10/100/1000 or 10/100 Switch

[NutFlush920]

I have cat5e run to each room of my house. I have a HR21 in both my bedroom and living room with Whole Home DVR service. Both boxes go through a centralized Netgear Gibabit switch in the basement.

In my living room, I would like to add a switch as I have multiple devices I would like to have a wired connection.

1. DirecTV HR21
2. Slingbox Pro HD
3. Playstation 3
4. Roku HD Netflix

I have a 10/100 Linksys switch currently not in use. Should I use this, or pop $50 for a 10/100/1000 switch on Newegg? Does Whole Home DVR need a gibabit network to run optimal?

** Keep in mind I don't have DECA and am using my own home network with CAT5e and a central gigabit switch to connect my whole house togeather.

 

[jdspencer]

Use the 10/100 as the ethernet in the DVRs are only 100Mbps capable.

I don't have DECA and my LAN is 100Mbps. It works just fine.
I would suggest that you put both HR21s on the same switch.

 

[NutFlush920]

Use the 10/100 as the ethernet in the DVRs are only 100Mbps capable.

I don't have DECA and my LAN is 100Mbps. It works just fine.
I would suggest that you put both HR21s on the same switch.

So are you saying in the living room to connect the HR21 to the wall then use the pass through Ethernet jack to connect the switch in my living room for the Slingbox, PS3, and Roku Netflix?

Then both HR21's would be on the same switch since all drops are to the gigabyte switch at my homerun location.

 

[jdspencer]

It is not recommended to use the pass thru on the DVRs as it can cause problem with the DVR operation. The pass thru requires PU cycles from the DVR and thus the problem. In your case, I'd run a second Cat5 cable and dedicate it to the DVR and connect it to the switch in you homerun location. Another solution would be to use a switch at the LR location and connect the HR21 and your other equipment there.

 

[cfb]

One thing to consider is that if you use a 100Mbit switch connected to your gigabit switch, everything connected to either switch wanting to talk to something on the other switch is going to have to share that single 100Mb/s pipe you have connecting them. If they're both gigabit switches, you'll have a 1Gb/s pipe between them to share.

I had a 100Mb/s switch upstairs connected to the gigabit unit downstairs, and if my wife was doing MRV from the upstairs to the downstairs dvr while I was doing stuff between the computer upstairs and the computer downstairs, the mrv got a little glitchy.

Since you can get gigabit switches for peanuts these days, I dont see much reason to buy 100Mb/s switches. If you've got the older switches kicking around, you might not gain much by replacing them with gigabit.

On the other hand, there were some older switches that didnt have enough internal bandwidth to handle a lot of stuff going full tilt or that filtered certain packet types figuring "who the heck would want that kind of traffic passed between ports!" and I've seen some people solve weirdo mrv and directv2pc problems by replacing an old 100Mb switch with a new Gb switch.

I've seen plenty of $10-20 five and eight port gigabit 'green' switches. Not only will those assure you wont have any issues and give you top speed, might save a little in electricity.

Or, just have directv put the DECA gear in and forget about it!

 

[NutFlush920]

So my setup would look like this then?

 

[cfb]

That looks about right. Its pretty much what I have, except I have a gigabit router. I did have a secondary gigabit switch attached to my old non-gigabit router but dropped it when I got a new router.