Router or Network switch?

[Vince]

I've run out of ethernet ports on the router modem. Can I just use a network switch such as This connected to the gigabit port on the router?

[Feanor]

Yes.

[Vince]

That was easy. Thanks

Do I wait for the other replies that say 'No' before pressing the spend button?

[Polar Bear]

Different kit but exactly what we do here at the Bear-o-drome.

[Kim]

Indeed.  This is what switches are for, and it should Just Work™.

[Mr Larrington]

There is an example of that very model a-sitting blinkenlights aglow next to the distascope.

[Jaded]

In the world of wireless, I'm amazed by how many cables I need. 16 ports on the switch, as I got fed up unplugging and plugging, and the 8 port one broke.

[Dibdib]

Threadjacking with a somewhat-related question - in terms of real-world home use¹, is there any significant performance difference between:

a) Replacing my 8-port switch with a 16-port so I can run three or four lines upstairs, or
b) Just running one line upstairs and then sticking another switch on the end to feed it out to the upstairs rooms.

(subquestion - if (b), I assume it should be UpstairsSwitch <--> Router <--> DownstairsSwitch, not Router <--> DownstairsSwitch <--> UpstairsSwitch but am I wrong?)

1. As in "moving VDSL broadband around an old house with cinderblock walls", not "hardcore datacenter use".

[Greenbank]

b) every time

And, as long as the router is sane and has more than one network port on it then either setup you describe would be fine.

The multiple network ports on a router are the equivalent of a network switch anyway.

[Kim]

Agreed.  Domestically the main argument for running more cables from a big switch rather than using multiple smaller switches is going to be power consumption.  Unless this is actually a question of how much cable you should be burying in the wall, in which case more is better.

The topography doesn't really matter either, unless perhaps you're mixing managed and unmanaged switches and want to do something with VLANs that dictates using the managed switches in certain places.

[pcolbeck]

The only argument against using a single cable to hang an extension switch of an existing switch over using a bigger switch and running more cables (other than power) is bandwidth.
If all the ports are 1Gbps then obviously with a big single switch everyone gets 1Gbps but if you chain switches then the ports on the switch at the end of the chain obviously have to share the 1Gbps bandwidth to the original switch.

Is that a real issue domestically? Unless you are moving massive files between all your domestic computers then no. 1Gbps will happily handle multiple HD video streams or whatever and its way more bandwidth than your Internet link which is where the real choke point is domestically in 99% of cases.

[Dibdib]

Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking, and with my solid cinderblock walls pulling one cable through is probably going to be a lot easier than half a dozen. I'll probably put a 1Gbps switch on the shopping list though rather than using the spare 10/100 switch in the cupboard.

[Kim]

Incidentally, if anyone has a use for a 24 port 10/100 managed switch (fanless, rackmount,  some cosmetic scratches), I've got one that could do with a good home...