Daisy Chaining Switches.

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Bmr4life

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 13, 2002
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Hey guys, I'm trying to plan out wiring my home.

I have ethernet ran throughout the house. 7 rooms in total all coming back to a control box in a storage room.

In that room I will have my cable modem, a dd-wrt router, and a D-Link DGS-2208 unmanaged switch.

My plan is to have the switch plug into the router and then have all the room ethernet wires plug into the switch.

My dilema is that I need two connections in the family room and master bed room where I will have both an HTPC and an Xbox.

Can I place another switch in each room to share the ethernet wire? I currently have a EZ500-s that I would like to use, I would just need to buy one more small switch for the 2nd room.

Are there any problems with my idea?

Thank you
 
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You can, yes. Under very heavy loads in LAN transfers 'n such this type of setup may show a little weakness, but most likely for just a handful of PCs in a home environment it'll work just fine.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
You can, yes. Under very heavy loads in LAN transfers 'n such this type of setup may show a little weakness, but most likely for just a handful of PCs in a home environment it'll work just fine.
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Thank you.

Would there be a better way with my current in home wiring?
 
If you're just planning it out, why not just add a second link to the rooms in question?

But to answer your question, no, there isn't; daisy chaining switches is a common practice, but if you force too much into one uplink you'll destroy your performance.
 
What they said. If you run a single cable from the networking closet to a room, then put a switch in that room for multiple devices, those devices will share a single 1Gb connection back to the networking closet. In many cases, that won't be a problem, especially right now. If you can, it would be best to run a drop for each device though.
 
Just remember that unless your switch supports auto-mdix, you will need a crossover cable between the two switches rather than a straight-through cable
 
Lightworker said:
Just remember that unless your switch supports auto-mdix, you will need a crossover cable between the two switches rather than a straight-through cable
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His DLink is a gigabit switch. Auto MDI-X is part of the gigabit standard, for switches as well as NICs. Crossover cables have pretty much followed the way of the floppy drive and ISA cards....extinct.
 
unless you do a lot of large file transfers simultaneously on multiple devices in the room that's using the secondary switch, you should be just fine with daisy-chaining the switches like that. just keep in mind (like others have said) that all the devices on the switch in a particular room will share a SINGLE GigE link to the main switch, because there is just a single cable run from that room's switch to the "main" switch.

for general usage (copying small files, web surfing/gaming, emailing, etc.) you should have no problems whatsoever. however, if you are copying multi-gigabyte files, or watching HD content that's streaming from another part of the house, and this is all being done on multiple computers in the same room at the same time, you may start to see some degradation of speed.

i actually just purchased the first two of several smaller GigE switches that are going to power multiple ports in each room of my house. i want to have 4 RJ45 GigE ports in each of 3 rooms (for a total of 12 ports), with a set of 4 ports on each of the 3 walls in the living room (for another 12 ports). i thought about getting a single 48 port switch to run the entire thing (a 24 port switch would be just enough for all the ports in the house, but would have no place for the internet uplink unless it had a separate uplink port, which increases cost), but i decided instead that i would buy multiple smaller switches to run everything. i bought an 8-port switch as the "main" switch, and i will be getting several 5-port switches (one for each group of 4 RJ45 ports) that will be connected to that main switch.

reasons?:

for one, multiple smaller switches are less expensive than a single larger switch. this makes it much easier for me to afford to build out my network, not only because the overall price is less, but i can buy a switch or two at a time as funds allow, rather than having to buy everything all at once. also, if any single switch fails (aside from the "main" switch), it doesn't bring down the entire network, and i can simply take the cables going from the patch panel and re-route them to any unused ports on other switch(es) until i can get a replacement for the switch that failed....and the cost of replacing a single smaller switch when it fails is much easier to digest than having to buy another larger switch at a much higher price.

there's also the fact that since this is in a home, noise is a concern. the typical smaller 8-port and 5-port workgroup switches don't really need fans in them to keep them cool, so they are silent. yes, there are passively-cooled larger switches as well, but you have to question their longevity a bit....and i can't STAND the sound that those tiny-ass little 40mm and 60mm fans make....it drives me NUCKING FUTS!

and if you're wondering why i don't just run a single cable run to each room and just have a switch running off of a single port in each room, that's simple....running 4 cable runs to each room/wall plate now saves me the trouble of having to do it again later if/when i decide to give each port on the wall plates its own connection to a single larger switch at a later date. also, having all the switches in a single location is much tidier and easier to manage than having a switch at each wall plate in each room, especially in the living room, where cats & people can mess with them. plus, cable is fairly cheap these days, so it just makes sense to me to do all the work at once, instead of having to go back and do it again later if your needs change.
 
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bah, just replace that crappy core switch. No reason to bottleneck anything by implementing 2 more switches. Granted, if the funds are not there go with the solution that you have in mind as it will work perfectly fine.

Rule of thumb: Oversubscription isn't always bad, just try and keep it below 10:1, which you clearly wouldn't have an issue with :D

Lightworker said:
That's not entirely true, but you are correct on auto-mdix on gig ports. I was unaware it was a gig switch. :p
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+1, as another forum member confirmed with me today.... hardset(cisco) your speed/duplex with fast Ethernet and watch as auto-mdix takes it up the pooper, crossover cables are still VERY much used today.
 
With 7 rooms, I'd do 3-4 runs to each room. You really only get 1 shot at this, 24-port patch panels are cheap, and you have to buy 1000 feet of cable anyway. Another reason: you can use a pair for HDMI over cat5e/6.
 
Thank you for all of the replies. The house is already built so running extra wires is not a cheap option.

Only file transfers I may do are movies and I do plan on doing a lot of movie streaming.

xphil3 said:
bah, just replace that crappy core switch. No reason to bottleneck anything by implementing 2 more switches. Granted, if the funds are not there go with the solution that you have in mind as it will work perfectly fine.
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What's wrong with my switch?
 
xphil3 said:
Exactly, nothing. I called it crappy because its a Dlink, unmanaged and the specs seem a bit skewed if you ask me(8k address MAC table for a SoHo switch, non-blocking.. gives me the lulz:p). I guess ive just been spoiled with all my Cisco gear, thats all :)
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It's for his house! :p
 
xphil3 said:
Because I called that switch crap im looking down my nose at people? I smell jealously :rolleyes:
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:rolleyes: Yeah OK you're the oooooonly one here who has Cisco stuff. Wanna talk about underutilizing switches? I have a spare Cat 3550 on our service bench, we probably connect 3x computers to it at the most.

Next attempt at trying to shine your turd?
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
:rolleyes: Yeah OK you're the oooooonly one here who has Cisco stuff. Wanna talk about underutilizing switches? I have a spare Cat 3550 on our service bench, we probably connect 3x computers to it at the most.

Next attempt at trying to shine your turd?
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rofl... typical RI mentality. :p I cant believe I lasted as long as I did in that state.

BTW, the reason you dont use that 3550 is because you DONT KNOW HOW to! and no, of course im not the only one on this forum with Cisco gear, but I have the most by far... shit, I have more Cisco gear than Scott fucking Morris.

OP, sorry for the thread jack but Im sure you got what you needed out of this thread anyways. Oh, one last to consider... make sure that the the switches support STP if you intend to have multiple runs back to the "core" switch.
 
xphil3 said:
rofl... typical RI mentality. :p I cant believe I lasted as long as I did in that state. .
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Rhode Island? I'm not there, never lived there. But I suppose since you insist of putting the spotlight on yourself at how much Cisco stuff you have and how everyone should only run Cisco and "poo poo on those who don't"..the state of RI wasn't big enough to store your mighty warehouses of Cisco gear?

Yay for you..seriously..yipee aye f'in YAAAAAY for you, the Cisco king. We all bow to you!

Seriously, that's all you do in threads where people seek help..you're all about "get Cisco or I crap in your direction and you're beneath me".

It's a several PC home farking setup for crying out loud, he doesn't need a Catalyst on both ends of that house.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Rhode Island? I'm not there, never lived there. But I suppose since you insist of putting the spotlight on yourself at how much Cisco stuff you have and how everyone should only run Cisco and "poo poo on those who don't"..the state of RI wasn't big enough to store your mighty warehouses of Cisco gear?

Yay for you..seriously..yipee aye f'in YAAAAAY for you, the Cisco king. We all bow to you!

Seriously, that's all you do in threads where people seek help..you're all about "get Cisco or I crap in your direction and you're beneath me".

It's a several PC home farking setup for crying out loud, he doesn't need a Catalyst on both ends of that house.
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hahahaha, you're GREAT at making yourself look stupid stonecat.

1. I help people with ALL different types of equipment, check out my previous posts and you will see that. History doesn't lie bud!

2. Yes, I push Cisco gear. For many obvious reasons, but most of all because to be classified as a network expert you MUST know Cisco, among other vendors.

3. Where in this particular thread did I mention anything about going with Cisco? Oh, I didn't. Personally, if I wasn't so lucky I would go with a procurve or Dell gigabit managed switch.

4. You're attitude outweighs what you contribute to these forums, you should keep that in mind. Apparently you dont think people are entitled to their opinions.

with all that said, im finished with your childish bickering stonecat.
 
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