I’m new to this community and actively learning about setting up a network for my new home. I’m thinking on a 24-26 Gigabit PoE managed switch l but after having read a few model reviews from brands like TP Link and NetGear, I hear the fans are so loud that people actually look to replace them. Is it really that bad? Should I go that route or are there options for quieter ones? I was a NetGear model but now I’m unsure.
Help is much appreciated.
If you need 26 ports you need a 48 port switch. I have an online UPS, that is loud so I don’t hear the switch unless I toggle the fan to high and I’m right in front of it. Closing the closet door muffles the sound enough.
My 24 port POE switch is pretty loud. But I have it in my attic along with a bunch of other loud electronic equipment. I also have an 10 port POE switch from TP link which is completely silent. Do you really need 24-26 POE ports?
Currently, I’ve got 6 cat cables going to rooms, 4 PoE cameras and 1 NAS. For certain rooms like a TV room that will have multiple devices like an Xbox, I was thinking of just putting a dummy splitter at that location. So maybe 24 is overkill but I wanted to give myself some room to expand.
So sounds like you need 4 PoE ports.
You can get a silent 24 port switch and you can get a silent 8 port POE switch, but a 24 port POE switch is designed for 350w (at least, more if its POE+) of consumption, so you’re going to be dealing with active cooling, and considering most are designed to be rackmounted, that means small high RPM fans.
If you care about noise i’d just get 2 switches, one for POE and one for non POE.
Also, a house is not an office building or a hotel. You might have cat 6 in every room, but most people dont randomly plug and unplug in hardwired network devices in different rooms in their home. As someone whose had a home network for over a decade, i find it perfectly fine to go upstairs and connect a new patch cable when I plug in a new device to a previously unused port. So instead of sizing the switch for every possible connection you might make, size it for what you need now + a little margin, and who knows, maybe by the time you need the rest of those ports, 10G switches and network devices will have become more common and affordable.
This makes perfect sense and thanks for taking the time to provide your input. Two switches sounds like the way to go for now. And you’re right, once I set up everything I want in the home, I’m more than likely not to add a lot more devices thereafter. You have any recommendations? If not, I understand.