Cabling - The best route to take....

[craggus]

There are three offices at work, each containing 5-6 stand alone PC's. I want to create a client/server network - the server will be located in a fourth office.

As far as I can tell, there are two ways I could run the cabling in this system...
(1) Run a cable from every individual computer to a hub/switch in the fourth (server) office.
(2) Have a hub in each office, connect the computers in that office to it and then run one cable from each office hub to a switch in the fourth (server) office.

I can see advantages / disadvantages of both methods...
(1 - costs more for the cabling, but all equipment would be located in one office for administration purposes, 2 - costs less for cabling, but each hub is located in a seperate office). Can anyone share with me any practical reasons why I should choose one method over another? Or indeed, am I missing anything blatantly obvious?? {The offices are ~20 metres from each other, if that should make any difference to the solution)

Many thanks.

 

[jimbopalmer]

in method 1, each Device can have 100 Meg bandwidth, while in 2 each Office gets 100 meg to share. If the main switch gets confued in 2 it will turn off entire offices, rather than the offending machines. I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[novellhotrod]

This also depends on how professional you want it to look, and how quick you want to troubleshoot. If you run the cabling to 1 room, put in a 12 port patch pannel, connect a switch 10/100. If I were going to run 1 you might as well run 2, things grow. You may want to also network Printers. You never get told the whole story, but things grow, better to plan for the future and be safe. Makes trouble shooting easier, instead of searching all over.

Do it right the first time... good luck

 

[designgirl]

at work we ran all to one hub in a closet in an office - peer to peer. Now that we are going to a server, the hub is badly placed but wiring costs require that I work around this problem. when choosing your option make sure you look to all(as many scenarios)possible before finalizing anything.
Good Luck

 

[daronwilson]

Uh...how can the hub be badly placed? It only takes one wire from it to the server, you could put the server almost anywhere.

Generally it is advisable to home run as much as you can, keeping in mind length of wire runs. Unless you have large clusters that could easily be served by a switch for that area and then a backbone between the closets, home runs are generally the way to go.

I generally overwire, which means I dont have to go back and do it over and over. It makes me less money at first, but it saves the customer money in the long run. Many customers of mine just have me pull two runs to every location right to start with. Gives you lots of room for growth, and most of the expense is in the labor, pulling two doesnt take much more labor than pulling one wire in.

Hope that helps, good luck.
It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com