Switch buying advice

[rstark18]

Hi guys, can someone point me in the right direction as far as managed/unmanaged switch for my home network.
In my office I have a Linksys E3000 running Tomato and have run out of ports. All I need is one more port so I guess I need a switch. My network requirements are pretty minimal. I have a desktop PC (GB), a PS3 (GB), NAS (GB), an Ooma Telo (10/100)(currently wireless as I ran out of ports), and another AP from the other side of the house (GB).
I assumeI need nothing more than an unmanaged cheap gigabit switch but let me know what I don't know.

 

[stevech]

My experiences:
Early gigE switches used hot chips. Two I bought lasted less than 3 months (D-Link and Linksys).

Today, the chips are cooler and I have several with zero problems:
Fry's in-house 5 port. I have two, used for months, no problem.
Netgear lightly managed 8 port gigE, proSafe metal box. VLANs and mirroring. Very good. Lots of hours. $60 on eBay.
Netgear plastic - OK. Not my 1st choice.

 

[dnoyeb]

Since you're doing VOIP I would suggest to get a switch that is at least QoS aware.

 

[coolspot]

Since you're doing VOIP I would suggest to get a switch that is at least QoS aware.

A QoS enabled switch is a bit of an overkill for home use - especially with gigabit.

An unmanaged switch is more than sufficient for the vast majority of residential users.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Connections

Pay attention to how and what devices you connect directly to your router and what devices you connect to your switch.

Devices which will benefit from the highest throughput on LAN to LAN connections will probably transfer data faster if they are all either hooked to your switch or your router. In my case when I rearranged my network and connected my Slingbox directly to my router (versus a spare Ethernet port on an attached AP ) my LAN video streaming rate increased by 400 - 600 Kbps. I attribute the increase to eliminating one device the streaming video had to pass through.

In your case I would hook your PC with the Gigabyte NIC directly to an Ethernet port on the router. If you add a network storage device (not USB) it too should be connected directly to your router.

I would also connect your VOIP device directly to your router both for the higher speed but more importantly if required you can try tweaking the QOS on the router. No need to buy a switch with this feature.

Another thing to keep in mind is with a more sophisticated network it probably worthwhile to connect your modem, router and switch to an UPS. As the result power glitches or outages it is a possibility that one of the devices will not automatically reboot in the proper sequence. Not a problem if you are home and can unplug then replug your equipment, but this is not possible if you are away from home and need access to files or devices on your network and your network is offline.

 

[tgoodie]

I have a similar question

Perhaps you can help me out. Here is my problem…

I have a Bell 2-Wire 2701 modem/router supplying my Internet. I added an Asus RT-N66U gigabit router and disabled the Bell router and wireless portions.

I have no problem whatsoever connecting to the Internet either wirelessly with my laptop, or with another computer hard wired to the Asus RT-N66U router.

Today, I ran 50 feet of Cat6 Ethernet cabling to a TP-Link TL-SG1005 gigabit switch. I connected one end of the cable to one of LAN ports of the Asus RT-N66U router and one end to the switch. I then proceeded to hardwire some of my devices to the TP Link switch…like the same laptop that was getting wireless connection. I disabled the wireless Internet connection of my laptop hoping to get Internet thru the switch. I got nothing…and I was hoping to connect my receiver and xBox to the TP-Link switch as well, but if I am getting nothing at the laptop???

Are there some settings that must be set on either the Asus router or the TP Link switch before I can get Internet? How would I even go about getting into the unmanaged TP-Link switch anyway?

Does my Asus router have to connect a certain way with my Bell modem? I noticed that it is PPPoE...instead of Automatic IP.

Totally lost…

Whatever help you can offer that would be great!

 

[tgoodie]

Problem solved

For some reason, my laptop was not configured to accept a wired connection...