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Mixed speed network question (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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So I'm not sure how to best ask this, but I've got devices on my home network that are either 1Gbps or 10Gbps. If devices are connected at 10Gbps between all nodes, do they then send/receive traffic at 10Gbps or do they slow down to the lowest speed the network supports of 1Gbps?

If it helps: my router/firewall, the switch (S1) it connects to, and a second (S2) and third (S3) switch off that are all linked at 10Gbps. It's all flat, with no vlans (yet) or other subnets. S1 also connects to a fourth switch (S4) at 1Gbps. S3 also does wifi, and all switches have connected nodes (computers, tvs, RPi4s, a printer, etc.) at 1Gbps. S2 and S1 both have 10Gbps connected nodes (servers).

Oh, I do realize that any traffic leaving the network is limited by the speed of the outbound connection. I'm really just asking if having 10Gbps backbone connections is worth it in my setup.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

With your setup, if two devices want to communicate, and their ports and the ports on the switches they connect to all supports 10G, then they'll communicate at 10G.

If any of the ports is 1G, even if every other port is 10G, it'll drop down to 1G for that particular communication pathway. That drop down does not "spread" to other pathways.

Having a 1G device plugged into a 10G switch does NOT affect anything else on that switch. Each connection has the "right" to connect at 10G as long as everything along the communication pathway supports it, and is not affected by other concurrent connections that are happening alongside it. Switches can compartmentalize each connection as its own.