An Upgrade of All My Network Gear
After moving in my home in 2016 and going from Apple AirPort Extremes, to Linksys Velop and various TP Link Routers, it was time for a complete network overhaul. I simply outgrew the various popular consumer networking equipment offerings and it was time to go with a more professional/business solution. I settled on the highly recommended Ubiquti Unifi system. You can read about all the details of my upgrade here: "How I Solved My WiFi Nightmare." Since writing that post I've upgraded all my network switches, cleaned out and rebuilt my server closet from scratch as well as moving off my 2012 Mac mini Server with a Drobo 5D connected to it for all my photo storage to a Synology NAS. Everything I bought and use is listed below.
Starting with the equipment upstairs where my cable internet connection comes into the house:
Unifi WiFi Access Point U6 Enterprise
Unifi Indoor/Outdoor WiFi Access Point U6 Long-Range
Network Console (Internet Router) - Unifi Dream Machine SE - The brains of my network.
I got a 24 Port Patch Panel to go with the Dream Machine SE
A small 6U Rack for the Dream Machine SE, Patch Panel, a shelf to hold some smaller gear such as my Raspberry Pi, Apple TV, Starling Hub, etc.
A 2U Unifi OCD panel to
Motorola MB8611 DOCSIS 3.1 Multi-Gig Cable Modem for my Xfinity 1G Internet (1,200 Mbps down and 35 Mbps up)
APC UPS 1500VA Sine Wave UPS Battery Backup uninterruptible power supply
Short Unifi Ethernet Patch Cables
Now let's move downstairs to the Server Closet rebuild
I completely cleaned out the closet where my Ethernet drops come in from the other rooms in my home. I wanted to go with a wall mounted rack and figured that 12U sized rack would be big enough to handle not only what I have to put into it today, but also planning for the day when I move the Dream Machine SE and cable modem downstairs to this closet as well.
Rack Mount Wall Cabinet Enclosure 12U Vented, Black
Unifi Switch 24 PoE
Unifi Rack Mount Blank Patch Panel 24-Port - I went with this one to better match the look of the Unifi Switch POE.
iwillink Cat6 Coupler RJ45 Cat6 Shielded Coupler 25-Pack, Ethernet Coupler, Female to Female Cat6 Keystone Jack to go into the blank Unifi patch panel
Synology DS1522+ NAS (Network Attached Storage) - This replaces my 2012 Mac mini Server with a Drobo 5D. I use it to store all my photos and important documents.
I started with three 10TB Seagate IronWolf NAS 7200 RPM Hard Drives to get the system up and running and have enough storage to copy everything from the Drobo. While these three drives were enough storage to copy everything over, it left me about 15% free space so I added a 16TB Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS hard drive. After taking the Drobo offline I took one of the 10TB Seagate IronWolf NAS drives from it to put in the 5th bay of the Synology. That gave me a total of 35TBs of usable space with an SHR configuration on the Synology.
Synology M.2 2280 NVMe SSD SNV3410 400GB - I got one of these to serve as a fast cache for copying files to/from the Synology. There are two slots on the DS1522+ so I'll likely get another one for the second slot.
Seagate Expansion 18TB External Hard Drive HDD - USB 3.0 - I use this drive to do a local backup of the Synology NAS. I already had it backing up the Drobo. I reformatted it and plugged it directly into the Synology.
Pyle 2-Pc 1U Server Rack Shelf, Vented Shelves for Good Air Circulation - These two shelves hold the Synology NAS, Senate Hard Drive, a laptop fan under the Mac mini and the Mac mini (which I now use as a music server, speed test server and Homebridge server.
Thermaltake Massive 20 RGB Steel Mesh Panel Single 200mm Fan 10"‐19" Laptop Notebook Cooling Pad - I originally bought this to go under my old network setup, but it was just too big that I almost returned it. Then when I decided to upgrade everything I kept it to see if it would look good in the rack with the LED lights. It's almost too big in that it doesn't fit inside the shelf, but it sits on top of it just fine and works great!
CyberPower CPS1215RMS Rackmount Surge Protector, 120V/15A, 12 Outlets - I got this one because it has outlets in the front and the back. I also like the switch cover to prevent you from accidentally turning it off.
Unifi 2U OCD Panel to cover the two spots where I ultimately hope to add the Dream Machine SE and a Unifi NVR for storing video from the POE cameras I plan to get.
I also added these two fans to the top of the cabinet to move the heat out.
I upgraded all my network switches around the house
I got two Switch Lite 16 PoE switches, and two Switch Lite 8 PoE switches.
A Few Miscellaneous Things
I got this ThermoPro TP55 Digital Hygrometer Indoor Thermometer Humidity Gauge with Large Touchscreen so I can check the temperature of the closet at glance.
Since I have an Ecobee Premium Thermostat I also added one of their smart sensors in the server closet to adjust the HVAC if it gets too hot in there, especially if we're out of town. It also shows up in the Apple Home App.
I'm using the same model APC UPS battery backup in the server closet as well.
I got three of these UCTRONICS IEEE 802.3af Micro USB Active PoE Splitter Power Over Ethernet to power three of my smart home bridges (2 Lutron Caseta and 1 Aqara M2 hub)
Thanks for your interest in my setup. Keep this page bookmarked as I will update it as I make future changes.