View Single Post - Linksys Router + Switch

Blue|Fusion · Rated XXX

I am somewhat of a novice when it comes to Layer 2 networking stuff. I know a good amount, but I want some clarification from someone who knows what's going on for yet another one of my little side projects.

My roommate and I have been playing a lot of BF2 and with our bass blaring and screams of defeat echo down the hallway, a lot of other people on our floor has started gaming with us. Usually, I am the one running the server. I've brought a spare headless PC with Gentoo on it which is running the 1.41 dedicated server for our floor.

The problem is I have ran out of ports on my Linksys wireless router. between my desktop, my roommate's desktop, a print server, and an NAS, there is no room for the extra server.

I was thinking of upgrading myself to some Gigabit speeds (atleast on our immediate LAN) by getting a Linksys 8-Port Gigabit Switch. I was wondering if I can just attach all of the network stuff I mentioned before to this switch and then another cable to the current wireless router. I still need the router for NAT/Firewall and wireless services (laptop).

The proposed setup I was looking for is like so:

Wall --> Linksys Wireless Router --> Linksys Switch --> All wired stuff

What I want to know is will that work properly and will the data transfer between hardware directly plugged into the switch run at Gigabit speeds or will the data have to go to the switch, then to the router, then back to the switch, then to the destination limiting to 100Mbps (router max speed)?

Hope I'm not being too confusing...