networking
Community for discussing enterprise networks and the ensuing chaos that comes after inheriting or building one.
More ports? Faster ports?
More total throughput between pairs of ports that want to talk to each other at the same time maybe?
Also while unlikely, if it's PoE you can power stuff with it
It is PoE but I don't have any PoE-powered devices.
...yet
Now you need an access point.
The two main benefits I see are:
- A dedicated L2 switch is probably going to be faster when transferring between two connected clients
- You could set up VLANs, if you have a desire to. Not sure if your wifi router has that option.
And the most obvious one: you can connect more devices! The reason why I have one tbh.
probably going to be faster when transferring between two connected clients
Pretty much all switches are wire-speed these days, even the cheap ones.
By "wire-speed" do you mean they're just as fast as if you didn't have a switch in between?
Yes :)
A gigabit switch is going to give you the full 1Gbps between any two ports on the switch. Same with 2.5Gbps and 10Gbps switches. You should see very little variance between different switches.
Usually the only time you'll find slower speeds is if it's a router rather than a switch, and the ports are all routed. This is uncommon, and for example a 5-port router is usually really a 4-port switch plus a router in a single device.
Just gonna play devil’s advocate here.
If it is not a fanless switch, it is going to make a hell lot of noise.
Also consider your electricity bill. You will probably be better off buying a small Netgear from Amazon for 30 bucks than having an old Cisco 2960S running 24/7.
So, what switch is it exactly?
It's a D-link DGS-1210-28P. in terms of power, without PoE it's a max of 30W, according to their website.
You're right that it is pretty noisy. If I decide to use it, I'll probably swap out the fans for something quieter.
I agree. Unless there’s a definite need, the most tangible difference may be in the electric bill.
Having more than 4 computers wired directly because the ISP provided one only has 4 ports? That's all I got.