Network Switch again

bencat

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I had a cheap tp-Link LS108 g switch that I fitted about 18 months ago and just forgot about . Well it died for some reason and will not show any power . So put the connections back direct to the router and still kept having the drop out issues . new switch needed saw the below on e-bay and thought why not . My brother is head of the IT section for Merseyside Health and deals with networks and asking him he said Cisco is a very good make and they are super reliable and used by most business networks . So bought it and it arrived on Friday great packing and really in excellent condition . The difference in build quality from the TP-Link is very noticeable . Bigger unit good metal construction has its own power supply built in just a kettle plug lead . While it is a managed unit the company have reset the unit to factory default and just plugged it in and is working as it should . Network is now super stable no more wobblies and would recomend this as a very good value buy that will just work .

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cisco-WS-C2940-8TT-S-R4-Catalyst-2940-Switch-Managed-8-x-10-100-1-x-10/313330918786?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

 

Adam D

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That was a great price.  I think that I paid £50 for mine.

Have you noticed any change in the sound of your system since you installed the Cisco?

 

lindsayt

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The industrial strength Cisco and HP Procurve switches are good. They typically retailed at hundreds of pounds per switch (for 8 port switches) when new, whilst selling for fractions of that used, because of supply and demand.

The one you bought goes up to 100 mega bits per second speed.

More modern switches go up to 1000 mega bits per second (1 gigabit per second).

For internet usage, for most users there's not much point in going above 100 mbps, because their internet connection will be slower than that. I use 100 mbps Cisco switches in my home network because I got them for next to nothing and don't need anything faster.

For people streaming off an internal NAS there might be benefits to going for a 1000 mbps switch, or it might make naff-all difference.

Cisco and HP Procurve switches will work fine for home users with the factory default settings. These switches are highly configurable and come with various features - mostly aimed for business users.  Configuring them via the CLI (command line interface = think MS-DOS type non graphical user interface) is very quick and easy for techie IT networking types. There's certainly no harm in configuring your switch for your given requirements, and there may be some benefits.

 
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Tony_J

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For people streaming off an internal NAS there might be benefits to going for a 1000 mbps switch, or it might make naff-all difference.
The latter, unless you have a network that is very busy doing other stuff, which is unlikely in a domestic environment. I just looked at a random FLAC file on my NAS ripped from a CD - the file is ~14 megabytes long, so ~114 megabits of data, and represents a song length of a shade under 3 minutes, so ignoring protocol overheads (which are relatively small), it needs ~630,000 bits/sec to stream from storage in real time - round it up to 700,000 to cover protocol overheads and you'd be pretty close. So 0.7 of a megabit/sec or thereabouts. So 100 megabits/sec should give you room to simultaneously stream 100 songs and still have plenty of bandwidth left over for other stuff.

 
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dudywoxer

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we often have 2 or 3 films streaming, music streaming, file back up, remote working going on at the same time. 10/100 switches have become swamped, 1000 not so. I put a new 10/100/1000 16 port hub in last week- no sound quality changes, or film quality come to that, and all the files sent arrived as they should, be that by file transfer or e-mail. We do have a 300+ mbs internet connection which also helps. I'm afraid I find the idea of any adequate network switch being of sound quality benefit a stretch of the imagination. Audio is a very low demand on a network, unless buried within some component is a piece of bad design or two it should function more than adequately. I can only assume from the number of tweaks and fixes needed to correct it their must be more bad designs out their than good.

 

lindsayt

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The latter, unless you have a network that is very busy doing other stuff, which is unlikely in a domestic environment. I just looked at a random FLAC file on my NAS ripped from a CD - the file is ~14 megabytes long, so ~114 megabits of data, and represents a song length of a shade under 3 minutes, so ignoring protocol overheads (which are relatively small), it needs ~630,000 bits/sec to stream from storage in real time - round it up to 700,000 to cover protocol overheads and you'd be pretty close. So 0.7 of a megabit/sec or thereabouts. So 100 megabits/sec should give you room to simultaneously stream 100 songs and still have plenty of bandwidth left over for other stuff.
It's one of those things. Some people have reported sonic improvements from moving from 100 mbps to 1000 mbps switches.

Whether that was from the faster networking speed or some other thing, I don't know.

In the context of a hi-fi system, there's not a huge difference in the cost of used ebayed fanless Cisco business 100 mbps switches and 1000 mbps.

Like about £20 versus £60 (last time I did a quick investigation).

 

bencat

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Thank you adding the thoughts on this only being a 100mbps unit it was most helpful . I had thought I would change it for a 1000 mbps unit but I think i will just leave things alone . Since it has been installed it has not missed a beat and the speed seems fine for what I use it for . As has been said the 100 mbps is probably more than adequate for domestic use and i have nothing running in the back ground other than my LMS . Streaming live TV and the occasional film has been fine so will leave this unit as it is unless my brother finds an spare 1000 mbps unit that is going spare in which case will install that and put this one up on the Spirit of the Wam .

 
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