Network switch question

We just got an internet upgrade today and the tech said that we need a network switch for the devices that are plugged in to our old router. What is the difference between managed and unmanaged network switch?

 

What do you need to do with your new switch? Also what was your old switch?

 

Brief version:
Unmanaged is plug and play. Plug your devices into it and it into your router.
Managed is, for example if you need to set up VLANs. Lots of configuration options in a managed switch.
A managed switch can be left alone and used same as an unmanaged, but that's not a good idea.

 

The old router has a few cat cables plugged in.....wife mesh system, a gaming computer, security camera DVR, etc. The new router is the Eero Pro 7.

 

Most likely you don't need managed. Think of an unmanaged switch as a hub to join all the other things needing a physical connection to your network. My guess is your new router doesn't have the same number of network plugs as the old one and the switch will solve that problem.

 

That is correct. My new router only has 1 port. I'm looking at TPLink ot Netgear. Netgear seems to be the better performing.

 

The only other suggestion I can offer is make sure the switch and cables you're using have the same "cat" spec rating. It makes no value sense in buying a switch that supports cat 8 when all your cables are cat 5. And im not saying that combination won't work just that you'd spend more money on the switch and it negotiating down to the lower cable specs.

 

$19 NETGEAR 5-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Essentials Switch (GS305) - Home Network Hub, Office Ethernet Splitter, Plug-and-Play, Silent Operation, Desktop or Wall Mount

https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-5-Port-Gigabit-Ethernet-Unmanaged/dp/B07S98YLHM?crid=1982RHX1FDDKQ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.xxX8mE6i0-en5Sc6HyexvZvtJQIsE93Z-IeIs0x0EPjtFyMeWENYZ1kQaa49RutXelEATZnwkrDQryItyn_EBS5gpoH3RB7VLMgWnjyPs3lBfFnRZ3EJQiMYe2g0DjCVXBAEqkWy4MevA0kZmtwPFK23jVxSmteGUnE8J37GmtamtVK3JbBuHdNi77vYktJJ6fAdeL0kSVXbATd0hU7OUA.dAz3R6qwpofXqHghlx3gtWy4_rsgb5LHUVNZouifCS0&dib_tag=se&keywords=netgear+switch&qid=1745634745&sprefix=netgear+%2Caps%2C191&sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfYXRm

I’ve deployed dozens of these commercially with no issues. Cheap, unmanaged, dumb switch. Heck I’ve got one in my bedroom. I’ve got a home run from my main house switch to one of these 5 ports and then my laptop, tv, and Roku plugged into it. Runs great. They make larger ones if you need more ports.

 

That makes sense. The router is an Eero Pro 7 with Wifi 7 and the internet connection is 2 gig. What cat cable would that be? The Frontier guy just said that I need a 2 gig switch so I was looking at Nethear 2.5 gig unmanaged.

 

Definitely CAT6 between switch and router but it's the other cables you're planning on connecting to the switch that might be lower spec depending on when they were installed.

The product that @centex linked above should be fine.

 

You don’t need 2 gig. 1 gig will be more than sufficient. I stream 4k uhd on a 1g switch with cat6 with zero issues. Cat6 will support you for at least another decade or more doing 4k.

Point of reference, I built a broadcast studio for a search engine company 2yrs ago and it was all cat6 for anything under 300’ run and they stream in 4k.

 

Cheap TPLink would do it.

Otherwise https://toh.openwrt.org, click on Network tab and enter how many ports you want.

 

In my previous place I had 10 GbE between my computer and SAN/NAS, where I had virtual machine images. The VMs themselves were running on a computer. While not seeing rocket speeds from the network attached disks, it was sufficient. From time to time I had urge to repurpose a pair of 100 GbE NICs, but haven't had enough motivation.

In my new place the distance is too far for 10/100 GbE, and I can't route SFP+ connector through the walls and ceilings. So it is 1 GbE now, and it's definitely not enough. I ended up reconfiguring my storage to bear enough compute guts to run unattended VMs (mail server, media box) right there and just added more local disks to my computer.

Files are care about (mainly kids photos these days I still have to copy over network, because in the basement there's RAID-6 on NAS-grade disks, backup/dedup software and a half ton UPC.

 

I was looking at this one. It's a 2.5 gig 8 port on sale at 50% off.

 

I have a couple of TP-Links. Zero problems over who knows how many years.

 

I had a few residential Netgear routers go bad and decided to try out TP-Link. They're not top of the line, but the value and performance are hard to beat. Ended up building my network with their gear/Omada.

 

For the switch that I am looking at, it says WiFi 6. Does that matter if my WiFi router is WiFi 7?

The router is the Eero 7 Pro tri-band and the mesh system is the Eero 7 dual band.

 

You said your uplink is 2 Gig. The router you picked is 2.5 Gig. This is per port. Switch core inside the router is supposed to provide enough bandwidth to accommodate for declared wire speed on all ports. That's why 24 port switches are more expensive than same speed 4 port switches.

tl;dr: the switch is 25% faster than your uplink, any port can saturate your uplink, good to go.

 

Gotcha. So the wifi 6 versus 7 doesn't matter? I have no idea what wifi has to do with a switch....I thought it was just for the wired ports.

 

Are your cabled devices capable of going over 2.5 GbE? You can buy a 10 GbE switch, but unless you have client hardware that can utilize that bandwidth, it is going to be just a waste of money.

All consumer-grade devices I have at home have 1 GbE ports, for example.

 

No none of them are. I just got hung up on the switch that I linked says WiFi 6 and my router is WiFi 7.

 

Not sure why TP-Link mentions Wi-Fi for a switch. Might just be marketing

 

Could be but it's all good. I ordered the one that I linked.