how many switches can i have stacked?

J

jcmuse

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 10, 2006
Messages
329
ok i have a linksys 16 port switch. how many switches can i have under that? does it matter? do switches occupy more than 1 port?
 
Depends on the number computers you have. Unless you have a large network, one switch will do for a home evironment.
 
jcmuse said:
ok i have a linksys 16 port switch. how many switches can i have under that? does it matter? do switches occupy more than 1 port?
Click to expand...

Depends on what you need to do. You could connect 16 more switches and have a total of 256 ports. But if your WAN connection to the first switch is to a 1Mbps DSL modem you are going to have quality of service issues.
 
"You could connect 16 more switches and have a total of 256 ports"

ok this is the answer im looking for.

I'm not concerned with wan bandwidth i just want to know if people will have connectivity issues since i have experienced this in the past when i tried to connect a switch to a switch to a switch.
 
The more you daisy chain switches...the worse the performance can be. Technically it can work to daisy chain more switches than you'll have available IPs...but it's an arguement of what sort of performance you're expecting, or even capable of determining.

Ideally you should uplink each switch to 1x main top switch that also uplinks to your gateway, and servers.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
The more you daisy chain switches...the worse the performance can be. Technically it can work to daisy chain more switches than you'll have available IPs...but it's an arguement of what sort of performance you're expecting, or even capable of determining.

Ideally you should uplink each switch to 1x main top switch that also uplinks to your gateway, and servers.
Click to expand...

This is better network topology and what I would do.

Don't do

Switch -> Switch -> Switch ->Switch

Do

Switch--->|\
Switch--->| Switch
Switch--->|/
 
ok.

what is the uplink port on switches? it is like the last port on a switch.
 
jcmuse said:
ok.

what is the uplink port on switches? it is like the last port on a switch.
Click to expand...

Depends on the model, some have dedicated uplink ports. Any port can be an uplink really, you just need a crossover cable.
 
jcmuse said:
"You could connect 16 more switches and have a total of 256 ports"

ok this is the answer im looking for.

I'm not concerned with wan bandwidth i just want to know if people will have connectivity issues since i have experienced this in the past when i tried to connect a switch to a switch to a switch.
Click to expand...

LAN connections between computers would probably have no problems (but I don't know what your network traffic looks like). But if too many tried to use the WAN connection to access the internet at once then you could have problems.
 
It will also depend on the type of network authentication you use. Peer to peer is broadcast based, so if you have too many peers broadcasting it will start causing problems - ten is the standard practical limit, though you might get away with a few more if they are segmented off.
 
Give us the model number of the switch that you have. That would be a big help for starters.

Certain model switches have module cards that you can buy to use as the up link port.
 
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