[atarionly]

Ive been asked to help set up a small network of 25 computers. There are 5 buildings that need internet access. The buildings are 125 apart. The cable connection and router are located in building 1.

My question is how many switches can you link off of each other? The hardware looks all to be Linksys router,switches, and pci cards.

Would this layout work with out problems?

modem
router
|
switch--pcs
|
switch--pcs
|
switch--pcs
|
switch--pcs
|
switch--pcs
|
switch--pcs



I believe the system is wired like the above diagram its just missing the hardware.

Or does it need to be wired differently.

Thanks in advance for any help,

Don

Edited by atarionly, 29 August 2005 - 11:28 PM.

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I wouldn't connect the network like this. You are narrowing your bandwidth via cascading switches. Each switch should connect directly to the router.

That should give you optimum performance and less administrative overhead. It makes it easier to troubleshoot.

Edited by samiko, 30 August 2005 - 09:21 AM.

[samiko]

I wouldn't connect the network like this. You are narrowing your bandwidth via cascading switches. Each switch should connect directly to the router.

That should give you optimum performance and less administrative overhead. It makes it easier to troubleshoot.

Edited by samiko, 30 August 2005 - 09:21 AM.

[meighnot]

Samiko's suggestion also means that if one of the switches in your network fails or is taken offline for some reason, the others will still function with the router and you'll only lose part of your functionality.

I'll second his/her suggestion. Create yourself a good backbone with better fault tolerance by connecting each building switch directly to the router.

[SpaceCowboy706]

He is right... if the first switch fails in your daisy chain... all the switches after will lose connectivity.. connect them in parrallel from the router.

DAISY CHAINS ARE ALWAYS BAD.... I WOULD RECCOMEND JUST GETTING A 24 LINE SWITCH... WOULD COST THE SAME AS 6 FOUR PORT SWITCHES.

[dsenette]

did you mean that the buildings are 125 feet apart?

[meighnot]

Since he's trying to connect 25 PCs in multiple buildings, I'd recommend a switch for each building with a dedicated uplink from each switch to the router.

I'd also recommend adding 30% extra ports to each switch, so that they won't have to be replaced as soon if there's growth of the network.

On re-read of the first post, I also notice that Don didn't tell us if the buildings are 125 feet apart or 125 yards/meters apart. If they're situated on a small campus and are only 125 feet apart, it'll make his job of connecting all of them a little easier, since at distances of more than 100 meters, standard UTP cabling will experience signal degradation that it'd be unworkable at 125 yards/meters.

[samiko]

They might have to use optical fiber with 1 GB bandwidth for distances greater than 100m
Cascading switches is the worst setup you could get.
Plan it carefully its important that a network is planned correctly from the begining, it would be difficult to change at a later stage due to the cost involved.
If you need any help you can e-mail me.