Hi, can someone point me towards a good guide that will help me setup my office's wired network with one main server through which all the traffic goes while filtering everything I have blocked?
Also, I have a 5 port hub, can I work with it or do I need a bigger switch?
I only have 5 PCs in my office.
You would be way ahead to invest in a good 8 or 16 port switch which supports Jumbo Frames. I presume you would want internet connectivity as well in which case you should invest in the best router your budget can afford and that too should support Jumbo Frames. I assume that you have a windows based server so the question there is what kind of hardware powers the server?
This actual configuration of a small office connection wise is fairly simple, All computers and the router attached to a good quality switch should serve you well. If there will be a lot of traffic run through your server and your hardware supports has or support two NIC's then it would be a good idea to Team a Pair together which would provide failover ability. Should work well as long as you have the hardware to support it. You get what you pay for!
In order to use Jumbo Frames in your network keep in mind that all connections must support it or it will not work.
Railtech the OP does not need a switch that handles Jumbo Frames. Any dumb swith like the Netgear GS series works just fine.
lolcocks You would need to use a router project like Pfsense for handling those items.
The best way to block access is to use a Proxy Server with something like OpenDns to handle the filtering.
You do not need a bigger switch. I use the Netgear GS-108, because I have a total of 10 wired devices that are split between the GS-108 & my Cisco RV-320.
You can find good deals on Newegg for a decent Gateway with onboard filtering. It will cost a little more, but it would get rid of having to wait for the Gateway to get a return back from OpenDns.
It is really what you are wanting to do with the Network. Personally I would run all computers through a Domain, have decent storage, so that you have enough room for email storage and also for backups.
I want to say that the gear I have listed in my profile, I probably spent close to a $1000.00 for that particular setup. I have had Zero issues with my network.
bro67,
Your right, does the OP need Jumbo Frame support? No not needed but if supported and fully enabled can expect 30% to 40% greater throughput.
No they do not. Majority of the stuff you connect to in the home will be 100 mb/s or Wireless N. Only thing on my network that supports Jumbo Frames is my NAS. With nothing else with Jumbo, the NAS works just fine.
I'm sure your NAS does work just fine. That is not the point however. The point is that if your equipment supports the Jumbo Frame standard then you can leverage that standard to your advantage to effectively increase overall throughput. The Jumbo Frames standard is wired connection specific so wireless plays no role here either.
My network equipment which is all gigabit standard and supports Jumbo Frames standard has Jumbo Frames enabled on all devices. I can reliably and easily push from 145Mbps to 200Mbps of data across the network to my NAS which has 4 HDD's in a data pool set.
Other network traffic, for example from one computers SSD drive to another computers SSD drive achieves 450Mbps plus. In this case I can use Windows Task Manager Performance view with my ethernet connection selected and watch a data transfer from start to finish and it is typical to see the speeds I have indicated. It is also typical to see short period bursts in excess of 750Mbps during such transfers.
Before I was able to take advantage of Jumbo Frames on my network these same transfers would show 30 to 40 percent less.
