Lines to Router or Switch????

[johnrr6]

I have seen discussions about home network topology that claim you should not branch any direct lines to other rooms off the router itself-----regardless if the router is Gigabit capable or not.

All branch lines should go through a switch with basically only one line from the router to the switch.

Which would mean your entire internet traffic household wide is being funneled through one line off the switch to the router.

Good idea???

Not a good idea???

Doesn't make any difference???

[SRTDodge05]

I normally only use one port on my router then go to my switch then branch off. You dont have to do it that way but i like to. I find it easier to label and keep track of your lines. I also would think you would get better performance using a switch then a router to transfer files.

[johnrr6]

Originally Posted by SRTDodge05

I also would think you would get better performance using a switch then a router to transfer files.

And that's exactly what folks are claiming......

I am also getting better cable throughout the house but talk about a BIG job.......

Edging it around the carpet and under moulding takes forever.....

And wears my finger skin right off.....

[SRTDodge05]

Need some good gloves.

[3 of 7]

Never fails, I wired my house with cat5 to every room, about a year before cat6 became available..

[SRTDodge05]

I went from Cat5e to Cat6 in my parents house. I put 2 to 3 jacks in each room of the house.

[SKI]

Depends upon hardware characteristics of the particular router.

My old Cisco 806 router incorporated a 4 port 10mbps hub, which allowed all connected boxen to communicate at a TOTAL of 10mbps... dead slow for LAN comms. I used a 100mbps switch for my LAN, and a single line to the router as you describe, to get 100mbps full duplex speed for each connected box.

The router I'm currently using incorporates a 4 port 100mbps switch, and adding another 100mbps switch externally wouldn't gain me any noticeable performance increase... the switch architecture/hardware functions separately from the router. In this case, I could get better LAN performance by adding an external Gig-Ethernet switch and NICs.

For my money, designing your network installation for simplest cable runs and best wireless access point location is the way to go. My next network upgrade will be to cat6 and gig-e throughout my LAN.

[zsaz1029]

Nice to see SKI chime in!

[Deer Slayer]

Cat5e will do gigabit. It's not as good as cat6, but you don't have to necessarily replace cat5e to get gigabit speeds.

Anyways, routers have a switch built in. The lan ports are all on a switch, and if the lan ports are the same speed as the switch, it won't make much difference. Where the link between the router and the switch would become a problem is IF there was enough traffic to swamp that port. Unless you have more than one computer on BOTH the switch and the router trying to transfer stuff at full speed where the data has to go from one device to the other, it won't make a difference. If you did have a situation where your network throughput could saturate a single port, then it IS better to plug everything into a switch. However, if you run out of plugs and need to connect an extra machine or 2, it's no big deal to daisychain switches (or routers). Now if the router is gigabit capable, and you're only plugging in 100mb machines, you'd ONLY see a problem IF you had 10 machines trying to send data across the uplink cable. Surfing the net wouidn't make much difference unless you had a connection faster than the lan ports. You'd be hard pressed to saturate a single gigabit port unless you had a couple machines with raid arrays. The hard drive throughput wouldn't be enough to do it from a single 7200 rpm drive. You'd need a minimum of 3 machines (with single hard drives) on either side of the uplink running at max throughput to actually cause any noticable difference. I seriously doubt you'd ever notice a bottleneck like that on your average home network. TECHNICALLY, you'd get an ever so slight performance advantage by keeping everything on the switch. Mainly because each device has to determine which port has the machine it's looking for on it. So, packets from one puter to another across the uplink are slower by LESS THAN 1 MS. Your switch gets a packet from computer A (which is plugged into the switch) for computer B (which is on the router), and the switch says that computer B is on the uplink port. Then the router has to make the same decision, computer B is on such and such port. The acknowledgement has to go through the same process. It does add just a tiny bit of latency. Packets from the net go through that same process anyways, and the computers connected directly to the router would have just a tiny bit less latency to the net.

[johnrr6]

Excellent eplanation----thank you!!!

About the only time I see any slowdowns is when my two sons come home from college----and invite some buds over to play Warcraft.

With 4 PC's and a couple of wireless laptops all going at once----it will sometimes seem a bit slower----not always----but sometimes....

Originally Posted by Deer Slayer

Cat5e will do gigabit. It's not as good as cat6, but you don't have to necessarily replace cat5e to get gigabit speeds.

Anyways, routers have a switch built in. The lan ports are all on a switch, and if the lan ports are the same speed as the switch, it won't make much difference. Where the link between the router and the switch would become a problem is IF there was enough traffic to swamp that port. Unless you have more than one computer on BOTH the switch and the router trying to transfer stuff at full speed where the data has to go from one device to the other, it won't make a difference. If you did have a situation where your network throughput could saturate a single port, then it IS better to plug everything into a switch. However, if you run out of plugs and need to connect an extra machine or 2, it's no big deal to daisychain switches (or routers). Now if the router is gigabit capable, and you're only plugging in 100mb machines, you'd ONLY see a problem IF you had 10 machines trying to send data across the uplink cable. Surfing the net wouidn't make much difference unless you had a connection faster than the lan ports. You'd be hard pressed to saturate a single gigabit port unless you had a couple machines with raid arrays. The hard drive throughput wouldn't be enough to do it from a single 7200 rpm drive. You'd need a minimum of 3 machines (with single hard drives) on either side of the uplink running at max throughput to actually cause any noticable difference. I seriously doubt you'd ever notice a bottleneck like that on your average home network. TECHNICALLY, you'd get an ever so slight performance advantage by keeping everything on the switch. Mainly because each device has to determine which port has the machine it's looking for on it. So, packets from one puter to another across the uplink are slower by LESS THAN 1 MS. Your switch gets a packet from computer A (which is plugged into the switch) for computer B (which is on the router), and the switch says that computer B is on the uplink port. Then the router has to make the same decision, computer B is on such and such port. The acknowledgement has to go through the same process. It does add just a tiny bit of latency. Packets from the net go through that same process anyways, and the computers connected directly to the router would have just a tiny bit less latency to the net.

[Belgareon]

I have a similar problem. My router and my DSL modem are in seperate rooms,
. Right now I have a "NAS-HD" + 3 computers hooked up directly to the router and then the wiring goes to separate rooms from there. I wonder if it is possible to replace the router with a switch, then from the switch connect to the router with the NAS-HD which I would now place where the ADSL modem right now.

So, I would like to plug in 3 computers + router to the switch, then connect the NAS-HD directly to the router. Would this work? I have a Belkin pre-n router.

Thanks in advance!

[Belgareon]

Oh, one more thing, any special recommendations regarding switches?

[SKI]

The best reason to go to cat6 is to 'future-proof' your cable installation. Given the labor involved in installing structured cable, it makes sense to install higher-standard cable, rather than setting yourself up for another wiring installation at a "relatively" early date. At least, that's what the cabling pro's are always going to tell you when you plan to wire your business facility. Whether you want to go this route in a home network installation is another decision, especially if you're doing the work yourself.

Current cat5e spec is (as noted above) fully capable of supporting gig-e providing your hardware is up to current spec's.

There is good reason to be aware of, and to plan for, the port-saturation issue. When you daisy chain devices (switch/router) and have multiple PCs on both devices you run the real risk of overwhelming the ports running from switch to switch/router when you've got multiple sessions running at once. This is why managed switches are capable of "port-bonding" (see fast ether-channel) and/or other "backbone" switch/switch communication methods. So, when using unmanaged switches it's advisable to buy a switch with enough ports to handle all your PC's at once if you have port saturation concerns, or to at least put the boxen you expect to need highest-possible speed network links with each other on the same unmanaged device (typical home-network switches & routers fall under this heading). Wireless complicates this further: using a WAP with a gig-e uplink port, plugged into a gig-e switch, will help you avoid switch port saturation, provided the total number of wireless connections has a lower aggregate throughput than the speed of the wired uplink connection. Multiple wireless devices needing very high speed LAN connections may suggest need for multiple WAPs even when wireless transmission range issues aren't present.

In the final analysis, for my money (YMMV) it makes sense by starting any network design exercise by evaluating real-world bandwidth needs across each link between boxen. Thus, servers handling connections between multiple clients are likely going to require big/multiple network channels, while clients will generally need less bandwidth. Assuming that every box in your network is going to need constant access to max speed network pipes is going to result in your having to build a MONSTER network that you may not need IRL. Apps like WOW, combined with comms apps such as Ventrilo, can be bandwidth hogs. Streaming video and music, or working with large files/apps stored on servers, are examples of some of the other things you'd want to take into account during the design process. Done elegantly, each of your PC's will be placed at the location within your network that best serves its individual bandwidth needs, and the network's layout will serve all boxen needs as a group.

This is why network designers can and do get paid a lot of $$$!

Like most of computing, networks wind up being about "How fast CAN you go?". "How fast to you NEED to go?", and "How fast can you AFFORD to go?".