Networking Advice Sought
Submitted by Midnight on Fri, 11/16/2007 - 10:10am.
I have 9 wired devices that I need to connect to my home network. Currently I have no switch. I connect the 4 "always-used" devices via my 4-port router and leave the others dangling inside my telco closet. I am in the market for a switch. My HTPC has a gigabit NIC, and my HDTV tuner device is supposedly capable of supporting gigabit, so I would like to future-proof myself by buying a gigabit switch. Here are my questions:
1. I read a review of a cheap gigabit switch on newegg that said its 8 kbps buffer was insufficient for media center applications, which is one of my prime concerns. I have noticed this is relatively low compared to other switches, but many don't even list this spec. What does this spec mean? Is the review accurate? If so, what's the minimum buffer speed I should look for?
2. I can buy 2 8-port gigabit switches for 30-50% of the price of a single 16-port gigabit switch. Nobody appears to make 12-port switches for home applications. For this reason I am leaning towards buying 2 8-port gigabit switches. This would also give me a lot of flexibility for LANs and moving the switches around if I upgrade in the future. Will I sacrifice anything by using a 2-switch architecture and simply networking them together? If I do this, should I jump one switch to the other or both switches to the router?
I'm assuming you were looking at this one? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122141
Would probably make the most sense, given the fact that your router is a Netgear as well. In theory, you should just be able to daisy chain the two switches together, I've done it in the past with Linksys models, so I don't really see why it wouldn't work. Worst case, you lose two ports on your router, in exchange for 14 ports on the switches.
From what I could find, the buffer memory in a switch is just what it sounds like. The switch receives a packet, writes it to memory, figures out where it's supposed to go, then sends it on its way. More memory is better, to a point. Did some digging on the Netgear site, and it can push 148,000 packets/sec in 100Mbps, and 1.48M packets/sec at 1000Mbps. That's quite a bit more than 8kbps. You should be good for streaming applications, at worse, just keep the 360 plugged into the router :).
DJ
I think he's talking about this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156211
http://www.trendnet.com/products/TEG-S8.htm
It looks like a good solution, and at a good price ($26 after rebate). Doubt one would find a gigabit switch at a better price point.
A daisy chain topology might be more prone to packet collision. Even though switches are supposed to eliminate collisions, as opposed to a hub, it may be better to connect them both to your router.
Disavowed, that's the one. On another forum someone pointed out that going with two switches limits me to a theoretical 2 Gbps bandwidth (full duplex) between the switches, while one switch raises that to 4 or 8 Gbps (can't remember which) when the processing is internal to the switch. However, I'm not very concerned about that right now, as I only have two gigabit devices. I also am simply not spending a minimum of $150 on a 16-port gigabit switch.
They also pointed out that if I connect both switches to the router, vice connecting the switches to each other, that I bottleneck the bandwidth between the switches to that of the router: 100 Mbps. This means jumping the switches to each other is the way to go.
Trendnet's website quotes 16Gbps forwarding capacity. Don't know if 2 switches would cut that in half, or perhaps even lower.
I didn't think about the router's transfer rate when you mentioned the daisy-chain topology. In that case, maybe daisy-chaining would be the best method. That, or put both of your gigabit devices on the same switch, to avoid the router when packets are sent between the two...
Can't blame you as far as the expensive 16+ port switches. That's getting a little ridiculous!
Post new comment