Will a switch to a switch work to add more devices?

[HardWired]

My cable modem and router are upstairs. I've added a 8-port switch upstairs to accomadate a couple of new devices my 4-port router no longer has room for. I now want to run a 100 ft cable downstairs from the upstairs 8-port switch to hookup 3 network devices I have in my living room downstairs. Once that live 100ft cable coming from my 8-port switch upstairs gets downstairs, can I then add another switch at that point to give connectivity to the 3 downstairs devices?

 

[Crusty]

Yes

 

[ScottMac]

Yes, it will. You *might* need a crossover cable. If you plug them together and nothing happens, this is probably the case.

Also keep in mind that the link between the two switches becomes shared bandwidth for all the devices at the remote end ... if you have a couple machines trying to access something big at the same time (from the remote to the other end or vice versa), performance will be significantly degraded.

 

[HardWired]

Would it make more sense to run the 100 footer going downstairs directly off the 4-port router thats upstairs? And then put the switch on the end downstairs instead of running the 100 footer downstairs off the upstairs switch?

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: HardWired
Would it make more sense to run the 100 footer going downstairs directly off the 4-port router thats upstairs? And then put the switch on the end downstairs instead of running the 100 footer downstairs off the upstairs switch?

Unless you're going to LOTS of HD streaming on your network you won't be able to tell a difference with a different physical layout.

 

[HardWired]

Cool! Thx for the info.