How To Hook Up Multiple Switches In My Home Network

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gregkinney

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Dec 26, 2015
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I have 15 wired devices in my network. Some of these are streaming video, some are streaming music, one is a NAS server. Everything in the entire network is gigabit. How do I properly hook this up in my house? I have 5 devices on the left side of my house, 5 devices in central area, and 5 devices on right side. It would be easiest if I could do this:

5 devices on left side -----> 8-port gigabit switch ------> Port 1 on router
5 devices in central area -----> 8-port gigabit switch ------> Port 2 on router
5 devices on right side -----> 8-port gigabit switch ------> Port 3 on router

Is that way acceptable? Or do I need to run everything into one 24 port switch?
 
Solution
kanewolf
You only need 1 link from the 8 port switch to the router. You will be limited by your WAN bandwidth no matter what.

Having multiple switches as you propose is usually done because there is insufficient cabling back to a central point. For example the "Living Room" may have a single ethernet cable going back to the central closet. But there are 5 devices in the living room. A switch in the living room will allow them to be connected and to connect back to the central closet. They will share the single gigabit network connection, but that is VERY SELDOM a limiting factor. Your NAS is a device that would be best configured at the central closet area. That way the available bandwidth is available to all clients.
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kanewolf

kanewolf

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You only need 1 link from the 8 port switch to the router. You will be limited by your WAN bandwidth no matter what.

Having multiple switches as you propose is usually done because there is insufficient cabling back to a central point. For example the "Living Room" may have a single ethernet cable going back to the central closet. But there are 5 devices in the living room. A switch in the living room will allow them to be connected and to connect back to the central closet. They will share the single gigabit network connection, but that is VERY SELDOM a limiting factor. Your NAS is a device that would be best configured at the central closet area. That way the available bandwidth is available to all clients.
 
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gregkinney

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Ok, duly noted on the NAS server. Sorry, I need to clarify something. In the proposed architecture above, I am asking if I can use three 8-port switches. One switch in each area in my house. I would be doing this because of cabling limitations. But I could run more cable and have everything hook into one 24-port switch which would hook into my router if that is better. Would that be better?
 
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bill001g

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It really depends on your traffic patterns. When you look at most switches on the market they can run every port at 1g up and 1g down all at the same time. So lets say I have 8 ports talking to another 8 ports at maximum speed. On a 16 port switch it would not be a problem but if you connected 2 8 port switches together with a 1g cable the ports would be limited to the speed of that single port.

Unless you are doing something very unusual I doubt you total bandwidth would exceed the 1g port.

I suspect this is going to be a personal choice more than a technical one. Only big advantage I see to a central switch would be that is it easier to put UPS in one location for your router and switch.....then again unless you were using laptops a active network jack does no good if the PC has no power.
 
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kanewolf

kanewolf

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Unless you have a lot of equipment near the router, you can just cable the three 5 port switches directly to the router and skip the three eight port switches. That is why I assumed it was a single eight port switch with a single uplink to the WAN. That is how my network is laid out. A single gig-E switch in the closet with a single link to the router. All my local traffic can stay on the switch. Anything outside my 192.168 network will go to the router via the single uplink.
 
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Pooneil

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The fewer pieces of infrastructure equipment you have the better. That means there is less to check if something goes wrong and less to go off if you are working on the network at one location. (The kids or wife can still watch TV in another room while you tinker.)

So to restate what others have said, run an ethernet cable drop from the central closet to every place you need internet access. If you have multiple devices at that location, then put on a local switch. For example the TV, Bluray, receiver, Roku and media PC may all be in the entertainment center and connected by ethernet cables to one local switch which is wired to the central switch.

But there is no reason to run a wire from the entertainment center switch to the next room for the bedroom TV. It should have it's own drop from the central switch.

Then run ethernet from the central switch to your den. Use a local switch in that room to connect to a PC or two, a printer and wifi access point, or whatever else may be around the desk.

This kind of design provides flexibility to add local devices with little work.
 
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