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
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Nope, potentially heading for a broadcast storm with a bit of confused wiring… it happens!
If you are worrying about throughput, you don’t understand networking, and especially not switching.
Just daisychain as needed.
Nope, just use one port per switch!
Unless both the router and rhw switches support link aggregation, and you configure it properly on both, each switch should connect using only one cable.
You could connect other devices into either of the spare ports on the router, if convenient. Maybe a home server or something?
Fwiw, the 4 ports on your router are part of a switch too, just one that is built in. And there is at least.one additional logical port, that connects from that built in switch to the router part internally.
It’s actually a physical trace inside. The 4 ports you see will typically be on a 5 or 6 port switch. 1 port will go to the cpu, another is for a second phy for the cpu and is typically the wan port.
Right - so Link Aggregation is a thing no matter what the others here say.
To use more than one port per link you need some kind of support for it. LACP is quite common (and easy) form of link aggregation but also there are other implementations.
Speed is one thing I question (or pps as you have 2x amount available) but also failover. If one cable/interface stops working the other(s) keeps things working
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.
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.
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.
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.
TP-Link makes a 5 port gigabit unmanaged switch for less than $20USD. It’s great. You can get it with PoE for $50.
What is the bottle neck you are experiencing?
Is sound like you think there is a bottle neck, but have not experienced poor performance indicating a bottle neck?
NO!!! You will see all the lights light up as you will have created a network storm…
Either one port from the router to switch one and another cable from switch one to switch two OR one cable from the router to each switch one and another cable to switch two and NO cable between switch one to switch two. Do not create loops!
Two cables from the router to a single switch creates a loop and all three devices connected in a circle creates another loop. Both of these scenarios will create significant bottlenecks and broadcast storms.
Now, if you have managed switches, there are other things you can do for fault tolerance, but that’s an entirely different conversation.
That’s an easy way to create a network loop. Consumer grade switches usually don’t support protocols like spanning tree.
Unless they support link aggregation and you know what you are doing (which you don’t, or you wouldn’t have asked), no. Don’t.
What is your actual bottleneck?
10 devices on a switch isn’t a bottleneck especially in a home environment. The chances of a normal use scenario where all 10 devices are maxing on out gig networking is next to zero.
…I’d still put my two most important devices (one being my own workstation) into those those router ports you aren’t using - why put 2 devices through a switch if you don’t have to…
Each switch should have the upstream port plug into the router. Do not use two cables, it doesn’t work like that.
That only works on switches and routers that support LAGG/LACP AND you know how to configure it correctly.
Nope. That’s a great way to create a layer 2 loop - it will break everything without LAG capabilities or spanning tree.