When is a VLAN really necessary?

[sdeleeuw]

This thread is worthless without pics, you can say it...

My home network has no problems, but I wonder if a VLAN would make any difference. It has about 20 nodes, which isn't much, but could the arp traffic be significant enough that I may want to explore segmenting? It also has a Synology DS109 which monitors two IP cams, so the feed runs constantly to the DS109, something that I ponder segmenting.

Here's a list from what I can remember:

* Motorola SB-6120 cable modem (22mbps down, 5 up, relevant for VoIP and web serving)
* Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH gigabit router (bgn 2.4ghz)
* Edimax BR-6475nD gigabit router (router unused, serving wireles n 5ghz)
* D-Link 8-port gigabit switch x 2

* Windows 2003 server (domain controller and DNS, 1gbps)
* Windows 7 desktop x 2 (both are 1gbps, but one only connects at 100mbps, hardware problem. One runs PlayOn for DLNA to the Samsung TV)
* Windows XP laptop (wireless n 5ghz)

* Old TurtleBeach Audiotron (10mbps)
* TiVo (100mbps)
* Skype VoIP adapter (100mbps)
* Vortexbox (1gbps, primarily DLNA to Samsung TV)
* Samsung TV (100mbps, mostly DLNA from Vortexbox and PlayOn)
* Foscam IP cam (100mbps) x 2
* Synology DS111 (1gbps, doing backups, Squeezebox server, and serving about 5 external web pages)
* Synology DS109 (1gbps, running Surveillance Station and BIND as 2nd DNS)
* HP Photosmart 6400 printer (100mbps)
* Squeezebox Duet (100mbps)

* Squeezebox remote (wireless g)
* Android phone x 2 (wireless g)
* iTouch (wireless g)


Presently I don't use QoS or anything and there doesn't seem to be a problem, VoIP is used both by Skype and by my laptop with Office Communicator on my work from home days and sound quality is good. Mixing 10mbps, 100mbps, and 1000mbps doesn't seem to cause problems either. I also don't seem to have problems with wireless, although I did get the 5ghz N router as I thought that would be better while working. The laptop connected to that presently gets about 19mbps down and 4mbps up (wired is 22mbps down and 5mbps up).

Would creating a VLAN help, possibly segmenting the IP cam traffic to it's own VLAN? Or maybe the wireless traffic?

 

[thiggins]

VLANs can help if broadcast traffic (DHCP requests) is causing performance problems or if you need to separate traffic for privacy reasons. Doesn't sound like either applies here.

 

[leeishom]

I think of only using VLAN, for security reasons - that's it.
But of course, every implementation is varied by topology.

 

[sdeleeuw]

Ok, thanks for all the feedback... I just was running Wireshark for something else and kept getting sick of the "Who has x.x.x.x, tell x.x.x.x" arp broadcast messages. Not like there are a lot of them, but Windows 7 rebuilds it's arp cache much more frequently than XP did. Or possibly I have something wrong if they are having to do that often?