Leviton 21" Structred Media Cabinet - how to connect

[tmbrown97]

You've already got your switch - but for others, this one packs some nice density into a very small package:
Netgear ProSafe Plus Switch, 16-Port Gigabit Ethernet (GS116E)
 
I've said before how much I like working with the netgear products - with VLAN support in a lot of them and good form factors, and several POE options.

 

[Neurorad]

GS116 fits nicely into the Channel Vision Large Product Holder.
 

 
1 or 2 battery shelves could be used as brackets.  The depth of the switch is 1.7".
 
The Elk-SWS battery shelf is 3.25" deep.  You could modify it, use some kind of spacers (might be good for ventilation), or make your own.
 
Try a Google image search of enclosure battery shelf for others.
 
Getting creative with some aluminum angle would save $$.

 

[drvnbysound]

You've already got your switch - but for others, this one packs some nice density into a very small package:
Netgear ProSafe Plus Switch, 16-Port Gigabit Ethernet (GS116E)
 
I've said before how much I like working with the netgear products - with VLAN support in a lot of them and good form factors, and several POE options.

 
I saw this when looking, but had concern/issue with it taking up that much space in my SMC. Instead (as mentioned) I went with (2) GS108's that are literally stacked on top of each other.
 
http://www.netgear.com/service-provider/products/switches/unmanaged-desktop-switches/GS108.aspx#
 
The dimension of (1) of them is listed as 6.2"W x 4.1"D x 1.1"H. So with both of mine stacked I'm taking up 6.2"W x 4.1"D x 2.2" H opposed to the 11" width of the one you posted above.

 

[video321]

Since we're talking about mounting things in a can....
 
I like to use small round magnets that are very strong on items such as terminal blocks or custom lauan plates. Just super glue them to the bottom for a low-profile 1/8" mount which can be easily moved around as the system grows or pulled out to add new wire and just dropped back into place.

 

[intermediatic]

Well I have the 42" enclosure. Yes, the switch does take up some room, but it's doable. I'd like the enclosure to be more geometrically laid out than I've been able to do it, but it's fine.
 
On the one hand, a rack would make more sense given what I need to put in there, on the other hand, it's in the basement so I like the protection the enclosure gives. It doesn't look as good for people like you or me, but for the common home buyer it'll be a little less intimidating.
 
I wound up drilling through the enclosure. I attached the switch using the brackets for vertically mounting it. The most annoying thing is that I haven't found a left angle power cord of the correct length for the switch.

 

[pete_c]

Personally here my first 42" Leviton panel had an el cheapo 24 port unmanaged switch in it for many years.  The Leviton panel is in a different section of my comm room basement.  That though and I intially brought the network cabling into the panel. (I have expanded now out of the panel to literally now one side of the basement).  It is divided up both in a logical and physical sense.
 
I am now thinking of replacing the small footprint no fan unmanaged TP-Link 24 port switch (fits nicely in the Leviton panel) with the newer managed TP-Link 24 port.  Only issue is the way that it is mounted inside versus the el cheapo 100mb switch.  Its been a kind of temporary mounting (unmanaged GB switch) - not really meant to be mounted in a can.  The older el cheapo switch had two kind of external hooks in the back which I utilized with two screws inside of the panel such that the switch would slide onto the screws.  Just noticed the magnet means of attachment above....maybe will try this...
 
Doing a quickie picture of the Leviton with the Leviton stuff plus the switch...I have a similar set up today in Florida in a smaller Leviton panel and its been fine now since around 2006?  The access point is external to the can though and separate from a switch inside of the can.  The space / closet is much smaller in Florida such that I have cans stacked with the HAI can on top and Leviton can below it. (entire wall though - real PITA to work with and get to but never touch it)
 
Originally though when I did purchase both Leviton cans I purchased everything Leviton for the inside of the cans.  In the midwest exceeded my port capacity and what I had originally cabled for the network in less than a year after installation.  There is nothing really in the panel except more cat5e cabling not used for networking but rather just 1-wire stuff. (no audio or video or rg6 or speaker wire goes here). 
 
Servers, rack(s), patch panels and more switches are autonmous from the Leviton panel both logically and in a different "space" if that makes any sense (but I have a sandbox at home and play much with network stuff).
 
Recently I had a look (friends home) at a Control4 installation.  Very large home.  They just put a floor to ceiling open rack on wheels and a patch panel on the wall behind it in a utility closet.  No cans were used for the Control4 home automation stuff.  Contractor (builder) sold it as a $150 k automation upgrade in the original build. 

 

[intermediatic]

Things are coming together. Once I have my telephone wires in a little less embarrassing situation, I will take a photo and upload.

 

[tmbrown97]

 
I saw this when looking, but had concern/issue with it taking up that much space in my SMC. Instead (as mentioned) I went with (2) GS108's that are literally stacked on top of each other.
 
http://www.netgear.com/service-provider/products/switches/unmanaged-desktop-switches/GS108.aspx#
 
The dimension of (1) of them is listed as 6.2"W x 4.1"D x 1.1"H. So with both of mine stacked I'm taking up 6.2"W x 4.1"D x 2.2" H opposed to the 11" width of the one you posted above.

Another good option; my only concern is any bottlenecking between the two switches and the 2 ports wasted on connecting them; but if, knowing your load, it makes more sense, then nothing in the world wrong with it.
 
You can certainly mitigate bandwidth issues by keeping high bandwidth things on one, and things that you know won't be used much or contain much bandwidth over the other.

 

[intermediatic]

I wanted a switch that would support link aggregation.

 

[drvnbysound]

Another good option; my only concern is any bottlenecking between the two switches and the 2 ports wasted on connecting them; but if, knowing your load, it makes more sense, then nothing in the world wrong with it.
 
You can certainly mitigate bandwidth issues by keeping high bandwidth things on one, and things that you know won't be used much or contain much bandwidth over the other.

 
I actually don't have a single cable connecting them, thus not losing those 2 ports in that manner. What I did was provide a connection from each switch to my router. Fortunately, for my network it really doesn't even matter today. I think I have a total of like 6 ports used on both of the switches, 3 of which are SageTV extenders, plus one connection to the SageTV server; all of these devices are on a single switch. I went with an older model Linksys wired router, which has 8 ports; 6 of these support various ports throughout my home, and the other 2 connect to the switches.

 

[tmbrown97]

Not to be a pain and argue symantecs, but technically you are still losing 2 ports - you're losing an additional switchport off the router and one off the 2nd switch.  If you had a single 16-port connected to your router, your total count would be two more available ports.
 
The approach I took was to put the most important things on the router - like M1 and one or two other things that mattered, then to the switch - the router will hold out longer on a different UPS keeping the M1 up and reachable longer.  From there, everything else is connected to the same gigabit switch for maximum throughput between devices, with the single uplink via the router (which doesn't need to be any faster than my internet connection).

 

[video321]

The approach I took was to put the most important things on the router - like M1 and one or two other things that mattered, then to the switch

Yup. Same thing here with items such as the M1, Vera, CCTV. I never replaced the battery on my SmartUPS 1500 but the thought process is 1 less fault point to reach critical devices.

 

[intermediatic]

I'm getting closer to a photo, although it's still a bit of a mess in there.
 
It's my first time doing this so I'm learning a lot of things in the process.
 
Would I do this again? Hmm… maybe, maybe not.
 
The switch is not really the problem. It is tight with it there, but the big problem for me is my Tripp Lite N250-012 patch panels. It seems like the connections are really brittle and easy to break. Maybe it's my technique, but when I added two cables to one panel yesterday, I wound up having to redo a bunch of other connections, which was annoying since the other end of the ports was two stories up. Run up, change the port the tester is on. Run back down. Arrgh. I need to relabel all of my wires and I'm dreading turning the patch panels to do that since I'm sure it'll mean lost connections again.
 
A rack would have been easier to work with, but again, this is in a basement so having something I can close up will make it nice and neat.
 
Or such is the theory anyway.
 
Photos soon.

 

[pete_c]

 It seems like the connections are really brittle and easy to break. Maybe it's my technique

 
Curious how are you punching the wires down?  Are you using a punch down tool similiar to the attached picture?

 

[intermediatic]

Yes. a nice Trendnet "professional" tool.