Switch & Router connections

[evetsmd]

I have a home theater cabinet that requires 5 ethernet connections....at this location is just one ethernet jack that's hardwired back to a patch panel in the basement....here I have a Linksys E4200 and Cisco SE2800 1G switch. Only Wan and switch are connected to the router....everything else goes to the switch.....

For my home theater cabinet I'm thinking install a switch for 5 connects then plug it into the single wall jack..

Questions is....what are thoughts about ganging a switch....do I keep the switches separate and connect each to the back of the router or do I connect the theater switch to the switch in the basement...

Hope my explanation is understandable.....

thanks fo the help...

 

[coxhaus]

You are not going to have too many switches connected by plugging in your 5 port switch to another switch. In fact I would do it that way.

 

[L&LD]

If your question is; do you connect the home theatre switch to the Cisco SE2800 switch or to the router? Connecting the switch directly to the router would be preferred (when most connected devices normally connects to the ISP and not to each other).

Either will work, as noted, but the goal is to mimic the physical network layout as closely as possible with the way the data normally flows on it. This will ensure that the network will remain as fast and as responsive as possible even at maximum load.

Ganging a switch to another switch will work for less than maximum loads. But if you have the capability to easily connect it directly to the main router; why compromise?

 

[coxhaus]

I totaly disagree L&D. Your router is your slowest device on the network and I would minimize the work the router has to perform. Switches are much faster. Keep all your layer 2 device together. Build a high speed core and fan out from there. I would only think about connecting the extra switch to the router if it was running on a separate network and the router was required to route between them. You need to remember switches are working at layer 2 not layer 3.

 

[L&LD]

You can disagree, but you are forgetting that the ports in the router are actually another switch. There is no slowdown by connecting directly to the router. I recommend fully populating the router's ports with switches first and then grouping devices that interact with each other to a single switch.

We are not talking about business class devices here that do a single function. A modern router is many devices in one.

 

[coxhaus]

Switches are cheap. I never use my router as a switch.

 

[abailey]

I totaly disagree L&D. Your router is your slowest device on the network and I would minimize the work the router has to perform. Switches are much faster. Keep all your layer 2 device together. Build a high speed core and fan out from there. I would only think about connecting the extra switch to the router if it was running on a separate network and the router was required to route between them. You need to remember switches are working at layer 2 not layer 3.

I generally agree with this. But in this particular case we are talking home "router". The Linksys E4200 has a 4 port gigabit switch on the back. This is a switch unto itself and as long as the traffic does not need to go to the WAN, the traffic does not leave the switch ports and does not go to the routers processor (as long as DDWRT or something else has not been loaded that can deactivate the hardware acceleration on the switch ports). Thus it should be as fast as any other switch. In short, unless his internet line is a gigabit or more, I think the OP will not see any difference what so ever between hooking it up one way or the other. Personally I would (and do at my home) hook the switches together and then have a single connection from my core switch to the router (but then again my router does not have a built in switch in the back).

 

[coxhaus]

There seems to be some ifs on hardware accerlation and I guess if the processor is not tapped at all then using the router switch probably would not have an effect at all. But good design and something which works 100% of the time is my statement. Maybe some routers with some software will work OK but I want a statement which works all the time.

 

[L&LD]

Switches are cheap. I never use my router as a switch.

Built in switches on home routers are 'free'.

You don't give a reason for not using your router as a switch though?

I generally agree with this. But in this particular case we are talking home "router". The Linksys E4200 has a 4 port gigabit switch on the back. This is a switch unto itself and as long as the traffic does not need to go to the WAN, the traffic does not leave the switch ports and does not go to the routers processor (as long as DDWRT or something else has not been loaded that can deactivate the hardware acceleration on the switch ports). Thus it should be as fast as any other switch. In short, unless his internet line is a gigabit or more, I think the OP will not see any difference what so ever between hooking it up one way or the other. Personally I would (and do at my home) hook the switches together and then have a single connection from my core switch to the router (but then again my router does not have a built in switch in the back).

The problem with having a single connection to the router (when the option of 4 ports is available) is that the internet traffic could be slowing down internal LAN traffic or vice versa, depending on how the network is being utilized at any given moment.

Grouping devices on a single switch that normally interact with each other is the goal when maximum sustained network load is desired.

Seeing the ISP (via the router) as just another 'device' that almost all other devices will interact with will quickly highlight the bottleneck that using a single port vs. 3 additional ports may have, depending on internal network usage.

When a network is properly designed for maximum sustained load, anything below that max level is 'effortless' for the equipment and the users of that network. And taking advantage of consumer routers with built in switches, it may even be cheaper too.

 

[L&LD]

There seems to be some ifs on hardware accerlation and I guess if the processor is not tapped at all then using the router switch probably would not have an effect at all. But good design and something which works 100% of the time is my statement. Maybe some routers with some software will work OK but I want a statement which works all the time.

There are no ifs at all. Tim will jump in and provide the detail, but a router's built in switches are no better or worse than a standalone switch of the same category / speed (10 / 100 or 10 / 100 / 1000 as the case may be).

 

[coxhaus]

If your internet traffic is slowing down your internal network you have a bad design or bad hardware. Like I said switches are much faster than routers.

 

[L&LD]

If your internet traffic is slowing down your internal network you have a bad design or bad hardware. Like I said switches are much faster than routers.

Not necessarily (depending on the ISP capability).

 

[System Error Message]

You can disagree, but you are forgetting that the ports in the router are actually another switch. There is no slowdown by connecting directly to the router. I recommend fully populating the router's ports with switches first and then grouping devices that interact with each other to a single switch.

We are not talking about business class devices here that do a single function. A modern router is many devices in one.

business class routers do multiple things usually more than a modern router such as user authentication for example. Some routers like mikrotik CCR dont have switch chips because they can switch L2/L3 at wirespeed using the CPU and still perform NAT, firewall and user authentication at the same time. Business class routers with a switch chip usually give you more control over switching instead of using dumb switches. Features like managed switching, port teaming, QoS, LCD screens and so on. User authentication would be something like RADIUS or hotspot built into the router or even proxy/cache feature.

Im sure that all consumer routers with multiple ports have a switch on them to do L2 at wirespeed but whether or not they do VLANs depends on the model ,brand and how recent. The main concern when using multiple switches is mainly how you have the bandwidth to go about. If you dont expect loads of traffic to transfer between one switch and another than using any switch isnt an issue but if you want to transfer like multiple Gb/s of data at the same time you will need switches with 10Gb/s ports or port teaming. How you place the switch between one another is also important so that traffic goes through as few hops as possible.

 

[coxhaus]

Not necessarily (depending on the ISP capability).

This is always true. You need to design your network for ISP's speed.

 

[abailey]

In the OP's instance, it is very hard to recommend which way he should hook it since we don't know what his primary need is for his ethernet connection. If his primary need is to pull media from a NAS or HTPC connected to his Cisco SE2800 then it would make sense to connect his new home theater switch to the Cisco. If his main need for ethernet connection is to stream media from the internet, it would make sense to connect his new switch directly to the Linksys router. Then again I highly doubt he is coming close to saturating his network and I still think he won't see a difference either way.

 

[L&LD]

This is always true. You need to design your network for ISP's speed.

We are still in disagreement (but I now have time for a fuller response).

If we agree to be constrained by what is available financially for most users, take into consideration general users 'ability' in configuring networks and the wide range of ISP speeds offered over the world that can reach and exceed 1Gbps, can we agree that 1GB LAN equipment is our minimum and maximum 'base' equipment for 99.99% of home networks (not to mention most business networks too)? Considering that 10GB LAN solutions are at least 20x the cost currently?

If we do, and that is the premise of my previous posts assuming a 1Gbps ISP connection and a consumer router, then your statement is not always true. Specifically, it does not mean "If your internet traffic is slowing down your internal network you have a bad design or bad hardware".

Consider the following which I consider normal for most home (and even some small business) networks:

1. More than 4 wired users in the network (but usually about 20 and less than 100).
2. At least one wired user downloading (multiple) files through our almost 1Gbps ISP connection almost 'always' during peak network times.
3. More than one user accessing another computer (or NAS) for media (data) consumption.
4. More than one user accessing a NAS concurrently for automatic backup purposes.
5. More than one identifiable group of devices that interact frequently with each other and should therefore be on their own separate switch.

With almost any combination of the above scenarios and a not that uncommon 100Mbps to 1Gbps ISP connection, ganging switches when the option of connecting to the router itself is a possibility is a poor choice for overall network performance.

Many times I have greatly improved the network performance of my customers by simply fully utilizing the ports available on the router and, with the more complicated networks, adding a switch for each available router LAN port. Getting rid of the internal LAN bottlenecks does not always mean spending more dollars (for 10GB LAN equipment, for example). Nor does having ISP bottlenecks necessarily indicate a case of bad hardware or hardware design choices (while still being constrained by our wallets).

As I already said; taking advantage of the built in switch of almost all home routers is the cheapest way to design a network for maximum sustained speeds. And the way to that goal is to mimic the physical network layout as closely as possible with the way the data normally flows on it.

This is what will ensure that the network will remain as fast and as responsive as possible even at maximum load.

I have no doubt that at the absolute highest level of network design, your statement is correct. However, we are talking here about an existing $65 router and $49 switch and adding a $20 switch to the mix.

 

[coxhaus]

We still do not agree. There is no 1 gig limit. You design for what is coming from your ISP and build your network accordingly. If you are getting 2 gig of fiber you design for it. I never once said it would be cheap. And by the way there does not seem to be a consumer router which can handle 2 gigs of fiber as we have been discussing on this forum already.

 

[L&LD]

We still do not agree. There is no 1 gig limit. You design for what is coming from your ISP and build your network accordingly. If you are getting 2 gig of fiber you design for it. I never once said it would be cheap. And by the way there does not seem to be a consumer router which can handle 2 gigs of fiber as we have been discussing on this forum already.

And...

You seem to be missing the point entirely.

 

[coxhaus]

And...

You seem to be missing the point entirely.

This seems to be your favorite line. I have heard it before from you.

 

[L&LD]

No, you're mistaken again.

I think you are missing the point. With Home Server you are getting a complete package turnkey. All the back ups are thought out, all the archiving, all the maintenance and updates to maintain this is done, no planning or effort required. My machines and clients back up nightly. I just pop in the Microsoft disc to rebuild any machine. To me this is the beauty of this system. Microsoft has taken on all the responsibility.

I see a NAS as a snap shot in time. You have the responsibility for planning, maintaining and archiving backups. Making sure all of this happens. You also must maintain firmware and test these changes to make sure things are compatible with all your OSs. You need to come up with a restore plan and test when changes are made. I don’t think you are going to restore a full OS from a NAS backup to a client unless you add a third parties software to the mix which requires more testing and more updates. I see NAS more as nice storage hardware.

From another thread. Seems to be your favorite.