Cascading switches

Posted by: robgr on 25 October 2015

Hi All,

In my study I have an 8 port switch wired to my router with a QNAP NAS hanging off it

In my lounge I have a second 8 port switch with an HDX, Blu ray player and Freesat recorder hanging off it (both internet enabled)

Currently the switches are cascaded but would I be better off connecting the second switch in the lounge back to the router?

What are the pros and cons of either approach?

Posted on: 25 October 2015 by Eloise

There should be no issue ... you should try to avoid have more than 3 switches in a chain; though there is no hard and fast rule.

 

What you would want to avoid is having (for example) the NAS hanging off the router, then the Office switch then a HiFi switch.

 

But if you consider the Office switch as the central switch which all switches are then connected back to then you have no issue.  This would be relevant only if you had more than the two switches plus the router though.

Posted on: 25 October 2015 by David Hendon

I have six switches in a couple of different chains and just one of these switches is connected back to the router.  The Naim kit in three locations in the house connects to three different switches with all sorts of other stuff connected to whichever switch is closest.and it all works fine.

 

i don't think there is any advantage to be gained in connecting your two switches back to the router separately and you may find, depending on what the router is, that discovery is less certain with that configuration.  So unless there is a problem you are trying to fix, I would leave it as it is.

 

best

 

David

Posted on: 25 October 2015 by MangoMonkey

Robgr,

While your mileage may ultimately vary, try plugging the HDX on end of the Ethernet switch, and the other gear on the other end of the switch. If it's a Netgear, you should notice a difference.

Also, if at all possible, try not to run a direct path from your HiFi gear to your internet provider.

!

Posted on: 25 October 2015 by Jason

I have recently installed an NDS into my system.  At first, due to where the wiring ran in my network, I had the NDS running to a switch (which also had TV, BT Vision box and Blue ray player connected), which led to another switch, which led to NAS.  I now have NDS to dedicated switch to NAS.  Nothing else connects into this dedicated switch other than an ethernet connection to another switch to get Internet connectivity.  I found the latter setup was favourable from a sound quality perspective.  

Posted on: 25 October 2015 by Simon-in-Suffolk

with consumer switches there is no issue in cascading, and in theory you could cascade ad infinitum... well almost.. ultimately the serialisation delay will interfere with the TCP throughput, but I suspect you would need 50 switches or so before you notice anything..

the only down side is that you are increasing the chance of failure.

Simon

Posted on: 26 October 2015 by robgr

Thank you all for your helpful comments, I'll leave as is