1000mbit switch - Looking at the prosafe netgear

[Mick]

I am a little confused here, and maybe some clever lads can help me out.

I have been looking at upgrading my home network, all cables are either cat6 (upstairs) or cat5e (downstairs), it was all done in stages over 4 years when remodelling.

Anyway onto the important part!

Is it worth me getting a 1000mbit switch, if my router that will serve the DHCP is only 100base ?

I am not 100% sure how the router and switch communicate, will the router only be accessed for a lease address and after that it will use the throughput of the switch to communicate, or will it every time there is activity need some communication from the router ?

IE, if there is communication from the router each time activity occurs then the network will only be functioning as 100base as the router will be the bottle neck ?

However if the computers on the network only communicate occasionally to release or renew there lease (24 hours, etc) then it would not be a problem as computer to computer would be able to use the 1000mbit connections.

I do understand that the internet will always be the bottleneck on a home network. but I just thought for large file transfers it would be wise to find out.

Regards
Mick

 

[Kruger]

No the switch will be fine for your LAN.

Switches operate on layer 2 and use MAC addresses to identify devices on the LAN where router will route traffic across networks using IP addresses at layer 3.

Hope that helps

 

[Mick]

Thanks for the reply, Tell me a bit more please

So basically is this scenario correct ?

PC 1 gets an IP address from the router - via the switch port it's plugged into.
PC 2 gets an IP address from the router - via the switch port it's plugged into.
PS3 gets an IP address from the router - via the switch port it's plugged into.

PC1 wants to transfer a file to PC2, the transfer is done across the switch - nothing goes past the router.

PS3 wants to be on the internet, it travels across the switch to the router for internet access.

now PC1 wants to be online and also transfer a movie to PC 2, it uses the switch to access the router for the internet while at the same time using the switch to send the file to PC 2.

And what is layer 1 then ?

Regards
Mick

 

[jfish]

when you say layer 1, I assume you mean layer 1 on the OSI 7 layer model - then layer 1 is physical - ie what "cable type" is used to transmit the data be it copper or fibre optics in another words physically moving the bits from A to B.

 

[Mick]

Cheers jfish.

Just trying to understand it a little.

Would this configuration be ok.

INTERNET ---> WIRELESS ROUTER ---> SWITCH ---> PC'S and MEDIA.

Regards
Mick

 

[Kruger]

yes basically but just bear in mind, when connecting from the routers switch ports to the standalone switch you might need a cross over cabel.

some new equipment now come with auto sensing so you might not but just someting to think about if you have connection bother.

 

[Kruger]

Thanks for the reply, Tell me a bit more please

So basically is this scenario correct ?

PC 1 gets an IP address from the router - via the switch port it's plugged into.
PC 2 gets an IP address from the router - via the switch port it's plugged into.
PS3 gets an IP address from the router - via the switch port it's plugged into.

PC1 wants to transfer a file to PC2, the transfer is done across the switch - nothing goes past the router.

PS3 wants to be on the internet, it travels across the switch to the router for internet access.

now PC1 wants to be online and also transfer a movie to PC 2, it uses the switch to access the router for the internet while at the same time using the switch to send the file to PC 2.

And what is layer 1 then ?

Regards
Mick

basically if your transferring from pc to pc on you LAN packet will not enter the router. the switch uses mac address table to forward packets.


if any of your devices fail to connect to the internet if not connect directly to wifi make sure the default gateway is correct. The default gateway is the IP of your router, the gateway to the Internet.

 

[gsmtech]

All the network cards in the PCs ideally need gigabit capable network cards as well, otherwise if they only do 100 defeats the object of the gigabit switch. All the, LAN traffic will stay on the LAN side of the router as it doesn't need to leave that particular subnet so yes PC to PC transfer won't involve the router. The switch learns Mac addresses do it will know which device is on which port and switch traffic appropriately at layer 2. I have a similar setup gigabit HP procurve switch with router connected, Nas box also with gigabit nic , my PC also had gigabit nic. transfers between PC and nas box are much faster then they were with my 100 Meg switch. Not add good as enterprise switches with cut through ac/dc fragment free switching, but still better than 100 meg.

 

[Mick]

Thanks everyone for the info

It's been a very good read and full of useful information!

One other thing though, I have been looking at managed and unmanaged switches and have come to the conclusion that for a home network I would not need the control of a managed switch (vlans and port management) can anyone convince me why I should get a managed switch.

Also looking at the netgear switches they seem nice ?

I have had many netgear routers in the past and have an 8 port prosafe firewall with dual wlan ports - which has never let me down.

Any suggestions lads.

Again thanks for all the help on this.

Mick

 

[jfish]

vlans can be used to segregate your home network- so you can have all consoles on a vlan, pcs on another vlan etc etc and then you can do qos on vlan and give high priorty etc

personally vlan within a home network isnt much use, only worth implementing vlans in a corporate network with 100's of devices connected

however if price different between managed and non is only say 20 quid then I would go for the managed switch

 

[oneman]

I won't bother with a managed switch for home you, you can still do QoS by protocol with some routers (if you can get dd-wrt firmware on your router that can definitely do it) if you absolutely need to.

As for speed, gb will benefit transfers between devices inside your house but not public internet traffic where your WAN connection is likely to be the bottleneck anyway.

 

[dibbers]

hello,

I've got 2 gateways to the net and 2 routers, a lnksys and a netgear all on the same network, any device that i have connected i have running via which ever gateway i want, so xbox and dream via netgear and torrent's etc via main pc/lap top/ps3/revo/seed box - all connected.....Both routers have DCHP enabled but i use quite a lot of static/reserved IP addresses so what ever i switch on will get it's IP address back and then out to the net via which ever gateway i choose....

If i transfer files via one to device to another i always seem to get the bottle neck from a slow machine, i don't really do that much as if it's a download then it's too a hard drive that's shared on the network, streaming from any device to any other device all works fine, dreambox to pc/laptop etc, or revo playing files back.......

i've seen the "qas" and had a mess with it, but everything seems to work fine with out going overboard (all though i did have 3 gateways and 3 routers and about four switches...lol !)

Any way i haven't seen any problems, or issues the way i have the network now.

Just for your info...