Small business network 10 macs and one printer

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JInx311

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Mar 10, 2015
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I have been tasked with setting up a network for my work office on a very limited budget with several goals in mind.

We have 10 macs as workstations one network ready printer and soon to have a mac mini aswell all needing connected to the network

1. networked access to a mac mini hosting our filemaker database (only purpose)
2. A shared ICAL between office staff (acheived hopefuly with osx server)
3. network access to our laser printer

Mac Mini Specs:
3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7
16GB 1600MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM
1TB Fusion Drive

I am a tech junkie and have built my own gaming pc recently so I am not toally clueless when it comes to computer hardware but I am new to networking and have a few questions I am hoping to get answered here.

First of all we are using a bt business hub with 4 ethernet ports, a few of our machines as a result connect over wifi.

We frequently loose our broadband connection as well as local access to our database currently hosted on one of the imacs several times a day. We believe that there are IP conflicts happening but not sure. Any advise on this would be great

I am not sure whether an unmanaged or managed switch would be preferable given the circumstances.

Do I need to change routers to one more suitable to a small office network?

Thanks in advance for any advise you can give
 
Solution
kanewolf
Do the Macs have ethernet ports (iMACs) or are they MacBooks? If you have ethernet ports available, get a 24 port switch. You could get a used HP 1900 series switch from e-bay to save money. Connect every possible thing to that one switch. Then run a single cable to the router.

To limit the IP address conflicts, assign static IP addresses to all the wired devices. Your BT hub does not support a guest network. If you have an ethernet cable coming from BT, I would recommend you look at replacing that router with one that will provide a guest WIFI network. That way all the portable devices won't have access to your "core" network. If you only have the ADSL connection input to the BT hub, you will have to check on an alternate...
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kanewolf

kanewolf

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Do the Macs have ethernet ports (iMACs) or are they MacBooks? If you have ethernet ports available, get a 24 port switch. You could get a used HP 1900 series switch from e-bay to save money. Connect every possible thing to that one switch. Then run a single cable to the router.

To limit the IP address conflicts, assign static IP addresses to all the wired devices. Your BT hub does not support a guest network. If you have an ethernet cable coming from BT, I would recommend you look at replacing that router with one that will provide a guest WIFI network. That way all the portable devices won't have access to your "core" network. If you only have the ADSL connection input to the BT hub, you will have to check on an alternate modem only from BT.
 
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J

JInx311

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Mar 10, 2015
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Hi thanks for the reply,
All the workstations have ethernet ports.

We have tried setting static IP's but the router has some issue with us doing that and tells us to contact BT for this service. I do have Netgear N900 router + modem in the office which should be more functional.

I will buy the switch you have recommended.

 
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