Multiple Switches

[System Error Message]

How many homes does everyone think have multiple clients that can even pull a gig of data using an Ethernet port? First it is hard now a days to find a laptop now that has an Ethernet port much less a gigabyte port. Some people still purchase desktops which have gigabyte Ethernet ports but how many homes have one desk top PC and probably even fewer homes have multiple desk top PCs. Even if a PC has a a gigabyte port is its processor and HD capable of handling more than 500 Mbps. With wired hardware in your home when do you even come close to saturating a gigabyte link other than having multiple backups running. Streaming ripped DVDs uses what 20 - 40 Mbps streams.

I realize that there are people that run heavy graphics programs, PhotoShop CAD CAM, etc programs at home and utilize a NAS/server but how many?

Worrying about maxing out the capacity of a small unmanaged switch in a typical home seems about as practical as worrying about how man angels can dance on the head of a pin.

gigabit ethernet ports not gigabyte, its 1Gb not 1GB (125MB/s).

there are many reasons and i tend to pull multiple Gb/s of data at times, its not about regular usage, its about peak usage. It would be better to do transfers in seconds rather than minutes for example. static bonding can achieve that on single streams (windows copes badly with out of order udp though). Some of my servers have 10Gb/s via SFP+ direct, some use the usual intel quad server NICs and bond 4 ports.

Switch design with multiple switches isnt as easy as you have to consider bottlenecks. A bottleneck on layer 2 can be more devastating than on layer 3, sure the use case might be simple, but if you consider how many devices could be using the same link thats something to consider.

If the choice between a smart switch and dumb switch is a few $ go for the smart switch. You may not need a smart switch for vlans, plenty of other things you could do that isnt related to networking directly such as DHCP relay/server, filtering, bonding. The use case might not be heavy but he is using virgin media which is horrible and using the superhub as a router which is even more horrible. virgin media does up to 300Mb/s so thats significant enough to warrant some thought into the design.

a central switch is usually the most efficient way to set things. I suggest you use your netgear as a router instead and get other APs (ubiquiti have basic AC APs cheap for indoors) and use switches. You should consider smart switches with POE out that match the ubiquiti AP spec, just make sure the voltage(range), protocol and wattage(minimum) are a match

 

[coxhaus]

You design switch structure for bottle necks not the occasional web browsing. Anytime I am doing workstation back ups and moving my music files (1 TB) it will saturate a 1 GIG connection. There are other thing also. It does not take that much to saturate a GIG connection nowadays. I hate it when you do one of these operations and it tells you 45 minutes to completion. So you want to structure your switches to minimize as much as possible any bottle necks.

A good home structure starts out with one centralized switch which is your core switch. You want to keep as much as possible all big bandwidth operations in this one core switch. Then you fan out if you have to. The best is all connections in one big switch. The back planes in switches is always bigger than any ports you would pipe it through. When you go through a port you are creating a bottle neck in the switch world.

 

[Jeff Walther]

Changing the subject backwards a little bit -- if you are running new cable in the walls and ceiling/attic, I recommend running multiple runs to each destination. The effort to pull cable is large compared to the expense of cable, patch panels and modular jacks. It is just as easy (same labor) to pull four cables as it is to pull one cable to a destination. Although it is more convenient if you have four boxes of cable...

Wall plates easily fit four jacks (they can fit six, but that gets awkward). So I recommend pulling four cables to each wall plate as a matter of course. You might never use all of them, but it is easy to use way more connections than you ever expected. Having multiple cables also allows you to keep most of your switch fabric in the closet, instead of having to spread 5 port switches all over the house.

If you have a reason to install coax in the house (attic antenna, for OTA in each room, e.g.) then run three Cat. 6 and one RG-6 to each wall plate.

 

[aaronwt]

Changing the subject backwards a little bit -- if you are running new cable in the walls and ceiling/attic, I recommend running multiple runs to each destination. The effort to pull cable is large compared to the expense of cable, patch panels and modular jacks. It is just as easy (same labor) to pull four cables as it is to pull one cable to a destination. Although it is more convenient if you have four boxes of cable...

Wall plates easily fit four jacks (they can fit six, but that gets awkward). So I recommend pulling four cables to each wall plate as a matter of course. You might never use all of them, but it is easy to use way more connections than you ever expected. Having multiple cables also allows you to keep most of your switch fabric in the closet, instead of having to spread 5 port switches all over the house.

If you have a reason to install coax in the house (attic antenna, for OTA in each room, e.g.) then run three Cat. 6 and one RG-6 to each wall plate.

Six Cat6 cables at a single gang plat is no problem at all it's not tight unless you mix coax in. The cables I ran last year got a little tight with the four Cat6 and two Coax cables in the single gang plate. But without the coax it's no issue at all.

I only wish I would have had the time to run new cables to a couple more locations. But the ceiling was closing up the next day from the water mains being replaced. And I ran the cable at the spur of the moment.

I've been using Cat5e runs from outside for around 15 years. And some of those runs are going to start having issues soon from squirrels biting them. So I wanted to run some new cables so I didn't need to be reliant on the cables outside anymore.

 

[aaronwt]

How many homes does everyone think have multiple clients that can even pull a gig of data using an Ethernet port? First it is hard now a days to find a laptop now that has an Ethernet port much less a gigabyte port. Some people still purchase desktops which have gigabyte Ethernet ports but how many homes have one desk top PC and probably even fewer homes have multiple desk top PCs. Even if a PC has a a gigabyte port is its processor and HD capable of handling more than 500 Mbps. With wired hardware in your home when do you even come close to saturating a gigabyte link other than having multiple backups running. Streaming ripped DVDs uses what 20 - 40 Mbps streams.

I realize that there are people that run heavy graphics programs, PhotoShop CAD CAM, etc programs at home and utilize a NAS/server but how many?

Worrying about maxing out the capacity of a small unmanaged switch in a typical home seems about as practical as worrying about how man angels can dance on the head of a pin.

My GigE network has been my bottle neck for many years. Modern platter drives have no issue exceeding GigE speeds. The last platter drive I purchased got around 1.1Gbps throughput. And that was a 5400rpm drive. But when I switched out to SSDs five or six years ago, is when I really had bottle necks with my GigE network. Since my SSDs have no problem getting 4Gb/s throughput. So if I needed to transfer content to another PC, the GigE network slowed that transfer rate t over a quarter of the speed the SSDs are capable of..

So I'm looking forward to when I can get NBAseT cards that provide 2.5Gb/s speeds over Cat5e and 5Gb/s over Cat6.