Setting up Gigabit Intranet

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jazzman161

Limp Gawd
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Dec 6, 2004
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Hey all. Quick networking question.

I am wondering how to set up gigabit network speeds on the house network when I have a 10/100 Buffalo tomato-firmware router.

On the 1st floor of the house I have an 8-port gigabit unmanaged switch. If I connect that switch into another gigabit switch for the 2nd floor devices, and run that switch into the router, would that keep all the internal network traffic at gigabit speeds? Obviously anything going out to the Internet gets bottlenecked back down to 100 mbps.

Would this work? Should I consider a managed gigabit switch for the top level switch just before the router? Or do I need to just upgrade the router to gigabit?

My biggest concern is keeping the file transfer/streaming between my media server and htpc at gigabit speeds.

Rough sketch:
10/100 router
l
gigabit switch 1-> devices connected (i.e. media server)
l
gigabit switch 2-> devices connected (i.e. htpc)

Thanks!
 
Everything in that setup should have access to gigabit. Thats the correct way to do it.
 
Would I need a managed switch as my "gigabit switch 1" or is that not really necessary?
 
jazzman161 said:
Would I need a managed switch as my "gigabit switch 1" or is that not really necessary?
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You don't need a managed switch, the management aspect offers nothing to enable gigabit. The switches will auto negotiate gigabit port connectivity between the other switches and connected devices if available. Gigabit devices will send data at gigabit speed across the two switches.

If your top level router has issues with traffic being sent to multiple devices (even if your internet connection is <100), then upgrade it.
 
I guess my concern would be how would the switches know which device to send data to/from. They don't need to go up to the router level to determine the device and then back down? (Thus dropping speeds to 100)
 
The entire point of a switch is to know which devices to send data to.
 
jazzman161 said:
I guess my concern would be how would the switches know which device to send data to/from. They don't need to go up to the router level to determine the device and then back down? (Thus dropping speeds to 100)
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No. Your local devices only need to utilize the router when they need to communicate with a host beyond your local network. You could pull the router from the network and local devices would be able to communicate with each other just fine.

You may want to read up on the differences between layer-2 (e.g., switches) and layer-3 devices (e.g., routers), and how local devices identify and communicate with each other.
 
What the point of having a gig pipe if your router can only do 100 Full to your server(s). I would get a new router. Fairly inexpensive. But the above posters are right. Each device on the gigabit switches should have mac tables which will remember the location in each device.
 
Thanks for all the input everyone, much appreciated!

Vengance_01 - My Internet speed is less than the cap of the router so I don't believe I'm really bottle-necking it. I agree that an upgrade at some point is due but my router has a Tomato firmware with all the settings I've put in over the years and I'm not really up to migrating it all now. But yes I agree it's due.
 
For a small network, the design you sketched up should be fine as long as all hosts connected to the switch are gigabit. Since you said your internet connection is capped, I don't see the router with the fast ethernet connection being a bottleneck unless you are serving files outside of your network such as a VPN for FTP connection as the switch should have enough capacity to transfer files between all of the devices at near wire speed (dependent on the speed of the host connected to the switch)
 
1) Replace your 10/100 Buffalo tomato-firmware router with a router that has Gigabit WAN and Gigabit LAN ports. EVERY router, access point, switch and network card need to be Gigabit (10/100/1000) to get the speed.

2) Ocellaris is right, on a home network a managed switch isn't necessary. Old "hubs" just blasted traffic out. Just by a cheap gigabit switch. It will work fine no management or config necessary.

3) The NETWORK card in the individual PCs or devices must be 10/100/1000 as well.
 
MrTroy03 said:
1) Replace your 10/100 Buffalo tomato-firmware router with a router that has Gigabit WAN and Gigabit LAN ports. EVERY router, access point, switch and network card need to be Gigabit (10/100/1000) to get the speed.

2) Ocellaris is right, on a home network a managed switch isn't necessary. Old "hubs" just blasted traffic out. Just by a cheap gigabit switch. It will work fine no management or config necessary.

3) The NETWORK card in the individual PCs or devices must be 10/100/1000 as well.
Click to expand...

Are you saying I need to upgrade my router to gigabit so that my internal devices & traffic work at gigabit speeds? This seems opposite of what everyone else has posted. Unless I'm missing something...
 
As long as you have gigabit nic's in your servers and computers, adequate hardware such as high speed computers with drives then you should be fine using your current router with gigabit switch to achieve internal gigabit speeds.
 
jazzman161 said:
Are you saying I need to upgrade my router to gigabit so that my internal devices & traffic work at gigabit speeds? This seems opposite of what everyone else has posted. Unless I'm missing something...
Click to expand...

It would be best if you did. The lan ports on the router are 10/100 so any traffic that happens to pass through the router, even if it is destined to go just locally to another PC, will be downgraded to 10/100. I guess in theory as long as all of the switches and NIC had 10/100/1000 it would work, but in my experience unless every component of a network is 10/100/1000 you will be getting 10/100. I guess you could try it without and then get a new router if needed.
 
For simplicity sake I would replace all of those switches with a single 24 port gigabit switch. Though TBH, I used to have a bunch of 5 port dlink gigabit switches all daisy chained together and still got decent speeds but it was a mess to manage that. The router does not need to support gigabit unless you get into vlans or separate physical networks and want gigabit speeds going between those networks. Internal traffic will normally not talk to the router though.
 
jazzman161 said:
Thanks for all the input everyone, much appreciated!

Vengance_01 - My Internet speed is less than the cap of the router so I don't believe I'm really bottle-necking it. I agree that an upgrade at some point is due but my router has a Tomato firmware with all the settings I've put in over the years and I'm not really up to migrating it all now. But yes I agree it's due.
Click to expand...
Okay I see. The way it was worded you made it seem you were getting 1gb internet. I would still get a new router as they are pretty inexpensive.
 
MrTroy03 said:
Replace your 10/100 Buffalo tomato-firmware router with a router that has Gigabit WAN and Gigabit LAN ports. EVERY router, access point, switch and network card need to be Gigabit (10/100/1000) to get the speed.
Click to expand...

This is wrong. two gigabit hosts connected to a gigabit switch will communicate at 1 Gb/s regardless of the capabilities of any other devices connected to that same switch or those chained off of it. The existing router will not be an impediment.

Given the diagram the the OP gave, all local hosts are connected to the gigabit switches and not to the 10/100 switch built into the router. This is the optimal configuration, and any local hosts will be able to communicate at the full 1 Gb/s. the only traffic that will be restricted to 100 Mb/s is that going out to the Internet, which is fine as the OP has stated his current bandwidth tier from the ISP is less than that.
 
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jazzman161 said:
My biggest concern is keeping the file transfer/streaming between my media server and htpc at gigabit speeds.


Thanks!
Click to expand...

Why? Has not having GB been a hindetance? I highly doubt it. 10/100 will do plex with HD content without issue.
 
diizzy said:
However doing transfers and stream at the same time may be an issue.
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Diizzy, I aggree with you on that. If you're going to be streaming and service multiple machines on that network at the same time then you want more throughput so having a Gigabit network in the house should suffice for his needs.
 
Yes it's actually for automated data transfers happening between my main workstation and the server, while possible simultaneous streaming/data transfer happening between the server and HTPC. Trying to minimize any buffering/hiccups and keep data transfers at a decent speed. I figure it's a cheap invest to help open up the network a bit (if all I needed was the switch, instead of router too).
 
Your plan is basically what I have. A 100mb SSG5 for the firewall/router to the ISP and unmanaged gig switches for the internal network. The intranet work fine at gig speeds. Main PC off one switch, gig capable NAS off a 2nd switch. The switches are nothing special, whatever decent brand was on sale when I was looking. You may have to replace one or more of your network cables. Especially those you have been kicking for several years. Gig speeds are less tolerant of damaged or out of spec cables. Cat 5 or 5e works fine for short runs, just test and if your speeds are off, suspect bad cables early in the repair process.
 
Dead Parrot said:
Your plan is basically what I have. A 100mb SSG5 for the firewall/router to the ISP and unmanaged gig switches for the internal network. The intranet work fine at gig speeds. Main PC off one switch, gig capable NAS off a 2nd switch. The switches are nothing special, whatever decent brand was on sale when I was looking. You may have to replace one or more of your network cables. Especially those you have been kicking for several years. Gig speeds are less tolerant of damaged or out of spec cables. Cat 5 or 5e works fine for short runs, just test and if your speeds are off, suspect bad cables early in the repair process.
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Cat 5e will run Gigabit on 100m without problems,

even Cat 5 will run Gigabit at 100m (it's not supported but it will work), many old buildings have Cat5 and still run Gigabit speed, basic allot of Cat 5 is actually Cat5e
 
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