Help with Home Network Design
Hello!
I recently moved into a 4000 sq ft, 2 floor home. We'll be getting 2 gig fiber for the house soon and I want to setup a network to support the full bandwidth as much as possible. I prefer wired connections, and will have cat6 cables run into a few rooms/areas of the house when the tech installs the 2 gig fiber. The house will have a bunch of devices that also connect wirelessly (smart devices, phones, laptops, etc), so I'd like to have solid, fast WiFi coverage for the entire house and the garage.
Here's what I think I need and the TP Link products I'm considering:
- Multi-gig router with a 2.5GbE WAN port and at least 1 2.5GbE LAN port. I am considering the TP-Link Archer BE550 because it has 2.5G WAN and 4 2.5G LANs; 2G fiber into the 2.5G WAN, and then the 4 2.5G ports would supply the 2G internet connection to the wired ports in the other rooms of the house. Or would it be better to get a more affordable router that has 1 2.5G WAN and 1 2.5G LAN, then connect the 2.5G LAN into a 2.5G switch? I had trouble finding a suitable 2.5G switch. Any recommendations? Also, using the BE550 with the WiFi 7 disabled feels bad.
- I would like to setup a wireless Mesh network with a wired backhaul and am considering a Deco setup of either a 2 or 3 pack of X75 pros or a 3 pack of X55 pros. What I like about the X55 Pro is that it has a 2.5G WAN port and a 2.5G LAN port, while the X75 pro has a 2.5G WAN port but 1G LAN ports. But the advantage of the X75 Pro is that it is WiFi 6E. I am thinking of setting up each Mesh node at the locations where wired cat6 is available. And this is where a question comes up: if I go with the X75 Pros, can I add a 2.5G switch before them to get 2G LAN in the room(s) where the cat6 ports are? Does the wired backhaul work if the X75 Pro node is connected to the network via a switch? I was hoping I would be able to rely on each mesh node to act as a router/switch with 2.5G connectivity. I am aware of the BE95, and that would give me the desired ports, but they're expensive right now and I don't currently need 10G or WiFi 7 yet (although not sure how far off full support is for those specs with all consumer devices?).
Heh, I just saw the link to the Deco BE16000 at Costco in these forums, which might work well. And then searched the TP-Link site and found the newly available BE63, which seems to be what I'm looking for. Is there a difference between the BE16000 and the BE63? Thoughts on how they'd fit my use case?
Thanks much!