Network Switch To Speed Up Performance

[Graham Carter]

Im a virgin media ISP user on a fibre internet connection here in the UK

Have the latest Virgin Media Superb 3.0 at home connected to Virgins VIVID 350 offering and am very happy with the performance of this.

 

Currently the only devices which are plugged into the ethernet ports on the superhub router, are a Synology NAS, a TIVO box and an Amazon Fire TV

 

However my question is one of load sharing...

I dug out a Network Switch (NETGEAR GS105 ProSafe 5-port) and was curious to ascertain if I daisy chain this into the superhub and then transfer the NAS and FIRETV into the netgear switch, whether or not I would experience a performance gain?

 

The NAS is used heavily to stream HD content from its hard drives to the FIRETV running PLEX and KODI

Considering that both the superhub and netgear have gigabit ethernet speeds, my train of thought was that as most of the high volume traffic is flowing between the NAS and the FIRETV, transferring the x2 devices to the network switch should ease the load on the superhub which primary use is 7 or 8 devices connected to the 5ghz wifi.

 

Whats hurting my head though, is would the  netgear switch take care of the heavy lifting with traffic between the NAS and FIRETV or would I have to make some changes on the superhub to make sure this is the case?

 

Im not a networking expert by a long stretch (hence the forum thread)
To recap on my questions...

• Would plugging the NAS and FIRETV directly into the switch improve wired performance?
• Does one need to make any config changes on the isp provided superhub to insure that traffic between these x2 devices is handled by the netgear switch?
• Any changes needed to the network config of the NAS?
• Perhaps use a different subnet on the netgear switch?

[HanZie82]

Not a real guru here, but i know some from experience.
Altho most of the traffic will go trough the switch if you put both devices in, it would still need the routing from the router/modem.
But if you would notice the difference im doubtful of that.
Altho even for 4K it should not give you any hiccups or anything since Gigabit is way fast enough for that.

 

 

edit: just connect it all and it should work just as it did before, no setup need afaik.

[Lurick]

20 minutes ago, Graham Carter said:

To recap on my questions...

• Would plugging the NAS and FIRETV directly into the switch improve wired performance?
• Does one need to make any config changes on the isp provided superhub to insure that traffic between these x2 devices is handled by the netgear switch?
• Any changes needed to the network config of the NAS?
• Perhaps use a different subnet on the netgear switch?

If the Virgin Media device is gigabit on all ports then you won't get any performance gain by adding in a switch.

No configuration changes needed, provided it's all on the same subnet the switch will switch packets after learning what's connected to what ports so no need for traffic to go to the router.

No network config changes.

If you use a different subnet then traffic will need to hit the router, if it supports that kind of configuration (multiple subnets), to reach anything on the different subnets so I would avoid doing so.

 

 

@HanZie82 Is correct, traffic will only hit the router if it's on two different subnets or needs to reach the internet, local traffic will stay on the switch.

[Graham Carter]

Thanks for the responses so far 

 

When I talk about performance, it's more of a visual observation of delays am looking to improve.  

So for example, if I'm scrubbing through HD content via the firetv stored on the nas, I would hope to see less lag using a dedicated switch as apposed to directly using the superhub?  

 

But again, as both devices are gigabit, then its sounding as though its a fruitless exersise unless I need to connect more ethernet devices

[Lurick]

Just now, Graham Carter said:

Thanks for the responses so far 

 

When I talk about performance, it's more of a visual observation of delays am looking to improve.  

So for example, if I'm scrubbing through HD content via the firetv stored on the nas, I would hope to see less lag using a dedicated switch as apposed to directly using the superhub?  

 

But again, as both devices are gigabit, then its sounding as though its a fruitless exersise unless I need to connect more ethernet devices

Yah, you might net a very low amount of improvement if the switch in the super hub is crap but if you're getting near gigabit transfers between local devices connected to the SuperHub I would leave it as is unless you need more devices connected and add the switch then.

[Jarsky]

2 hours ago, Graham Carter said:

Thanks for the responses so far 

 

When I talk about performance, it's more of a visual observation of delays am looking to improve.  

So for example, if I'm scrubbing through HD content via the firetv stored on the nas, I would hope to see less lag using a dedicated switch as apposed to directly using the superhub?  

 

But again, as both devices are gigabit, then its sounding as though its a fruitless exersise unless I need to connect more ethernet devices

 

 

It's worth pointing out that the "SuperHub" is just a combined router and switch in 1. Even cheap ISP supplied routers have fairly decent packet switching rates that there should be no discernible difference if any between using the SuperHub or using the Netgear switch for such a small number of ports. Switching packet rate becomes more of a thing when you start getting up to 16+ ports which is why they generally have much faster processors, so they can switch hundres of thousands, or even millions of packets per second. 

 

With those 3 devices you won't see any difference. 

If you're noticing scrubbing slowness it's probably due to the processing power given it's a low powered device. I see a big difference between my HTPC i3 7100 and my Android TV (which also uses the quad core Snapdragon like the FireTV) just due to the power difference of the devices.