Hi all

I have a router with 4 wired ports

Then I have two sixteen port switches connected

From there my house it hardwired like a mad man.

My question: Should I plug 2 ports from the router to each switch, will that free up a bottle neck?

the way I have it now there are 2 unused ports on the router. Seems a waste.

And I got like 10 things on each switch with only 1 Ethernet going to the router, isn’t that a terrible bottle neck ?

Thx

  • Jdornigan@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Another option would be to get a small switch and use that to connect the two switches together and then connect the small switch to the router. For about $40 they can buy a gigabit switch or about twice that for a managed one.

    • Donut-Farts@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      TP-Link makes a 5 port gigabit unmanaged switch for less than $20USD. It’s great. You can get it with PoE for $50.

    • Leading_Study_876@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      There is something to be said for this.

      The internal switches on “routers” can be quite poor at port-to-port traffic handling, particularly multicast. Certainly true historically. Say 5 to 10 years ago. Is it still? Don’t know.

      Also, cheap home switches can have their own issues. But at least, if you have your own home network hardware (and possibly your own secondary router) then when it comes time to change your ISP and get a new router or Modem, it does make it a lot easier.