will a router->Switch->Hub combination work?

[wezal]

I am about to set up a small office area (5 rooms), and I know I can connect my router to the outside world, then have it distribute IPs to each computer on the lan and use multiple 5 port hubs (I already have a few of these) to fan out to about 15 computers. To get better performance, is it worth putting an 8 port switch after the router, and between the hubs? Or do I lose all the performance benefits of a switch when I go back into a hub? Or Can I link 2 switches and drop all the hubs? Any suggestions? I am looking at the 8 port Linksys switch. Thanks

 

[Sukhoi]

I'm not sure, but I'd doubt your internet performance would increase much, since there really isn't much data being moved.

But moving to all switches would probably improve your PC to PC file transfer speeds somewhat if the PC's move a lot of data between themselves.

Oh, IMHO it'd be useless to do router -> switch -> hub, since the router is already a switch. The only way I'd do this is if you need to connect more than 4 cat5 cables to the router.

Also, I'm not sure about the 8 port switch, but I know the Linksys 5 port switch is actually 4 ports plus a shared regular/uplink port. So if you're using the uplink port (in this case to connect it to the router), you can only connect 4 computers to it.

Do you plan on moving to more than 15 computers in the future? If so, you might be best off going with three 8 port switches, and connecting each switch directly to the router.

Sorry if I rambled a little.

P.S. I based all this assuming you have a 4 port router.

 

[TerreApart]

Wezal...
Is your router a single port?
What type of activity do you expect on your LAN? Large files or lots of small files, or very limited file sharing?

If your router is a single port model, then YES a switch would be an excellent choice directly behind the router. (this way you have a high-performance backbone already in-place if you upgrade your small hubs to 10/100--hubs/switches also)

With 15 computers i personally would use all 10/100 equipment.
But again this decision depends on what the the planned network usage is...

General rule of thumb--any more than 8 clients, you should upgrade to 100MB equipment. The equipment is so affordable now, that its kinda silly not too. SMC/Netgear/Linksys make some excellent switches at affordable prices. Avoid D-link they seem a bit too cheap IMHO...

 

[wezal]

Thanks for the help,

I do have the single port router (I should have bought the 4 port from the sounds of it ), and I do a combination of lots of large and small files going between the clients and the file server. So I think I will go with the 8 port switch, and do:

1 port to the uplink 256kbs line (outside world)
1 port to my file server
The other 6 ports out to each room in the office.

For each room with more than one computer, I will then use one of my 10/100 5 port hubs and divide up the lines. With this I hope to then get good data rates between the computers and the server, and then all computers should have plenty of access to the 256kbs line. If you guys see a flaw in this design, please let me know.

Oh, one other question, with this setup, lets say computer A is downloading some file when nobody else is using the net so computer A is using all 256kbs to the outside world, then computer B wants to download a large file, how is the bandwidth split? In other words, does computer a's transfer fall to 128kbs and computer B gets 128, or does computer B have to wait for an opening?

 

[TerreApart]

The 256k connection won't drop in speed simply cause the network is in use. The internet speed will decrease when more than 1 connection is open through the router though.


That network design looks great...
Perfect for a little after hours gaming also...

 

[wezal]

TerreApart,
I am not sure I understand your answer, are you saying that when the router detects more than one computer accessing the internet, it will split the bandwidth evenly between both requests?

Yea, I can't wait for that after hour gaming!

 

[BreakApart]

Wezal...
Yes that is what occurs.

If you had 1 download going at 88k...
And you started a second download capable of 88k also...(depends also on the server you connect too)

Then both dowloads would be throttled down to about 43k each...
When it comes to networking nothing is perfect, so the combined divided bandwidth-(multiple connections) normally will be lower than your MAX capable transfer.

 

[Sukhoi]

<< Thanks for the help,

I do have the single port router (I should have bought the 4 port from the sounds of it ), and I do a combination of lots of large and small files going between the clients and the file server. So I think I will go with the 8 port switch, and do:

1 port to the uplink 256kbs line (outside world)
1 port to my file server
The other 6 ports out to each room in the office.

For each room with more than one computer, I will then use one of my 10/100 5 port hubs and divide up the lines. With this I hope to then get good data rates between the computers and the server, and then all computers should have plenty of access to the 256kbs line. If you guys see a flaw in this design, please let me know. >>



That sounds pretty good. Though if you have more than 2 or 3 PC's in a single room that will be transfering lots of data between themselves, I'd go with a 5 port switch rather than a 5 port hub.

 

[wezal]

<< That sounds pretty good. Though if you have more than 2 or 3 PC's in a single room that will be transfering lots of data between themselves, I'd go with a 5 port switch rather than a 5 port hub.



Agreed, for now we are all talking to only the file server, so within a room we will not be doing much data transfer between computers, but once we fire up the online games, then maybe I will convince the office to go with a switch...lol

Thanks guys, the switch is on order from buy.com and I should be set up within a week, I can't wait!