Hi all,

I’m in the process of installing ethernet (cat 6) at my new home. The house had only coaxial cables installed so I’m replacing most of them with ethernet so I can connect my APs, home lab which I’m still assembling, my main gaming PC and office computer.

The house is about 30 years old and it’s made of stone, concrete and brick so I try to break walls to a minimum. (I live in Portugal) that’s why I’m “recycling” the coaxial PVC installation and replacing it with ethernet, and then tie everything together with switches.

Home network

The home network will look like this and I’m posting this asking for help in deciding what switches to buy.

I had networking in college when I was studying CS but that was a long time ago, so I’m using this project to learn more about it.

I already bought the APs > TP-Link EAP610 with wifi 6, so most of my network needs to be at least 2.5Gbs. I also bought the NIC for the homelab and the plan is to virtualize the router/firewall with pfSense.

Because I’m learning network + how to do homelab (future home server) I don’t know what features are a must-have, beside VLAN.

In the future, I will also install some cameras outside (cable connected) and have some more raspberry pies but that part of the network only needs to be 1Gbs.

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Having all this said, I will need to buy the following switches:

- Switch 12 port 2.5Gbs (x1)

- Switch 5 port 2.5Gbs (x2)

- Switch 5 port 1Gbs (x2)

What do you recommend without breaking the bank account?

Thank you in advance for the help.