Newbie - 2 switches or 1 switch with "port groups" to router

[shatterhand]

I drew a picture to explain my quesiton better, but heres the basics: In my house I want to connect 6 TV's and 12 computers to a router. I was thinking of buying one 8 port switch for the TV's and one 16 port switch for the LAN (computers, cameras (I have POE injectors) etc.) and connect them separately to the router in my network cabinet.

So instead of having 2 switches, can all this be done with only 1 switch? I was thinking of buying TP-LINK TL-SL2428 and my router is an ASUS RTA C68U. If you have any other suggestions they are ofcourse very welcome.

Picture

 

[bill001g]

It depends on your traffic pattern. For most people it likely makes no difference.

Almost all switches can run all port at 1gbit up and 1gbit down all at the same time. So a 16 port switch can pass 32gbit of traffic. Let say instead you have 2 8 port switches. Each switch can pass 16gbit of traffic but if you connect them together they are limited to a single cable or 1gbit up and 1gbit down. So it depends on where the machines are located if the 1gbit cable between them bottlenecks anything. It would only affect traffic between the switches traffic that stayed on the same switch would only be limited by devices port.

 

[shatterhand]

Im not worried about the speed, I just want to know if I can replace 2 switches with 1 and make it look cleaner. Ive heard so far that its complicated to make groups on switches and that i would have to write configs or something like that.

 

[bill001g]

It is vlans but your router does not support it. If you plug both your current switches into the router it is all one big network already.

 

[anotherdrew]

I'm surprised by your choice of switches. For one, most of the ports are not gigabit. Second, it has a lot features that I don't think you will use (maybe you will). Why not go with something simpler (unless you had a reason to try and segregate the TVs from the computers).

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122823 or
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704065

 

[shatterhand]

Yes the choice of a 24 switch is poor I agree, didnt even check for gigabit speed, my bad. So is there a way to do this with 1 switch instead of 2? I dont even know how to google this? Is it called VLAN? The port grouping I mean. And how would the actual connection look like? 2 cables from router to switch right?

 

[bill001g]

Why do you want 2 groups.

You can not plug 2 cables between the switch and the router. You will get a loop or if they are smart it will block one of the ports.

Your router must support vlans also which is not a common feature on a consumer router.

 

[shatterhand]

I want 2 groups so that I can assign TV's to one (thats trunk on router afaik) and the other one is normal data aka home LAN. With 2 switches its easy, but I want a cleaner look in my cabinet and 1 less AC plug thats why i'm asking if it can be done with only a single switch.

 

[bill001g]

Like I said you can't do it with a consumer router.

Even if you plug 2 different switches into your router it is still one network.

Now if it is a visual thing and not technical then its up to you what you buy.