Cisco switch and router question

[Liver]

From the many questions I ask on this forum, you know that I'm not a pro or even a skilled amateur.

So I have a Cisco 26 port switch and a PepLink load balancing router. I needed more ports so I got the Cisco.

I have a single ethernet cable going from the router to the switch.

What'll happen if I use 2 or 3 cables? Or even all 4 ports?

I'm just curious.

Thanks.

 

[ChRoNo16]

I believe unless you use vlans, youll just make a big mess. you dont want to make loops.

 

[BlueLineSwinger]

VLANs don't help here.

If both support some method of port aggregation/bonding, such as LACP, then you can set that up on both sides and connect the two with >1 physical links. This will give you some insurance in the case of a cable break, port failure, etc. Such a setup can also be used increase the total bandwidth between the two devices. However, this really only comes into effect for communication between many devices (i.e., communication between two individual devices will not see any increase), and I'm betting your internet connection is too slow to really take advantage of it anyways.

Another option is, if available, to set up spanning tree (STP/RTSP) on the two. Though this typically isn't used to enable redundancy between only two devices.

In general, I wouldn't bother unless you need to learn this stuff (i.e., going for a cert), and/or uptime is important and the connection between the two is somehow vulnerable.

 

[Cmustang87]

I believe unless you use vlans, youll just make a big mess. you dont want to make loops.

VLANs don't help broadcast storms, since any switch involved where a storm is occurring will just drop frames because of too much activity - it's essential a DoS; which is exactly what will happen in this scenario. With spanning tree, redundant links are placed in blocking state and only one link is in a "forwarding" state, but this won't help with throughput, it just prevents loops/storms on the network when you have this type of connectivity.

LACP, as BlueLineSwinger stated is a method in which you can "bond" multiple interfaces and treat all of those interfaces as a virtual interface and configure it as such - but there's honestly no point in doing this for your needs.

Liver - Assuming you have an SG200-26 switch. Here's a KB on what you are trying to ask about:

https://sbkb.cisco.com/CiscoSB/GetA...regation_on_Cisco_Series_Managed_Switches.xml

 

[Easius]

The following PepLink models do not support LACP.

BPL-021
BPL-031-LTE
BPL-ONE
BPL-210

LACP is very unlikely to help any performance other than for failover, but without knowing more information it would be impossible to say that 100%. However based on the information we have it sounds extremely unlikely like it would help your network in any way to connect more links to your switch - in fact improperly configured could cause you more issues than good as previously mentioned.

1. What model PepLink?
2. What model switch?
2. What are the internet circuits rated speeds?
3. Just 1 subnet/network?
4. Any static routing?

 

[Liver]

Model number BPL-021, which doesn’t support aggregation (which I knew, I need the load balancing).

I was mainly curious, no need to any of it.

Edit.

I do have my Synology server set up with link aggregation. Everything goes through my Cisco switch. There has been one single time it was useful. 2 hardwired streams playing on 2 (different) TVs, and 2 iPads streaming, all from the server. That was when the internet was down over night and people wanted to watch what they wanted to watch. I set up my intranet to do exactly that.