Connecting Switches to Router

Danger Phoenix

Danger Phoenix

Danger Phoenix

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I have an Asus RT-N66U with a Virgin Hub 3.0 in Modem Only mode. Attached to the router I currently have 2 x 24 port switches switches.

Design/performance wise would it be better to connect only one switch to the router and then the second switch to the first?
 
Would make a difference really because switches "switch" traffic so quick you wouldn't notice the difference performance wise.
 
As long as you don't have multiple devices using maximum bandwidth at the same time, it doesn't really matter.
 
holdin09 said:
Would make a difference really because switches "switch" traffic so quick you wouldn't notice the difference performance wise.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing you mean "wouldn't"?

bledd said:
As long as you don't have multiple devices using maximum bandwidth at the same time, it doesn't really matter.
Click to expand...

I kind of do because I have two NASs, where one backs up to the other every 3 hours. My main PC generally maxes out the bandwidth between itself and the primary NAS, whilst acting as a media server. The network is also handling security camera traffic as well as about 20 other devices but they create minimal load.

I've noticed that when I am doing concurrent transfers between my PC and the NAS, I cannot even open the router admin page :(
 
I've just been Googling the performance issues and found that the Tomato Shibby firmware is slower than the Merlin one and could be the cause of some of the throughput issues I am seeing.

I'll move to Merlin when I get the chance :)
 
bledd said:
Draw a network diagram.
Click to expand...

This, it depends on what else is on your network and what devices access what. Device to internet wise though, it's best if both switches was connected to the router. However local connections would be slightly difference, although honestly the difference won't be that noticeably huge.
 
Most of the stuff doesn't go out to the internet but I have noticed a big difference in network speeds when I'm using Plex (server is running on the PC and files are on the NAS) and at the same time I am copying files to/from the NAS. However, my PC and the NAS are on the same switch but from what I've been reading the Tomato firmware doesn't support the hardware acceleration.

What do you guys recommend for drawing the diagram?
 
If the NAS and the PC are connected to the same switch any traffic between them won't be going via the router.

The only place I can see router CPU performance (and any associated hardware acceleration) playing any part is LAN<->WAN traffic.

No surprise that streaming whilst copying files would see a performance hit. The R/W heads can only be in one place at a time.
 
That router should just be a switch chip for the LAN side of things, I can't see how pushing traffic through the LAN ports is hitting the CPU.
 
The switches are:
D-Link DES-1210-28P
HP Procurve 1810-24G

I also thought that since the PC and NAS are on the same switch, no traffic would go via the router... but that doesn't explain that when this traffic is maxed out I can't even access the router admin page from another PC.
 
Which switch is the PC and NAS connected to? And the other PC you're trying to access the router? Looking at both they are managed switches? Is there anything in their settings for some sort of QoS?
 
Orcvader said:
Which switch is the PC and NAS connected to? And the other PC you're trying to access the router? Looking at both they are managed switches? Is there anything in their settings for some sort of QoS?
Click to expand...


PC and NAS are on the HP, with the PC connected via 1 cable and the NAS via 4 trunked. The other PC is also on the same switch.

The D-Link is primarily used for the CCTV as it support PoE, so the video feeds will be going from the D-Link to the HP via the router (9 feeds at 720p and 10 fps)

If I am downloading on the main PC (top speed I get is about 18MB/s) then everything kind of slows down. That is why I was thinking that if the D-Link is connected to the HP instead of the router, it would take some traffic away from the router (although I do understand that this shouldn't make much of a difference).
 
Draw it in paint. So we can see how everything is connected.

You know that DLink is mainly 100Mbit ports right.. ?
 
Danger Phoenix said:
The D-Link is primarily used for the CCTV as it support PoE, so the video feeds will be going from the D-Link to the HP via the router (9 feeds at 720p and 10 fps).
Click to expand...

Is the NVR on the HP switch then? It would be best if everything CCTV related is on their own switch so it won't affect everything else on the router and other switch.

But yes, you can just use paint to do the network map as bledd suggested.

From the sounds of things though, the HP switch could be saturated and unable to handle that much bandwidth.
 
The smell of BS is strong in this thread.


Let's start with some basic questions....


Are you using a single subnet across your entire network?
 
As long as everything is on the same IP range, then there should be nothing for the Router to do, other than deal with internet traffic.

Use the most powerful device as the "core" of your network (i.e. the HP switch), and then connect everything to that.

i.e.

Code: 
HP Switch 
|--> Router
|--> Main PC
|--> NAS x4
|--> Dlink Poe (connected via Gigabit uplink port)
        |--> NVR (connected via Gigabit uplink port)
        |--> CCTV Cam
        |--> CCTV Cam
        |--> CCTV Cam


Keeping the NVR and Cameras together will mean that only the viewing stream from the NVR needs to use the link between the HP/Dlink switches (as the cameras recording to NVR traffic will go direct to the NVR)
 
^ This is a reasonable approach seeing as the D-Link switch is only Fast Ethernet. I'd bin it myself and replace with something like a Linksys LGS308P if you're on a budget.
 
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