Switch question, daisy chain VS home run

Archived from groups: comp.dcom.lans.ethernet (More info?)

"JJ" <Sonbo@comcast.net> wrote:
>I have three switches, they are daisy chained.
>Would I see better performance if I had two of the switches directly
>connected ( home run ) to the third switch as opposed to running threw each
>other.

It depends on the hardware you have attached, the speeds the switches
are running at, and how much traffic you have.

I recently added a gigabit switch to my network, and the two high-end
machines with 1000BT interfaces now get almost 200 megabits when
copying files back and forth, which surprised (and pleased) me.

OTOH, my past upgrade to 10/100 didn't make much difference at all, so
I have evidence on both results.

--
William Smith
ComputerSmiths Consulting, Inc. www.compusmiths.com

Archived from groups: comp.dcom.lans.ethernet (More info?)

"T. Sean Weintz" <sean@snerts-r-us.org> wrote in message
news:10bc0rcb7rm197d@corp.supernews.com...
> JJ wrote:
>
> > I have three switches, they are daisy chained.
> > Would I see better performance if I had two of the switches directly
> > connected ( home run ) to the third switch as opposed to running threw
each
> > other.
> >
> > If yes, could someone point me in the right direction to figure this
out.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > JJ
> >
> >
> generally, it's best to put the two switches both connected to the
> third, and have all servers plugged into the third as well. Any switch
> will give SOME latency (although usual so small as to be pretty much
> unmeasurable from the workstation)

i suggest the main reason for this is to do with system bandwidth.

Your recommended layout has 1 switch as a star point for other switches and
servers. This gives the highest overall system bandwidth (as long as the
backplane within the switch is faster than the switch to switch links -
which should be true by an order of magnitude or more for any reasonable
modern hardware).
>
> --
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--
Regards

Stephen Hope - return address needs fewer xxs

Archived from groups: comp.dcom.lans.ethernet (More info?)

"JJ" <Sonbo@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:2hlv2jFef99nU1@uni-berlin.de...

>I have three switches, they are daisy chained.
>Would I see better performance if I had two of the switches directly
>connected ( home run ) to the third switch as opposed to running
> threw each other.

Note that three switches can only go together one way,
unless you specifically identify one.

If you have four than you can have a daisy chain, or one switch
connected to three others.

Now, if you have one server and many clients, then the switch
connected to the server could be considered special, but even
in that case the performance is limited by the link to
the server, anyway.

The topology of switches is similar to carbon atoms
in hydrocarbon compounds in organic chemistry. There
is one way to connect three carbon atoms, but two ways
to connect four.

-- glen