Please tell me what do you think of this netwrok configuration?
ADSL –> Gbit router with 4 ports –> Gbit switch with 24 ports –> clients
Is it ok or am I way off?
If I am, what would you recommend instead?
I need a cost-effective network solution because we use a 10/100 router now(for 8 computers) and the network is already unstable as it is.
I need the router to share the ADSL on the network without the use of a computer that would normally do this.
(ADSL plugged directly in the router without the use of a PC)
But you are right, the ADSL is only 8 Mbit so a 10/100 will be enough.
So far: ADSL –> 10/100 router –> Gbit switch –> clients
You don’t need a gigabit router if your inbound connection is less than 100Mbs. The gigabit switch will improve internal performance as long as the client machines all have gigabit internal cards. The bottleneck is going to be the ADSL connection. We have a 2Mbps T1 fiber connection here and have a 10/100 switch. All our client machines have 10/100/1000 cards so I’m thinking about upgrading to a 10/100/1000 switch (but they are pricey) to increase network performance. It won’t do anything for Internet traffic though because the slowest connection is still the 2Mbps T1.
Why not just skip the router with 4 ports? It just provides another potential point of failure in the network.
Get a standard Cisco router with one Eithernet port and one ADSL port. Then connect this to a Cisco Main switch dispersion unit. You connect the Eithernet from the router to the main switch and then connect all the 8 computers to that, this will disperse the ADSL connect between them all. But if your looking for a cheaper solution dont go for Cisco, go from say HP for the switch and Netgear for the router as Cisco are the leaders in networking and are very expensive. Hope this helps