24 port switch vs daisy-chaining 8 port switches

[superjim]

Be gentle, my networking knowledge is limited. I wired my small home with Cat5e (one run to 3 rooms) and my unfinished basement has two 100' runs of Cat6a from one end to the other. Right now I'm using my 4-port DIR-655 to feed the 3 rooms and the last port feeds a Trendnet 8-port switch that supplies the rest of my toys (PS3, main rig, NAS, etc).

In the future I can see myself needing many more ports (bigger house, kids start using computers, etc) and I see 24 port un-managed switches for $150+. Why would I buy a $150 24-port gigabit switch when I can buy 8-port gigabit switches for $25 each and daisy chain them? Doing the math:

$150 / $25 = 6 8-port switches
6 * 7 ports (1 will be uplink) = 42

So 42 ports versus 24 for the same money. I know I'm missing something, can someone shed some light on this?

 

[spidey07]

Chaining switches like that adds a extremely small amount of delay at each switch. But the biggest problem is it makes your network diameter too big for spanning-tree and bridging to be effective if there is a problem. Just don't do it.

In a perfect world everything would go to a single switch even in the hugest of networks. Chaining switches is just a bad idea all around, it adds complexity and problems where there shouldn't be any.

 

[fluffmonster]

As a side note, I got an 8-port switch expecting to just use three. It is now saturated and I am having to connect to the router LAN ports, of which only one remains unused. My point: too many ports is better than too few, and too few might be more than you expect.

 

[imagoon]

Down at the soho level where the switch might not even be able to handle 1Gbps on its internal backplane, daisy chaining might not have a lot of effect. However most of the better switches can handle higher speeds internally. If a backplane is 4Gbps for example, the ports will still be limited to 1 but 8 ports could be talking to each other at 1Gbps without an issue. If those 8 ports are spread out over multiple switches with 1Gbps uplinks, the uplink becomes a bottleneck.

At home the closest I can come to is this: Person a) is uploading movies to the media server while person B) is watching netflix. On the single 24 port with the 4gig backplane, the frames would never even see each other after the flood frame and no one would be the wiser.

Split that up in to switch internet + media pc <-> a---b---c <-> TV + Person A

In this case Person A is pushing to the media server using his SSD drive. The link from c to b and b to a are saturated. Guy watching Netflix start having connection issues "complaining about his crappy internet." What is happening has nothing to do with the Internet at all, the links getting to the net are saturated but the net itself is barely used.

Ignoring the increased point of failures and admin nightmares....

Hope that makes sense....

"all ports are not created equal"

 

[superjim]

I think I understand now. I was thinking a gigabit port is all the same and didn't consider the switch's ability to manage the concurrent data effectively.

Thank you for the replies!

 

[GotNoRice]

I have a ~9 year old Linksys EG008W 8-port gigabit switch that is good for 99% gigabit utilization, have consumer switches actually gotten worse since then?

There are some situations where "daisy-chaining" switches actually makes things easier.

I have a few SoHo locations that I help maintain and in each case there are several areas around the office/home where the PCs tend to be clustered. Putting a small switch at each of these locations, and connecting them together, was by far the easiest solution.

Ultimately you're probably going to end up daisy chaining switches anyway. Even if you have a switch in the Garage or w/e with a wire going to a port in every room - what about when someone in that room needs more than one port? They are probably going to hook up a switch to that port at that point, bringing you back to square one.

And having a centralized switch means the need for long cable runs. Long cables are ultimately another point of failure all on their own, and Cat5e+ isn't exactly free either.

 

[imagoon]

I have a ~9 year old Linksys EG008W 8-port gigabit switch that is good for 99% gigabit utilization, have consumer switches actually gotten worse since then?

There are some situations where "daisy-chaining" switches actually makes things easier.

I have a few SoHo locations that I help maintain and in each case there are several areas around the office/home where the PCs tend to be clustered. Putting a small switch at each of these locations, and connecting them together, was by far the easiest solution.

Ultimately you're probably going to end up daisy chaining switches anyway. Even if you have a switch in the Garage or w/e with a wire going to a port in every room - what about when someone in that room needs more than one port? They are probably going to hook up a switch to that port at that point, bringing you back to square one.

And having a centralized switch means the need for long cable runs. Long cables are ultimately another point of failure all on their own, and Cat5e+ isn't exactly free either.

Meh I just pull myself another cable. Long runs, once installed don't just "fail" (unless you attach RJ45 connecters to the solid core cables...) Then again I also leave a pull string in all of my runs so it typically takes me less than 20 minutes to add a line to any of my boxes. More if I have to run to the store to "upgrade" from 4 to 6 keystones. All of my drops are 2 coax / 2 RJ45 or 2 RJ45 and 2 blanks.

 

[Gillbot]

I thought the same as you and I had a half dozen or more 5 port Gbit switches daisy chained across the house to stretch my network from one side to the other. When I needed more ports on a full switch I'd just pop another 5 port or whatever in and keep adding. Sooner or later my network looked like a spider web of switches and cables in all different directions. Unfortunately, I'd get random dropped connections and other throughput issues sporadically.

I eventually redid the entire network layout and upgraded to a "good" 8 port gigabit as the "main" switch in the center of the house and a couple small ones off of that as branch circuits. It's been much better and way faster since. As the smaller branch ones grow, I'll upgrade them to a larger port one instead of adding more multiple switches to keep complexity down. If the "main" one gets full, I'll upgrade it to a 12 or 16 port and add more lines off of it instead of branching out like I did before.