Help me learn about network switches!

[Thunderjolt]

Alright, LTT Forum I need your help here.

Currently my house is being redone and we're planning on having a dedicated cabinet to hold all our networking peripherals. We've got 30 Cat6 ethernet cables (there's going to be 3/4 ethernet ports per room) to connect up.

This is where you guys come in, I'm pretty confused on how you can configure switches. I understand that you can buy different types and I've decided that unmanaged switches overall will be the best option since everything connecting to the switches won't need to have any network traffic managed or measured.

 

Questions:

 

- From our internet router could I say buy two 24 port switches and connect them into two different ports of the router or would I need to buy a 30+ port switch.
    - Or could you connect one 24 port switch into the other 24 port switch and have it work like that?

- Would a Netgear N900 router be able to handle all the ports or would I have to buy a new router to accomodate? Also, the router I have currently has 4 gigabit ethernet ports but would there be much of a speed difference between a 500 Mbps switch and a 1 Gbps?

If it helps the things that will connect to it will be TVs, laptops, my computer or basically any bit of technology in a house that could connect by ethernet.

 

Any recommendation on switches or just general knowhow on setting stuff up would be appreciated as well!

Thanks for all the help guys. I appreciate it! 

[KTFO|SGTmoody]

- From our internet router could I say buy two 24 port switches and connect them into two different ports of the router or would I need to buy a 30+ port switch.   

Yes,   you can buy two 24port switches,   Probably inefficent with regards to power and would end up spending more money. 

 

    - Or could you connect one 24 port switch into the other 24 port switch and have it work like that?

Yes,  If they where unmanged you could only connect 1 cable between them, any more would create a loop and then the whole network dies, yay....

You could potentialy create a bottle neck between the two switches if you had one PC doing lots of trafic over the interconnection between the two.

 

 

- Would a Netgear N900 router be able to handle all the ports or would I have to buy a new router to accomodate? Also, the router I have currently has 4 gigabit ethernet ports but would there be much of a speed difference between a 500 Mbps switch and a 1 Gbps?

Probably, depends what your doing, ultimatly no.  Remember if we are talking internet trafic IE watching youtube etc then your bottleneck will allways be how fast your internet is rather than your lan (unless your lan is 10/100 and your internet is 150 Mbps down)

 

you cant get a 500Mbps switch,  you can get a 10/100 Mbps switch and yes there would be a difference if you where doing interlan access IE  transfuring files from one PC to another PC over your home network.

 

I recomend you just get a 48Port 10/100/1000 (gigabit) switch.   You will spend more money on buying two 24port switches vs a 48.  Might as well get the gigabit switch as you will probably benifit at one point or another and thus will not have to upgrade in the future.   I dont see may unmanged 24 - 48 port switches so if the one you go for is "smart" or managed then its not to much of an issue and may be more benifical to you in the future anyway, at least then you have the option to do cool stuff with the switch if you so choose. (like bandwidth monitoring with cool graphs and real time stuffs)

 

If your concious on how much your spending then just get something like a netgear  GS748T  10/100/1000 swtich.

If your not so concious on what your spending then maybe a 48port lynksys switch, HP or 3com

 

Side note,  Switches no matter what are designed to switch, so even if you get a full managed switch it will still be "plug and play" and not require you to manage it.

 

Edit:  I see your from the UK, I normaly just buy things like this off Ebay rather than spending lots of ££££ on new things that do the same job.

If your in london this maybe a good deal, its the newer V3 one :  http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NETGEAR-ProSafe-GS748T-V3-48-Port-Gigabit-Ethernet-Switch-/221839298761?hash=item33a6a710c9

 

Be weary when buy things off the internet when it comes to this.  Just because it says gigabit doesnt mean the whole switch is. as most of these switches have uplink ports which are gigabit and then the rest of the ports are 10/100Mbps  so you will need to read the seller description and even look up the specs on the manufacture website.  Your looking for 48 port 10/100/1000   rather than 48port 10/100 with 4 10/100/1000 uplinks

[skywake]

I'd question whether or not you actually need all of the ports connected up. You'll probably be just fine with some rooms only having one point connected and then you can just think of the extra points as a bit of breathing room. Maybe down the road you get a small 10Gbps switch or maybe you'll want a small PoE switch. So I'd just think of it as if you only had 23 points. Although if you haven't actually run the cables yet I'd probably rethink how much you actually need. Save some money on that side of the equation also.

 

That said, the suggestion of getting a 48 port switch rather than a 24 port one? It's probably the better solution technically although it will actually cost more based on the pricing I'm looking at. If you are set on using all 30 points might I suggest pairing the 24 port switch with a 16 port or even 8 port switch? And yes, if you have two switches either way is fine. You can either daisy chain them or connect them all directly to the router. 

[kachel94]

Currently my house is being redone and we're planning on having a dedicated cabinet to hold all our networking peripherals. We've got 30 Cat6 ethernet cables (there's going to be 3/4 ethernet ports per room) to connect up.

Now that is a heap of ethernet ports...

[Thunderjolt]

Yes,   you can buy two 24port switches,   Probably inefficent with regards to power and would end up spending more money. 

 

Yes,  If they where unmanged you could only connect 1 cable between them, any more would create a loop and then the whole network dies, yay....

You could potentialy create a bottle neck between the two switches if you had one PC doing lots of trafic over the interconnection between the two.

 

 

Probably, depends what your doing, ultimatly no.  Remember if we are talking internet trafic IE watching youtube etc then your bottleneck will allways be how fast your internet is rather than your lan (unless your lan is 10/100 and your internet is 150 Mbps down)

 

you cant get a 500Mbps switch,  you can get a 10/100 Mbps switch and yes there would be a difference if you where doing interlan access IE  transfuring files from one PC to another PC over your home network.

 

I recomend you just get a 48Port 10/100/1000 (gigabit) switch.   You will spend more money on buying two 24port switches vs a 48.  Might as well get the gigabit switch as you will probably benifit at one point or another and thus will not have to upgrade in the future.   I dont see may unmanged 24 - 48 port switches so if the one you go for is "smart" or managed then its not to much of an issue and may be more benifical to you in the future anyway, at least then you have the option to do cool stuff with the switch if you so choose. (like bandwidth monitoring with cool graphs and real time stuffs)

 

If your concious on how much your spending then just get something like a netgear  GS748T  10/100/1000 swtich.

If your not so concious on what your spending then maybe a 48port lynksys switch, HP or 3com

 

Side note,  Switches no matter what are designed to switch, so even if you get a full managed switch it will still be "plug and play" and not require you to manage it.

 

Edit:  I see your from the UK, I normaly just buy things like this off Ebay rather than spending lots of ££££ on new things that do the same job.

If your in london this maybe a good deal, its the newer V3 one :  http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NETGEAR-ProSafe-GS748T-V3-48-Port-Gigabit-Ethernet-Switch-/221839298761?hash=item33a6a710c9

 

Be weary when buy things off the internet when it comes to this.  Just because it says gigabit doesnt mean the whole switch is. as most of these switches have uplink ports which are gigabit and then the rest of the ports are 10/100Mbps  so you will need to read the seller description and even look up the specs on the manufacture website.  Your looking for 48 port 10/100/1000   rather than 48port 10/100 with 4 10/100/1000 uplinks

 

 

Alright I've everything you've said and I've decided to take it on board. I'll look around for a 48 port switch. Chances are most the traffic going through the switch will be internet traffic and the occasional file transfer between computers/laptops. So if my internet router wouldn't be able to handle the load on it what would be the best option to go for? Currently in my mind the setup will be Internet Router -> Switch -> everything connected

Would I need something in between the router and the switch to deal with that traffic or would I just need a beefier router?

Chances are if we're getting such a massive array I could convince my father to let me build a file storage server for the house as well.

 

I'd question whether or not you actually need all of the ports connected up. You'll probably be just fine with some rooms only having one point connected and then you can just think of the extra points as a bit of breathing room. Maybe down the road you get a small 10Gbps switch or maybe you'll want a small PoE switch. So I'd just think of it as if you only had 23 points. Although if you haven't actually run the cables yet I'd probably rethink how much you actually need. Save some money on that side of the equation also.

 

That said, the suggestion of getting a 48 port switch rather than a 24 port one? It's probably the better solution technically although it will actually cost more based on the pricing I'm looking at. If you are set on using all 30 points might I suggest pairing the 24 port switch with a 16 port or even 8 port switch? And yes, if you have two switches either way is fine. You can either daisy chain them or connect them all directly to the router. 

 

Well the wires have been run it's more just my father being my father decided to add that many ethernet ports per room so instead of using wireless everyone can run off the ethernet if they can. The reason I asked about daisy chaining switches was because of cost. When I was browsing around a lot of 48 port switches my father found were really expensive so I was thinking just daisy chaining two 24 ports. Also It's more just ease of use, when they're all connected at least we know that as soon as we plug something in it will work instead of needing to run over to the switch and plug it into there. Many ports will probably stay dormant for a long time but it's worth it in my mind just so everything works.

 

Now that is a heap of ethernet ports...

You can say that again... Even I question why I have so many ports but father dearest decided on it, not me. His idea was to have a completely connected home so that's why there's so many ethernet ports.

[skywake]

Well if it was me and I had 30 points throughout the house? Well as I said I'd probably leave some of them disconnected and go with the 24 port switch. But if you really want to have them all connected I'd have a 24 port switch and an 8 port switch. Because an 8 port switches can be found for almost 1/5th of the cost of a 24 port one. And as I pointed out by the time you actually need to use ALL of the ports up you'll probably be wanting something better for that second switch. A Smart Switch, PoE or maybe even 10Gbps.

[Neil]

Yes,  If they where unmanged you could only connect 1 cable between them, any more would create a loop and then the whole network dies, yay....

 

STP. STP. STP.

[KTFO|SGTmoody]

STP. STP. STP.

Not all unmanaged switches suport STP, hence my comment.

 

 

 

 

Alright I've everything you've said and I've decided to take it on board. I'll look around for a 48 port switch. Chances are most the traffic going through the switch will be internet traffic and the occasional file transfer between computers/laptops. So if my internet router wouldn't be able to handle the load on it what would be the best option to go for? Currently in my mind the setup will be Internet Router -> Switch -> everything connected

Would I need something in between the router and the switch to deal with that traffic or would I just need a beefier router?

Chances are if we're getting such a massive array I could convince my father to let me build a file storage server for the house as well.

 

Your internet router will probably be fine.  Who's your ISP?

 

No,  Router -> Switch -> Devices is fine

 

would probably be better off looking at something that supports features like Link Aggregation as you may in the future want this for your file server. So a Smart or Managed switch.

[Thunderjolt]

Not all unmanaged switches suport STP, hence my comment.

 

 

Your internet router will probably be fine.  Who's your ISP?

 

No,  Router -> Switch -> Devices is fine

 

would probably be better off looking at something that supports features like Link Aggregation as you may in the future want this for your file server. So a Smart or Managed switch.

My ISP is BT, we've got their 76 Mbps download fibre line.

Alright, thanks so much for all the help

[KTFO|SGTmoody]

My ISP is BT, we've got their 76 Mbps download fibre line.

Alright, thanks so much for all the help

Yeh your router will be fine then.

[Neil]

Not all unmanaged switches suport STP, hence my comment.

Your internet router will probably be fine. Who's your ISP?

No, Router -> Switch -> Devices is fine

would probably be better off looking at something that supports features like Link Aggregation as you may in the future want this for your file server. So a Smart or Managed switch.

Yeah I know. Mine was more of a chant on why everything should support stp