It would not be fair to talk endlessly about best practices regarding home networks without revealing a bit about my own network. God knows I don't always practice what I preach but I find that this network works for me, is secure and provides all the services that I look for in a home network.

THE HOME NETWORK

That's my network above. The signal from Comcast comes into my basement; I have an area of my basement that houses the cable modem, a 16-port GIGe switch, my NAS's and a printer. In order to improve my wireless signal, I built two custom Ethernet cables that go from the cable modem to my router/AP on top of a china cabinet in my kitchen, then back down to the basement 16-port switch which distributes this signal throughout the house via an Ethernet network.

One Ethernet line runs upstairs to an 8-port GIGe switch in my home office. This switch feeds my main computer, an IP phone, a laser printer, a secondary PC workstation and a media computer that powers a wall projector (a color printer/scanner connects via wireless).

One Ethernet line runs to an 8-port GiGe switch in an office workspace area of the basement which hold several computers including my web server. The main computer in the basement is a pretty capable one; the plan is to retreat to the basement to run the home business and such if a catastrophic failure takes out my main office computer.

And finally one Ethernet line runs to the porch where it feeds into one PC used by another family member. On the porch is also a wireless repeater mounted up on a window overlooking my backyard. It's located just over 30 feet from my router/access point in the kitchen. It provides decent (but not great) wireless throughput throughout the backyard and in the closest portion of my garage.

This diagram does not show the drive attached to my Synology to back it up.

Since this drawing was updated in April there have been significant changes to my network. A Commonwealth Edison power outage/surge killed my aging 16-port core switch. I scrambled to move the 8-port switch from the basement workspace to the network core where it just accommodated all the connections necessary. This necessitated me moving my web server to the network core area where there was an available Ethernet port. Should I find a good 16-port switch at a  decent price I'll replace it.

Pretty basic, pretty inexpensive as these things go, and pretty capable.

I hope this series has been useful to you; not only have I enjoyed doing it, but it highlighted areas where I've strayed form best practices and caused me to tighten up my home network a bit.