Cheap switch connected to main one?

E

EnderW

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I'm in the process of redoing my entire home network.
It's going to consist mostly of an Untangle router and HP ProCurve 1410-16G switch.
Due to the arrangement of my apartment, I've got about 5 devices on one side and 5 on the other.
Should I get some long Cat6 and run everything to the ProCurve? Or would it be ok to do one long run to a cheapass D Link Green switch and then connect everything on that side to it?
 
EnderW said:
I'm in the process of redoing my entire home network.
It's going to consist mostly of an Untangle router and HP ProCurve 1410-16G switch.
Due to the arrangement of my apartment, I've got about 5 devices on one side and 5 on the other.
Should I get some long Cat6 and run everything to the ProCurve? Or would it be ok to do one long run to a cheapass D Link Green switch and then connect everything on that side to it?
Click to expand...

Is the dlink switch gigabit ?
 
Depends on how much data you'll be moving. If you are going to punish the single 1gig link between the switches then maybe it would be good to direct wire your higher traffic machine (s), otherwise no problemo.
 
I have a setup like that, but the second switch really only deals with one wired client and a wireless ap. I didn't have any problems with it but I didn't put too much load on it. If you are going to load it a ton it might be best to run cables for each machine.
 
You'll be fine with a second switch. Don't worry about over loading it either.
 
The link between the two switches would be limited to 1Gbps total. If you have all your servers on one side and all your PCs on the other trying to access stuff, that 1Gbps might be quite limiting. On the other hand, I have one cable running from my main switch to my entertainment center, where I have a small switch like that D-Link to connect up to all my devices there. I'm most likely not going to need to max out the network connections on my TV, Blu-Ray, satellite, and game consoles all at once. Generally only one device will be used at a time, so it will basically be getting that whole 1Gbps uplink to itself.

It really comes down to what you have on each side of that uplink and how much data you plan to move across it. Also remember that the uplink will use a port from each switch, so your 16-port switch and your 5-port switch result in only 19 usable ports. That's probably not a big deal in this case, but you actually gain very few ports when you start linking a bunch of 5- and 8-port switches together.
 
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