Hi all
I have a router with 4 wired ports
Then I have two sixteen port switches connected
From there my house it hardwired like a mad man.
My question: Should I plug 2 ports from the router to each switch, will that free up a bottle neck?
the way I have it now there are 2 unused ports on the router. Seems a waste.
And I got like 10 things on each switch with only 1 Ethernet going to the router, isn’t that a terrible bottle neck ?
Thx
I’ll take a different slant than most others here. Daisy chain the switches. I trust a switch’s ability to switch packets closer to line rate more than I’d trust a router’s ability to do so. I’d rather keep the switch to switch traffic on two devices rather than force it through a third. Obviously use the fastest ports on the switches for the switch to switch link.
But definitely not two cables from switch to router, and unless you can build a LACP LAG between the switches definitely not two cables switch to switch.
This. I use 1 cable from router into a 16 and then additional switches if the 16 (like a small POE switch). This avoids one extra device for LAN traffic while leaving a full gig just for WAN. Avoiding a bottleneck for actual Internet traffic.
Another option would be to get a small switch and use that to connect the two switches together and then connect the small switch to the router. For about $40 they can buy a gigabit switch or about twice that for a managed one.
TP-Link makes a 5 port gigabit unmanaged switch for less than $20USD. It’s great. You can get it with PoE for $50.
There is something to be said for this.
The internal switches on “routers” can be quite poor at port-to-port traffic handling, particularly multicast. Certainly true historically. Say 5 to 10 years ago. Is it still? Don’t know.
Also, cheap home switches can have their own issues. But at least, if you have your own home network hardware (and possibly your own secondary router) then when it comes time to change your ISP and get a new router or Modem, it does make it a lot easier.
You could also link back on both switches to the router, long as spanning tree is working as intended, it should not loop, and you have a redundant link in the event you have to cable manage things or a link breaks for whatever reason
This is basically just using a core switch and keeping your router as your edge of network.
I’d go even further and buy a layer 3 lite switch as that core and have your gateway address on endpoints be that switch IP. Have some routing to point 0.0.0.0/0 on your switch to your router IP.
Move DHCP and DNS roles onto a server and disable them on your router.
With that set up, it means you can swap out your edge of network without disrupting your internal traffic.