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This is probably really stupid but what do the colors mean? (alien.top)
submitted 2 years ago by [B] to c/homenetworking@selfhosted.forum
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https://i.imgur.com/zJVgwr9.png

When I google "switch port colors" I only get results for the blinking lights corresponding to the ports, not the colors themselves.

I'm thinking of buying this exact switch, but I'm unsure if the colors on the actual ports mean anything? I'm setting up Google Nest for my parents and they need additional ethernet ports, hence why I'm here, but I'm not sure if the ports colors have any actual meaning?

I'm very, *very*, beginner at networking and stuff but from what I know, one ethernet cable goes in, presumably in one of the green sockets, and can then extend outwards into multiple other ports, yeah?

I honestly have barely any idea what I'm doing but yeah, all I really wanna know is if the socket colors have any significant meaning, thank you.

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[–] [B] 1 point 2 years ago

It depends on the device

Usually green means 1000mbps and orange means slower. But that's not a guarantee and won't be true on 100mb devices, where it's likely to be 100 and 10

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    [–] [B] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    The ports have different traffic priority. Green = High, Yellow = Medium, Grey = No priority.

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  • [–] [B] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    This is correct. That appears to be a Zyxel GS-108S gigabit switch. The ports are QoS enabled: the green have highest traffic priority, yellow have medium, and gray low priority. This lets you arrange your network devices to ensure things like media streamers take priority over general web browsing, for instance.

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  • [–] [B] 1 point 2 years ago

    But this is only on the switch, and not sure if this would have impact unless you have some extreme load on your network or a very slow connection and all devices creating the load is behind this switch.... Or that they might have some logic her in software for compensating for some quite poor processing power for the switch?

    Could be that is something put there as it "looks good in marketing". Instead buy a better switch...

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