Can you connect a switch to a router using two cables to double the connection speed?

[MemelordC]

I'm planning on setting up an NAS system for use in my house. The box, for location purposes, would be in my room. My current network consists of a BT Home Hub 4 in another room, that serves as a primary router. I have a second one that I've "dumbed down" into being just a switch. The two are connected using a powerline adapter, which has a max connection speed of 100Mb/s. Anything up to four devices at once connect to the internet through the second router (this second router is literally just a Wi-Fi enabled switch), which doesn't leave much room for a constantly in use file serving machine. So in which case, would it be possible to run a long cable to a second port between the router and switch to double the speed? I've been looking about and not found any answer to this, other than one person who said it could cause a DHCP error, but he was shot down by another person who claimed it'd work. I do suppose this is a "just try it for an answer" situation, but it'd be helpful to know if anyone else has any information.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

No. Unless your network is running with Spanning Tree Protocol (only in enterprise gear), you'll get a switching loop. Link aggregation is also a possibility but, again, only in enterprise gear.

It appears that (correct me if I'm wrong) the Home Hub 4 has a single Gigabit Ethernet LAN port. Correct?

If so, run a cable from the gigabit port on each of your modems to a gigabit ethernet switch, and to your NAS. Remove the powerline connection.

 

[photonboy]

Hey,
You always have to identify the WEAKEST LINK and upgrade that or else it's pointless.
a) cable
b) Router
c) Computer/device
d) Splitter/adapter (i.e. your "Powerline adapter")
e) Network bandwidth (MODEM out to world wide web is bottleneck by ISP provided bandwidth)

Anyway, I tried to follow what you said but got a bit glassy eyed...

I have to be sure though, is the Powerline Adapter limited to 100 MegaBits/Second or MegaBytes per Second?

I assume you mean "MegaBits" meaning roughly 12MBytes/Second which would bottleneck file transfer. Where it got confusing was you said something about "connect to internet" as usually most people don't have more than 2MB/second download and maybe 1/7th that upload (limited by ISP) so not quite sure what exactly is going on.

(though using the INTERNET would eat up some of the processing power of the Router but if it's Gigabit capable I wouldn't think it would be too significant to affect local transfers... )

Anyway...
If you're talking mainly file transfer locally, then you must ensure every component in the loop is Gigabit compatible. If the powerline adapter is slowing you down then get a faster unit or run an Ethernet cable (to replace) and add a Gigabit switch to share more than one device (T-Link for example).

*In case it's not clear, a ROUTER or similar device is rated for the speed it has because its internal PROCESSOR can't handle anything faster. No amount of adding multiple connections will help raise the bandwidth it can handle (in fact the overhead will DROP performance though your example doesn't even sound possible).

**To TEST I suggest connecting any devices you want to share between directly to the ROUTER. If you get acceptable transfer rates (which you should if everything is rated for Gigabit) then your problem is whatever gets in the way of that which again sounds like the Powerline Adapter.

I run a 75-foot Ethernet Cat5 cable to my room and share that using a TP-Link Gigabit switch. I have a WDMYCLOUD device and have gotten up to 90MB/second read/writes to that device (measure by timing a large file transfer).

 

[Someone Somewhere]

His routers are 100Mb/s, except on one port.

Adding multiple connections will, as above, cause your network to die completely. Not just drop a little bit.

 

[MemelordC]

No. Unless your network is running with Spanning Tree Protocol (only in enterprise gear), you'll get a switching loop. Link aggregation is also a possibility but, again, only in enterprise gear.

It appears that (correct me if I'm wrong) the Home Hub 4 has a single Gigabit Ethernet LAN port. Correct?

If so, run a cable from the gigabit port on each of your modems to a gigabit ethernet switch, and to your NAS. Remove the powerline connection.

His routers are 100Mb/s, except on one port.

Adding multiple connections will, as above, cause your network to die completely. Not just drop a little bit.

I assumed this would be the case, yeah. The powerline adapters are both bottlenecking the connection between the two gigabit ports at 200Mb/s, which is fine for me, although I think most of the cables I'm using are only cat5 because the link speed is only 100Mb/s. I guess a long cat6 between them is the way forward
thanks

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Cat5 can do Gigabit just fine, though not over very long distances.

Almost all power line devices have 100Mb/s ethernet ports on them, even the ones that claim to be 200Mb/s or more.

 

[RealBeast]

Take a look HERE. There are only two powerline units that actually do exceed 200Mbs in real testing and they are both new AV2 MIMO 1.2Gbps units. As is generally the case, they achieve about 1/6 of their marketecture claim.

Nothing even approaches using an Ethernet cable if you have gigabit adapters, switches, and router.

I use CAT5 on a number of lines up to several hundred feet and they all run gigabit fine, averaging around 880Mbps or so.