Is there a reason to use a dedicated switch with a home router? (self.networking)

submitted 1 year ago by moody to c/networking@sh.itjust.works

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My work gave me a L2 switch because they were going to toss it out. Is there any reason for me to use that over the built-in switch from my ISP's router/modem?

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[-] dan@upvote.au 5 points 1 year ago

probably going to be faster when transferring between two connected clients

Pretty much all switches are wire-speed these days, even the cheap ones.

[-] marek22k@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago

By "wire-speed" do you mean they're just as fast as if you didn't have a switch in between?

[-] dan@upvote.au 2 points 1 year ago

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.

this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023

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