noob switch question

mikehammer67

http://www.dabs.ie/products/netgear-gs105-5-port-gigabit-switch----2X1X.html?src=3


can i run a network cable from my eircom router to this switch and then connect 4 devices to it

xbox
2 pcs
laptop

and is there any difference in speed?
(as against 4 separate network cables from router)

and is there any setup needed?


thanks

FSL

Yes it should be fine. But it will only work as fast as the router. That is if the router is only 100Mb the switch will not increase that to 1Gb.

Personally I would look at an 8 port one as it's always useful to have a couple if spare ports available.

kaisersoze

Can't see why it wouldn't work.

Only issue i can see is DHCP, so you may need to use static addresses.

Speed shouldn't be issue either, as each device should connect at 100 or 1000 mbps, so the speed only becomes an issue at the broadband, which is where you speed is the problem. So if you have 8mb broadband, it doesn't matter what the rest of the devices connect at, you are operating at 8mb. so even 10/100/1000 will have no negative impact on what the user experience is.

So setup on each of the devices may only be static IP..

For eircom router, just give them 192.168.1.200, 201, 202 and 203 with a mask of 255.255.255.0 and defeault gateway of the router, usually 192.168.1.254

Once they are all connected you should be able to ping each of the devices from the attach pc.

Good luck with it.

Alun

kaisersoze wrote: »

Can't see why it wouldn't work.

Only issue i can see is DHCP, so you may need to use static addresses.

Speed shouldn't be issue either, as each device should connect at 100 or 1000 mbps, so the speed only becomes an issue at the broadband, which is where you speed is the problem. So if you have 8mb broadband, it doesn't matter what the rest of the devices connect at, you are operating at 8mb. so even 10/100/1000 will have no negative impact on what the user experience is.

So setup on each of the devices may only be static IP..

For eircom router, just give them 192.168.1.200, 201, 202 and 203 with a mask of 255.255.255.0 and defeault gateway of the router, usually 192.168.1.254

Once they are all connected you should be able to ping each of the devices from the attach pc.

Good luck with it.

??? It's a switch, a layer 2 device, so has absolutely zero impact on DHCP requests which will be handled by the router as usual.

mikehammer67

ok thanks

so that will save me running multiple cables from the router location to each device?

i can run one from the router to the switch and hook them all into the switch without losing speed?



file transfers etc. all run the same speed yes??

Alun

Yes, that's it. Of course, if any of the devices you connect to the new switch are capable of gigabit speeds, then any file transfers between them will also be a gigabit speeds, but transfers to or from any devices only capable of 100Mbit/s will be limited by that.

kaisersoze

I've seen issues with DHCP working on LAN with Cisco Layer2 Switches. Not arguing with you, just giving the lad the benefit of my experience

I did say he may need to. Thats all!

Alun wrote: »

??? It's a switch, a layer 2 device, so has absolutely zero impact on DHCP requests which will be handled by the router as usual.

mikehammer67

i'm ok on the wiring side of things-but i'll be using cat5e

say you were transferring data at 100mb/s between lots of different devices on the network
could there be a bottleneck on the cat5e between the router and switch??


thanks

PogMoThoin

kaisersoze wrote: »

I've seen issues with DHCP working on LAN with Cisco Layer2 Switches. Not arguing with you, just giving the lad the benefit of my experience

I did say he may need to. Thats all!

A Cisco isn't a "dumb switch" like the one posted, it's a managed switch.

Nelbert

mikehammer67 wrote: »

i'm ok on the wiring side of things-but i'll be using cat5e

say you were transferring data at 100mb/s between lots of different devices on the network
could there be a bottleneck on the cat5e between the router and switch??


thanks

Say you have 2 gigabit switchs pulling off the same 100mb/s router. Transfers that stay within the confines of each switch would be full 1gb/s speeds but if you had a computer->1gb/s switch-> 100mb/s router -> 1gb/s switch-> computer the transfer would only work at 100mb/s.

Follow the path of the data to figure it out, it'll be dictated by the slowest link in the chain. It may be worth getting another 1gb/s switch so that only the external internet stuff runs at less than 1gb/s or a 1gb/s router if the above is your only connection option.

Nelbert

Nelbert wrote: »

Say you have 2 gigabit switchs pulling off the same 100mb/s router. Transfers that stay within the confines of each switch would be full 1gb/s speeds but if you had a computer->1gb/s switch-> 100mb/s router -> 1gb/s switch-> computer the transfer would only work at 100mb/s.

Follow the path of the data to figure it out, it'll be dictated by the slowest link in the chain. It may be worth getting another 1gb/s switch so that only the external internet stuff runs at less than 1gb/s or a 1gb/s router if the above is your only connection option.

But wont every device connected to the 1gb/s switch connect to each other over the local lan at 1gb/s as long as they support that speed? Why does he need two 1gb/s switches??