Fast and Gigabit Mixed Network

kirsch92 · #1 10-26-2009, 08:40 AM

I am in the planning stages for my small home network, and have grown a bit confused with some information (or misinformation) and I am hoping for some clarification on mixed network speeds.

My network will include an iMac, wifi for both G and N devices (laptop, picture frame, etc), gigabit NAS and several 10/100 devices ( bluray player, satellite box). House is prewired Cat5e.

Since most stuff is 10/100 including the link to the internet, (DSL modem) do I need to seperate this somehow from the gigabit portion, as I would like to maintain gigabit speeds between the iMac and the NAS, but still allow the iMac and/or the NAS to stream to my home theater devices.

Thanks,

Jeremy

msl · #2 10-26-2009, 10:59 AM

As long as the network between the two gigabit devices is gigabit (e.g. they are both connected to the same gigabit switch), they should be able to communicate at gigabit speeds. Attaching slower (10Mb or 100Mb) devices to a gigabit switch will not slow down communication between gigabit devices attached to the same switch.

kirsch92 · #3 10-26-2009, 11:31 AM

msl,
Thanks for the reply. To further complicate things, I just finished reading the article on jumbo frames

I think that is beyond any need I have.

Would your statement regarding speeds be true regardless of using a switch (managed or unmanaged) or a router, as long as its gigabit?

Thanks

msl · #4 10-26-2009, 11:46 AM

A router with multiple LAN ports is effectively a router and a switch in a single box: the LAN ports are the switch, and the router connects the WAN port to this internal switch. So gigabit devices connected to the LAN ports of a gigabit router should be able to talk to each other at gigabit speeds, regardless of the speed of the Internet connection or other devices connected to the router.

kirsch92 · #5 10-26-2009, 02:09 PM

Thanks for the help.

tipstir · #6 10-29-2009, 12:09 PM

Actually dedicating all 100mbps to one 100mbps larger switch keeping it isolated and independent from the all 1000mbps on dedicated 1000mbps switch works efficient as well though-put on all gig devices is quicker transfers then to pile all slower 100mbps onto a 1000mbps switch thus ported them each to router. This is how networks are setup in most corp environments, but most of them are ditching all the 100mbps under a network refresh to 1000mbps 24-48 port switches.