Mixing Gigabit and 10/100 switches

[jonstron]

Hi all,
I'm wiring up an office network with one central switch and several smaller switches providing ports. This is probably a very easy question but I'm not very experienced. Let's say there's one central switch and 4 satellite switches (Switch A, B, C, D), which are all connected to the central switch. If the central switch and Switch A and Switch B all support gigabit, but switch C and D do not, will computers on switches A and B be able to talk to each other at gigabit speeds? Or does the presence of a non-gigabit switch plugged into the central switch cause the central switch to throttle everything down to 100 mpbs? Finally, does it matter if Switch A and B are on one VLAN and switch C and D are another?

Thanks in advance for any insights.


Picture:

Central Switch (gigabit)
-------------------------------
| | | |
| | | |
Sw A Sw B Sw C Sw D

(A,B gigabit; C,D 10/100)

 

[bsobel]

A and B can talk gigabit just fine in your model.

 

[jonstron]

Thanks!

 

[p0lar]

You should probably also check to see if your switches support spanning tree and are compatible with each other. If you configure/cable it correctly, you could survive (somewhat) a failure on the part of your central switch.