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Asus RT-N66U + 2 x Switches

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hshah

Occasional Visitor
I have a RT-N66U running the latest Tomato firmware as well as:

HP Procurve 1810-24G
D-Link DES-1210-28P

At the moment I have each switch hooked up to the router via a gigabit connection, and then my devices split across both switches. Devices that run LACP (Synology NAS and my PC) are on the HP as well as any devices that will transfer a lot of data between itself and the LACP devices. The D-Link primarily provides PoE for 10 security cameras, all of which write to the NAS.

So, I'm thinking that all the video recording goes via the router when there is no need, so is there any harm in me daisy chaining the switches? Would it be possible to LACP the switches with the router, so that each uses 2 of the available ports on the router?

What would happen if I just connected a couple more cables from each switch to the router without enabling any kind of LACP/bonding? Will it just use it or will my network get all confused and give up?
 
What is the intended setup of your network, what is the purpose of those switches and what is the role of your router, where do you want your network data (camaras and NAS) to be available (local or also on the Internet)?
The router should only be used as gateway between your local network and the Internet.
For quite sure the router does not support LACP.
I guess you shall use your switches to build your "main" local network by linking them together, then have one connection from either switch to the router for Internet traffic.
Again, it all depends on what you try to establish.
 
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What is the intended setup of your network, what is the purpose of those switches and what is the role of your router, where do you want your network data (camaras and NAS) to be available (local or also on the Internet)?
The router should only be used as gateway between your local network and the Internet.
For quite sure the router does not support LACP.
I guess you shall use your switches to build your "main" local network, then have one connection from either switch to the router for Internet traffic.
Again, it all depends on what you try to establish.

My main goal was to minimise the load on the router. Since the switches are linked to the router, everything between the two switches has to go via the router. That is why I was thinking that daisy chaining them may help, but then I wasn't sure of that would cause issues with internet access and DHCP.

Most parts of my network/devices are available from the WAN... ie. all PCs, cameras, NAS etc.

I was also thinking redundancy... for example if I had two cables from once switch to the router and one accidentally got disconnected, it wouldn't kill most of the devices on that switch.
 
Daisy chaining will only work if the devices support that, the router for quite sure will not.
Keep in mind that the RT-N66U is a router intended for home usage, and lacks many features you find in more expensive professional devices.
If you want a more reliable network with higher uptime you shall look into more professional devices.
I would link the switches and have one connection to the router.
 
Daisy chaining will only work if the devices support that, the router for quite sure will not.
Keep in mind that the RT-N66U is a router intended for home usage, and lacks many features you find in more expensive professional devices.
If you want a more reliable network with higher uptime you shall look into more professional devices.
I would link the switches and have one connection to the router.

You mentioned that daisy chaining would work if the devices supported it... do you know if my switches support it? Would the router still work for DHCP for devices connected to the second switch and will all those devices be able to access the internet, ie:

Router ---> Switch 1 ---> Switch 2
 
Daisy chaining switches will most definitely work and devices do not need to support it. It really does not matter how you do it as the router does not do any packet processing on anything in the internal network so SWITCH1 -> ROUTER -> SWITCH2 would give the same result as ROUTER -> SWITHCH1 -> SWITCH2.

If you do not have manageable switches (i.e. you paid around 50 bucks for yours) with link aggregation and spanning tree protocol do not make any loops between them and these loops will suck all the bandwidth and your network will cease to function.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanning_tree_protocol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switching_loop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_aggregation
 

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