How many network switches can be connected together?

[fjmeat]

For a simple home office use.

 

[drebo]

There isn't really a max.

For hubs, it was 5, because otherwise the delay from one side to the other was larger than the CSMA/CD random pauses.

 

[JackMDS]

If you would be more specific you might get a credible functional answer.

Otherwise, I say 50.

 

[Fardringle]

As Jack said, tell us what you actually need and we can help you figure out how to do it properly. When done properly, there really isn't a limit to how many switches you can use:

 

[smitbret]

I always thought the rule of thumb was no more than three when daisy chained, including the router, if applicable. I imagine you could connect 23 switches to a 24 port switch and then 23 more to each of those...... you do the math on that, though.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I always thought the rule of thumb was no more than three when daisy chained, including the router, if applicable. I imagine you could connect 23 switches to a 24 port switch and then 23 more to each of those...... you do the math on that, though.

are you referring to the 5-4-3 rule?

https://www.google.com/search?q=5-4...j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

I think that went away with switches because they break up the collision domains.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I think rule of thumb is like 3, but switches should be amplifying the signal so I don't really think that 3 rule even matters. In corporate environments you have way more switches than that.

Typically: Router -> Core -> distribution. There can be multiple distribution switches daisy chained as well depending on the size of the building and how the closets are setup.

 

[drebo]

The only modern limit is in networks that run spanning tree. The radius of the network impacts convergence time, but there isn't really a maximum...you just increase your timers accordingly.

That said, the transition to L3 at distribution or even at the access layer (in collapsed core networks) means that spanning tree isn't necessarily as important and convergence times are significantly less because your regions are much smaller (more L3 boundaries.)