10/100 router and two gigabit switches

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drdwridav

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Mar 30, 2015
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Here is my situation. At the moment I have a router with gigabit Ethernet downstairs. This serves the TV and a HTPC. Then there is a Lan connection to another gigabit router upstairs to act as a switch/access point for computers and steaming box upstairs.

Now i am upgrading to fibre and the incoming fibre router is only 10/100 despite excellent wireless performance.

What is important to me is that I preserve the gigabit network between the HTPC downstairs and the computers upstairs.

Would the following work ok

Step 1:
Fibre router to gigabit switch

Step 2:
Connect HTPC to gigabit switch and the Ethernet cable running upstairs

Step 3:
Keep a gigabit router upstairs to continue as access point and most importantly preserve the gigabit network between computers upstairs and the HTPC downstairs (use it for a lot of file transfers as well as streaming)!

It seems a viable solution but I've seen warnings about effectively daisy chaining switches??
Thanks
 
Solution
McHenryB
I'm not sure that's a good analogy. (Which is a polite way of saying that I think it is incorrect.)

As the name implies, an 8 port switch joins 8 8" pipes together; it doesn't divide the bandwidth by eight for each connection. If two computers are connected to the switch and talk to each other, they have a 1Gb connection, not 1/8 Gb. The switch, like a railroad switch, switches the connection depending upon who is talking to who.

Now if more than one conversation is going on at the same time to any device then the situation is exactly as with a single 1Gb connection; those multiple conversation share the 1 Gb bandwidth.

Short answer to the OP's question. That is exactly what you want to do. Traffic between devices attached to the two...
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Kewlx25

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Think of a switch like a pipe.

An 8 port switch could be like an 8" pipe with 8x1" pipes connecting to it.

When you daisy chain, you're connection these 8" pipes together via their 1" pipes. You can get a choke point. 1Gb is still very fast for the average person, but if you get a 100Mb mixed in there, now you're talking about 0.1" pipes. You want as little to flow through those 0.1" pipes as possible.
 
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McHenryB

McHenryB

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Jan 31, 2015
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I'm not sure that's a good analogy. (Which is a polite way of saying that I think it is incorrect.)

As the name implies, an 8 port switch joins 8 8" pipes together; it doesn't divide the bandwidth by eight for each connection. If two computers are connected to the switch and talk to each other, they have a 1Gb connection, not 1/8 Gb. The switch, like a railroad switch, switches the connection depending upon who is talking to who.

Now if more than one conversation is going on at the same time to any device then the situation is exactly as with a single 1Gb connection; those multiple conversation share the 1 Gb bandwidth.

Short answer to the OP's question. That is exactly what you want to do. Traffic between devices attached to the two switches will get a 1 Gb connection; traffic that goes to the Internet will get a 100 Mb connection. As I understand it, that is what you are seeking the situation will be exactly as it was before.
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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You current configuration is actually the same as your proposed configuration.....mostly it just how you look at things.

Inside most routers there is a small 5 port switch chip that runs the 4 lan ports with the fifth connection going to the router chip. So in your current configuration you have 2 5 port switch connected together with a router connected to a port on each switch.

The only difference would be you are now going to use a physical switch in place of the downstairs "5 port switch". In your new configuration the router would be limited to 100m since that is all it can run and of course now it is a actual cable rather than some copper trace on a circuit board.
The speed of the router though would have no impact on the traffic between the switches, you could turn it off if you wanted.
 
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drdwridav

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Mar 30, 2015
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Mchenryb and billo01g - thanks for your answers guys really reassuring. Just wanted to know I was not going to be worse off for the upgrade and didn't want to buy yet another new router! So the switch effectively can be used to replace the lan ports on the new router and I'm in the same position as before in terms of my local network - just my internet is restricted to 100mb :) it's 38mb fibre so that is never going to be an issue!
Out of interest the TV and Apple TV box downstairs are both 10/100 devices. Should these be connected directly to the router or the new switch downstairs or would it not make any difference overall?
 
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bill001g

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It likely will make no difference... When you start picking nits there are tiny delays (fractions of 1ms) for each switch you pass though so traffic will be faster if you put it on the switch rather than the router. Now if you can find a way to actually detect this that is another question.
 
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