Proper way to connect switches


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Hey guys, I have the following environment:

10/100 router

24 port gigabit switch (no PoE)

4 port gigabit switch (with PoE)

2 802.11n access points with POE

The access points are connected to the POE switch. All wired devices are connected to the 24 port switch. Each switch is connected to the router.

Will connecting the two switches to each other yield speed benefits? For example, will wireless devices reach wired resources that are connected to the second switch at a faster speed?

Thank you.

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Having the 10/100 wont make anything run at GB speed. You'll need a gigabit router. So really there's no point having 2 gigabit switches. it's not going to make anything faster. Everything will go at 100, not 1000 speed

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Having the 10/100 wont make anything run at GB speed. You'll need a gigabit router. So really there's no point having 2 gigabit switches. it's not going to make anything faster. Everything will go at 100, not 1000 speed

It won't make things faster to the INTERNET.  It WILL increase networks speeds if you connect the switches.

It only slows things down if you leave it how it is. Connect one switch to the router, then the other switch to that one and you'll see the best performance.

If you're not running N or AC access points, then you probably won't see any gain, anyway. If you are, then definitely look at running switch to switch.

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Thank you.

So in the event the current router gets replaced with a gigabit router, is there a point connecting each switch to each other, as well as to the new router? Or is that redundant? Thanks again!

P.S. Will having PCs that run only 10/100 slow down the entire network to that speed as well?

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What kind of switch are they? Layer 3 or 2? You can have the inside of your network run at Gigabit speed but to the Internet you will need to have 1Gbit up/down to run at that speed. What is your current internet speed?

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You will be better off connecting the two gigabit switches together and then having one connection from the router to anyone of the two switches. This will let your internal network run at gigabit speeds. Having PCs that only connection at 100 wont slow down the network as a whole - it will just mean they are alone are limited to 100.

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It would ge a little redundant, unless you have quite a few computers, then the switch would handle everything better, but the router should be able to handle most if you upgrade. If it's "easier" to just replace the router, by all means. Sometimes it's easier than running cable depending on where things are located.

Having PCs that only run 10/100 won't affect anything else. Hardly any printers are gigabit, for example, and people still run networked printers on gigabit networks. I've seen some devices that actually show as 10Mb.

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Just plug a GB switch into a port on the GB router, if you replace it. And no dont think having 10/100's on the system will slow everything else down. If they've got 10/100/1000 nics and you're using a GB router.

 

If you kept the 10/100 router then yes obviously everything whether they're 10/100 or 10/100/1000, they'll only run at 100 max. But yup this is only on the local network. You wont get any faster online / on the internet

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Thank you everyone.

The PoE switch is: Cisco SG300-10P. The other switch is: Cisco SG200-18. Access points are Cisco WAP-321. Router: Cisco RV082.

The WAN speed is way below 100M. The main goal is to keep wireless and Ethernet clients communicating at gigabit speeds.

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its easier with pics

Here

post-14624-0-73938600-1404087453.jpg

A and B can talk at gig, C and D gig, E and F gig. But if A wants to talk to C they are going to be limited to 100 Mbit because your physical path is through the router that only has 100mbit connections. Now anything talking to internet is limited to 100, but is your internet faster than 100? That that wouldn't matter.

If you did id like this

post-14624-0-06370600-1404087625.jpg

Now A can talk to C or F at full gig speed. Wireless can talk to anything on your network at wireless speeds, if that happens to be over than 100mbit the better, etc.

Which switch is best connect to the router would be the switch with the most devices using the internet, or best physically to connect, etc.

edit: Noticed you only have 2 switches - made the drawing with 3 sorry. So the switch to connect to the router would be one with most ports. But those AP are only 300N data rate - its highly unlikely your clients going over 100mbit in real world numbers anyway. It sure wouldn't be much higher than 100 for sure.. But yeah squeeze out every mbit, so your poe switch connected to your sg300 and then the sg300 to your router.

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Thank you for the explanation.

In image 2, switch 1 and 3 are connected to switch 2, which is further connected to the router.

Is there any benefit/loss to connecting each switch to the router directly AND to each other switch?

Switch 1: to router + switch 2 and 3

Switch 2: to router + switch 1 and 3

Etc.

Thank you!

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NO!!! BAD BAD BAD!!! Unless you were running STP you would have switching loop! You could do that for failure of a link, but without running STP to block one of the connections going to cause you lots and lots of grief doing that.

In such a small setup redundant paths not a good idea, and just turn off stp in such a small network making sure you don't have multiple physical paths to the same switch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanning_Tree_Protocol

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