Patch panel + switch connectivity...

[Internexus]

I am curious. I currently have a patch panel with multiple connections coming into it. One cat5 cable coming out of it to an unmanaged switch providing network connectivity for 8 servers.... If I were to put in say 1-2 more cat 5 cables and route them to the same switch would this allow the servers communication speeds across the network to increase or would this cause collisions? Thanks
-sean

 

[Castor66]

I assume you mean adding a second connection from each server to the switch? If so, then you would need to team the interfaces for load-balancing on the server. This would effectively give you 200Mbit to your servers.

 

[Internexus]

Nah what I mean is say I have 4 network cables coming into a room with 8 machines.

The 4 network cables are going to a patch panel.

There is only 1 cable actually plugged into the patch panel on the front (coming out.)

That is going to a switch.

All 8 machines are connected to the switch.

So if I use 3 more cables from the patch panel to the switch does this give me 3 more effective paths across the network that would help speed up transfer during large loads of traffic?

 

[baddos]

Not with an unmanaged switch... With a managed switch, you could setup etherchannel (link bundling technology). You could also just plug in multiple paths into that switch and let spanning-tree do the failover.... The more robust would be etherchannel or another manufacturers equivilent.

Basically, if you have 8 servers in that room it justifies the relatively expensive managed switch. If they are just 100Mb, you could be a Cisco 24 Port 10/100 managed switch for around $600 US. That switch would be capable of doing etherchannel.

 

[chieftan999]

As Baddos has said you will need to use Etherchanneling to set up a load balanced improved link:-

example:-

Etherchannel 2 x 100 Mbit ports = 1 x 200 mbit port etc etc.

I am unsure with just 1 switch, but I would guess that other ports to the same MAC address would be blocked by Spanning tree if no Etherchanneling is used.

Reamin positive. The affect on those around you will amaze.

 

[Internexus]

I do actually have a spair managed cisco switch lying around, after I finish implementing 2 others onto a different rack I will come back to this thread for how to setup the etherchannel configs. Thanks guys!