocate the amount of available bandwidth to each device as needed. (Disclaimer: I took a couple networking classes about 8 years ago so some of this may not be fully accurate so anyone currently in the field, feel free to correct any inaccuracies)

That is correct and way more detail than I could ever be. The Switch needs to come after the router so that is can do the routing of the internet on the switch.

@@RolloC84 This information is absolutely true today. I can confirm this as a network admin / admin engineer. On my home network I use a switch between my modem and router. I have 3 static IP addresses from my ISP. One is programmed into my router, one into a game console, and one into a VoIP system. I think for my setup the static IPs are well worth the minimal cost.

@@TechWithBrett It is true, unless you have multiple public IP addresses. Most people probably do not.

Yep, my thoughts too. I don’t know how good the Nest Wi-Fi DHCP settings are though (for avoiding the addresses allocated by the router).

My guess is the router+modem is in modem only mode and the nest wifi is doing all the routing hence his setup. So his switch is connected directly to the router which is the nest WiFi.

That isn't really possible with the Nest WiFi since you can't disable DHCP on it. I have one, and I verified in the settings. The best you can do is change the pool of IPs. I suppose limiting it to 1 device is effectively turning it off, but as victorescu said, he's better off just using the router as a modem than doing that.

Yup. But that would defeat the purpose of the wifi network if he's managing everything through the nest and not through the isp router.

I tried this setup with a Motorola modem connected to my TP-Link smart switch and a Linksys wireless router. Changed out the modem with a Netgear CM11000 and then the I could not get the wireless to work anymore. Any ideas if I have to setup a different vlan settings on the switch?

Great question. My original reason was for simplicity and the fact that I am already controlling most of my home through the Google Home app so it it just made the most sense. Lately I have been hearing great things about the Unifi system and might possibly upgrade after I have 1GB fiber in the home. It all depends if the Nest Wifi can push those types of speeds without an issues.

I use the Archer AX 6000 from Tp Link, have 3 floors plus terrace and front porch. Wifi goes full blast everywhere ( About 900 sq feet per floor, 3 floors). Unifi is the apple of routers, very expensive, well designed, but not better

@@philipperostin, can you tell me more about your setup? I have three floors and connection in basement. Second floor is spotty. Thank you

@@lucaslegz My house has TV cable (Coaxial) installed everywhere so I use a MOCA adapter connected to my router that send Ethernet back in the CABLES , and with anotheranotherM0ca adapter at any available cable outlet you can have ethernet any where in the house, thus you can connect an access point (or an old wifi router) any where You may need it. Its an expensive solution because these adapters are expensive but I have full speed on 3 floors and 2200 sq ft

@@philipperostin Does moca support full gigabit Ethernet speeds?

Yah. That cable modem has two Ethernet ports and two telephony ports. Though I think the modem is crap really.

@@snoflahke6575 Even if it has only one lan-port, it’s better to connect switch to the modem, and then router to the switch.

@@nikitamorozov7553 the switch is def higher quality and more secure than the router and the midem, no doubt about it. They would be better off buying any cable modem from Walmart over that Comcast nonsense

It would definitely be the change in the internet of going from 56k modems, to broadband to wireless internet. Lol.

@@TechWithBrett Lol

Plus the fact that he can save about $12 a month in rental fees.

You won't get a double NAT as long as you put the modem/router combo unit into bridge mode.

@@TurboSpeedWiFi That maybe true. But when the cable company pushes a firmware update. Modem won’t be in bridge mode any more. At least that has happened in the past.

@@robertsteich7362 Yes that stinks. I really wish ISPs would do away with these modem / router combos.

Great question. The benefit of doing it the way I did is those devices can then be secured under the the router settings I have set and it allows me to monitor their usage as well, instead of relying on the modem to do that. It would work as your have mentioned but then there would be no tracking of those devices.

Many routers required to have a direct connection to modem. Putting the switch before the router will not work.

I don't think Synology works with Network bonding. I think you'd do that with a managed switch instead (correct me if I'm wrong). The 2 NAS Ethernet ports more for redundancy or, as as it can run applications like docker or VMs so, you can reserve the 2nd port for alternate traffic.

No way that thing is doing any kind of link aggregation.

The switch doesnt the nas does. Afaik both dont need to.

@@angrynerd2103 true aggregation requires bo th sides. The NAs may be able to do load-balancing or active-standby on its own.

IKR, my home is 86 years old so cables were tricky for me.

I was thinking the same.

I think the problem is the mesh create it’s own subnet from the router. If you want to share file and media there will be problem. Best solution is connect internet to switch and change the mesh to access point

You should've seen what it use to look like... Definitely something I have thought about covering. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do it.

Ha I just asked the same question. If the nest is managing the routing it would make sense to connect to the nest but if the nest acts as a Wifi access port, then it wouldn't matter since the switch and nest would be on the same ip address. He would be better off just getting a cheaper modem the way he has it setup now instead of stacking 2 routers.

You need a router that will give internal IP addresses for the devices (DHCP is required when you are using more than a single device) and a simple firewall is a requirement these days.

@@avivb2766 Normally thats the cable modem unless its setup in bridge mode (if you say, wanted to use a pfsense firewall, or ubiquiti security gateway, for example).

Correct. But come on....SciEnCe!!

Mate, this cracked me up 😄

Haha!

Bahahaha

LOL, Thought Brett looked familar!

Hey Brett, am I doing this right?

@@TechWithBrett I am too and a couple of things. the lights on the switch have nothing to do with internet. They are simply link and activity lights. The internet isn't everything. All it is, is another form of data that can be routed through network.

It won't do link aggregation without both the NAS and the switch configured for it. In this case the switch is not capable so he can not do link aggregation. However, the NAS could be configured for load-balancing or Active/Standby with this switch.

Probably beacuse mesh network and interference

There's a million reasons why he is getting just 250Mbs. With 65 devices he would have to fire up a good wifi analyzer and do some analysis of SNR and channels.

It looks like the ISP modem is still handling the DHCP, DDOS, firewall etc

No, you can’t really do that because the router needs to come before the switch in the line. So it’s the modem then router then switch. The router is what enables your home devices on the switch to get out to the internet. The switch cannot get to the internet on its own. Routers communicate *between* different networks, like your home network and the internet. Whereas switches help the devices on the *same* network communicate with each other and the router. Hope this helps!

They do work via wired backhaul

That's a great idea! Have you tried anything that doesn't fall off after a few years?

Answer: The line between device and switch or switch and router can be maximum range of 100 meter, if you use a maximum of one gigabit in your network. So can it be save cable length to place your devices near the switch. The maximum is normally of four switches behind what mean: "router - 100m - switch - 100m - switch - 100m - switch - 100m - switch - 100m - device" => also 500m far of your router as maximal length. If you use two bridges (copper2fiber and fiber2copper) behind last switch you can start again with four switches. The length of fiber can be between 500m till 5km depends of the fiber and bridge. Do not forget, all devices (router, switch, bridge, end user device) need continuous power!

It depends on what you want for that TV. If you want to out an Xfinity cable box in that room then you would need a Coaxial line (they might be able to do it for you) and if you want better internet access with connected devices you will want to run ethernet. You could run both to the same box so you have the option for either.

your still limited the the connection speed of the device accessing the NAS. So from that one device you wont see an increase in speed. if you have multiple deuces accessing the NAS then you will see less latency while the other devices are accessing it.

I just replied to this. You need to put the modem/router in bridge mode so it is not acting as a router and DHCP server. It is a simple fix.