How many inputs does a switch take?

[Brainiac777]

Hey all, I'm planning to roll out ethernet throughout the entire house and I've just learned about network switches, patch panels, etc. and I don't want to bottleneck any of the devices. I'm thinking of having the four outputs from my router (RT-AC66U) go into the switch and from there, every device gets connected to the switch. Is this possible or do switches only accept one input?

[Samppa221]

My 24port switch gots 2 inputs the 2nd being a fail over.

[Judahnator]

Unless both your router and switch supports teaming, or you plan on setting up a separate VLAN for each input, you should only need a single input.

 

Besides, the link to the outside world will likely be less than the link to the switch anyways. So when you get to the point where you are being bottle-necked, you have already saturated your internet uplink.

[LIGISTX]

The switch will only use one as an input from the router... But that being said, unless you are hitting all the different computers with file transfers at the same time, there will never be an issue. But technically, yes, if you are trying to transfer files all over the place all at the same time, you will not get full gigabit as there will only be one line from the switch to the router. Should this be a concern for a home network, probably not.

[Komplett]

Only one is needed from the router, Your internet cant be faster than 1 gigabit anyways.

 

Just make sure that if you get a 24 port of whatever switch, that is has the same amount in backplan, in this case 24gigabit. You want this incase you're doing big file transfers between many computers at the same time, having a 24gigabit backplan on a 24 port switch basically means every port always have 1gigabit.

 

The switch will only use one as an input from the router... But that being said, unless you are hitting all the different computers with file transfers at the same time, there will never be an issue. But technically, yes, if you are trying to transfer files all over the place all at the same time, you will not get full gigabit as there will only be one line from the switch to the router. Should this be a concern for a home network, probably not.

In file transfers you dont go via the router, so he wont be bottlenecked by a single cable from the router to the switch.

 

Do you think big companies have routers with like 128 ports that then go into a 256 port switch? No, only one is needed, LAN transfers are handled on the LAN, by the switch.

[Brainiac777]

Only one is needed from the router, Your internet cant be faster than 1 gigabit anyways.

 

Just make sure that if you get a 24 port of whatever switch, that is has the same amount in backplan, in this case 24gigabit. You want this incase you're doing big file transfers between many computers at the same time, having a 24gigabit backplan on a 24 port switch basically means every port always have 1gigabit.

 

In file transfers you dont go via the router, so he wont be bottlenecked by a single cable from the router to the switch.

 

Do you think big companies have routers with like 128 ports that then go into a 256 port switch? No, only one is needed, LAN transfers are handled on the LAN, by the switch.

What do you mean by backplan?

[Komplett]

What do you mean by backplan?

its a bit hard to explain, but basically its the bandwidth of the switch, within the switch. You want it to be as high as the amount of ports to make sure every port can communicate with the full gigabit speed.

[Steven9595]

Your internet cant be faster than 1 gigabit anyways.

Wut. Comcast offers 2Gbps where I live.

[Wombo]

What do you mean by backplan?

The backplain of a switch is the total bandwidth the switch has available to move the packets between its own interfaces. It is very common for a switch have far less backplain bandwidth available than the total of its interfaces (an 8port gigabit switch not have 8gbps backplain, as an example). This usually isn't much of an issue tho, unless you plan on using all the available bandwidth at all times of the day. It is generally only a concern for enterprise and large business.