cat6 for home and other network advice

Is it worth going for cat6 for home use or should I just stick with cat5? Been a while since I used wire network apart from my home plugs, so a bit out of the loop.

I will tell you what I am trying to do and someone tell me if this will work.


Upstairs I got my main computer connected to a 85Mbps homeplug, which in turn is connected via the mains to another home plug and my Netgear DG 834GT and also to that is my NAS.


Because the router is only 10/100 and also the speed of the homeplugs, using my NAs can be a pain for large files.

So my idea, move NAS up here, connect a 1gigabit switch to my computer, NAs and home so the NAs will by pass my router and homeplugs.

it seems to be the cheapest way, other wise I would have to buy new home plugs and get a gigabit cable router and connect it to my netgear as with the dream team firmware that can just be used as a modem.

eventually i will buy new homeplugs, but not yet if I can help it.

thanks peoples.

Cat5e will support Gbit Ethernet. My cabling here is 95% Cat5e and I can transfer large files from PC to PC at around 800Mbps and that is only because the drives will not work faster!

Just make sure all the terminations are good and that you don't untwist too much.

CAT6 can be more of a pain to retrofit in a house as it's a lot trickier to get the turn radius that it "needs". It's also a bit less flexible and harder to work with as a result.

I'd got for good-quality Cat5e.

As for your plan on layout, sounds fine. Make the Gb switch your "backbone" to connect the NAS and PCs to, and the low-bandwidth stuff like the router can be cascaded via the homeplugs.

Always, always budget for more patch panel ports and switch ports than you think you need - it works out cheaper in the long run, and a half-decent Gb switch isn't all that expensive these days.

Thanks peoples, just ordered some cat 5e, seems cheaper than cat 6 anyway, they are only short runs each, one from computer too switch which will be next to the computer, one from switch to NAS which will be put up here and the last from switch to home plug which is beside my monitor.

I also ordered a TPlink TL-SG1005D, it seems a good price at £15, it should do the job after all i am not going to run loads of info at the same time through it.

A mate of mine got TP link ADSL router and it works pretty well even if it does look a bit cheap.

the cables are not going to be fixed into a wall or anything, only use up here, so it will all be behind the computer desk.


As I said eventually I will update the the home plugs as well and get some more to connect m,y Wii/PS3 instead of using wireless and get myself a gigabit cable router, my netgear router can be used as a modem only. that way if I do go for fibre at some point, I will have a router for it as well.

right the switch came this morning, but still waiting for the cables, so I used some old cables I got here just to see if the set up works and it does, the NAs is a lot faster now, It will still be slow to acess via the laptop or PS3, but they are wireless anyway, but they are not important.

When the new cables arrive i can then tuck things into place.