Setting up a LAN. Switchs or direct connect?

[TheLizardMan]

Okay.. for a LAN Party how would this be...

We have a 24 port switch.

(A) We could make 40 feet of cat5e from the switch to a few wall mounted patch panels.

(B) or we could make one 40 foot cat5e cable to a few switches and have everyone plug in their 2-6 foot cat5e cable into it.

How much slower if any is plan (B) from plan (A)?

Some LANs go both ways.... I'd like to do plan (B) if possible since it would be cheaper and less time consuming. But what would happen if everyone on one switch "8 guys" started downloading off the network at full bandwidth? would they get all 100mb or no?

Thanks

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Well, I really doubt you have the bandwidth to the Internet for 8 people to download at 100mbits! I really doubt you have the bandwidth for one person to do that.

In truth, unless you're doing some serious data transfer on the private LAN, the method of connection will make very little difference.

 

[bgroff]

He's not asking about downloading 100mbps over the internet... He's talking about several people transfering files between PCs at a LAN Party...

If you are able to have everyone on the same switch, then you don't have to worry about anyone flooding the uplink ports between switches. Since you are not implementing any sort of QoS in the switches, its a valid concern. Plan B is only slower if you have several people in contention for the bandwidth on the uplink port between the switches. Plan A is of course the less messy solution, and you only have to worry about the single switch's backplane.