Networking Help - Router & Switches

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4 Feb 2011
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Hi, hope you can help me out. I am moving home this weekend and trying to figure out the best networking solution. Running cables everywhere is not ideal initially so I am going to have to use homeplugs.

The initial setup would be:-

1) Ground Floor will have the router connected to homeplug
2) First Floor will have multiple devices e.g. (PC, NAS, PS4, TV) connected to a switch which is then connected to a homeplug.

My question is, with this setup, when passing data from devices connected to the switch (e.g the PC & NAS), will the data be forced to the router and back or will it simply flow through the switch and not have to goto the router? Obviously in this setup I would prefer to avoid it going to the router as then it has to go through the much slower homeplug part of the network.

Thanks for your help.
 
When you plug a computer into a switch the short time before the light goes on, to confirm the link, is the switch learning about the device it's connected to.

Any reasonably priced switch (from TP-Link/Netgear) will have "learning and forwarding" built in so that any local network traffic is routed directly from one device to another.

So yes, any devices connected directly to your switch will talk to one another without going back via the router and will avoid the much slower homeplug connection.

EDIT: Found my home network diagram. I'm able to communicate at around 450Mbps between my computers and my server (limiting factor is disk speed!) despite the DHCP server (that assigns network IP's) being run by the Sky Hub that only has a 100Mbps connection built into the back of it.

lGoY5oP.png
 
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