What, like the CCNA? Which I achieved and it expired last year, and got me nowhere?
MystikIncarnate
I prefer linkin_park_numb.mp3.com
It just hit different
I feel this, especially since I'm more into networking, but my work is more generalist.
I open my mouth about networking and people's eyes glaze over. Even very experienced senior people can't really understand what I'm talking about when it comes to some of the more intermediary networking concepts. Meanwhile I tune into a podcast that's networking focused and they're basically speaking Latin for me.
There's so much that I don't know. I get the broad strokes of things but I'm hopelessly lost on so many of the more nuanced bits of networking.
I really want to break away from generalist work and get into a network focused position, but after 10 years as a generalist in various MSP companies, most places won't take me seriously as a networker and won't even sit down for an interview.
I'm good at other stuff, damn near expert level with some things, but my passion is networks and the workplaces I've been at just don't care to help me learn any of it. My current place barely has any networking more complex than a profile based L2L VPN.... Switches are basically ignored, and VLANs are rare.
I facepalm every time I discover that the guest network is just bridged into the same subnet as the LAN. I've raised the issue a few times and never been given the green light to fix it, often because the network isn't able to be managed remotely.
You kids. Got off my lawn. Leave me in peace with my scour.net.
I don't think either answer is wrong.
I've been doing IT work for more than a decade, I was a nerd/"computer guy" well before that. I've had a focus on networking in the past 15-20 years. You learn a few things.
I try to be humble and learn what I can where I can, I know that I definitely do not know everything about it, and at the same time I try to be generous and share what I've learned when I can.
So if you have questions, just ask. I either already know, or I can at least point you in the right direction.
It definitely sounds like you have some challenges ahead. I personally prefer MoCA over wireless, simply because you can control what devices are able to be a part of the network, and reduce the overall interference from external sources and connections.
With WiFi, being half duplex, only one station can transmit at a time (with come caveats). Whether that station is a part of your network, or it is simply operating on the same frequency/channel, doesn't matter. So in high density environments, you can kind of get screwed by neighbors.
MoCA is also half duplex (at least it was the last time I checked) so having a 2.5G MoCA link, to a 1GbE connection (on the ethernet side) should provide similar, or the same experience as pure ethernet (1G full duplex)... The "extra" bandwidth on the MoCA will allow for each station to send and receive at approximately 1Gbps without stepping on eachother so much that you have degraded performance.
However, it really depends on your situation to say what should or shouldn't be setup. I don't know your bandwidth requirements, so I can't really say. The nice thing about ethernet is that it on switched networks (which is what you'll be using for gigabit), the. Ethernet kind of naturally defaults to the shortest path, unless you're doing something foolish with it (like intentionally messing with STP to push traffic in a particular direction). The issue with that is that ethernet doesn't really scale beyond a few thousand nodes. Not an issue for even a fairly large LAN, but that's the reason we don't use it for internet (wan side) traffic routing. But now I'm off topic.
Given the naturally shortest-path behavior of ethernet, of you have a switch in your office and you only really use your NAS from your office PC, you'll have a full speed experience. If nothing else needs high-speed access to the NAS, you'll be fine.
Apart from the NAS or any other LAN resources, the network should be sufficient to fully saturate your internet connection. So the average WiFi speeds should be targeted towards something faster than your internet link (again, half duplex factors in here). I don't know your internet speed so I'm not going to even guess what the numbers should be, but I personally aim for double my internet speed for maximum throughput on my WiFi as much as I can. The closer you can get to doubling your internet speed here, the better. Anything more than that will likely be wasted.
There's a ton to say about WiFi and performance optimization, but I'll leave it alone unless you ask about it further.
Good luck.
It can be faster, it really depends on whether you have a clear-ish channel for the mesh, which is why I would recommend something on the higher end, hopefully with a dedicated radio for mesh, so it can be on a different channel with (hopefully) less interference.
If the mesh radio is shared with client access, or if it's on a busy channel, it may be much, much slower than some options.
Hello friend.
You can get 2.5gbps MoCA now. You may want to consider upgrading.
Nice username btw
Depending on where you live and what your power circuits look like (not the outlets, the circuits that power them), you may have a great, or very poor experience.
I'd need to know what country you live in to know more, since power wiring standards vary from country to country. In the USA and Canada (I'm in Canada and the USA is the same), we use split phase and crossing the split phase will severely hinder the ability for powerline to perform.
It's a viable option, not my favorite option, I'd recommend MoCA (coax) over powerline, but it's ultimately up to you.
IMO, powerline is going to depend on a lot of factors including what kind of power you use, which varies from country to country. Where I am in North America, we use 240v split phase, and the powerline adapters are 120v (half phase), so if one unit ends up on one side of the phase, and one ends up on the other side of the phase, you're going to have a bad time, if it links at all.... So knowing which "side" of the split phase your powerline is on becomes critical, which is not something most people know about their power situation. As a result, it's basically a crap shoot whether it will work well or not.
Yep, I'm sure they do.
Realistically, does any average consumer know what's on which circuit?
Spanning the split phase will screw you up, across breakers won't be fun but shouldn't pose any serious problems, as long as it's not in different sides of the split phase.
I'm pretty sure they say this because actually explaining what will work and what won't either requires significant prior knowledge of power systems, or a couple of paragraphs of explainers before you can get a rough picture of what the hell they're driving at.
Everyone I know who has used powerline, just plug it in and see if it works. Those who were lucky, say it's great and works without issue, etc. Those who were not lucky say the opposite.
I'm just over here watching the fireworks, eating popcorn.