Unmanaged Switches Help?

[aidiewright]

Searching this forum I read that if I add an unmanaged switch to my network it won't use the mac addresses that are connected to the switch to communicate so therefore it won't speed up my LAN?

Also can I still set up static IP's on an unmanaged switch?

 

[bill001g]

That is the definition of unmanaged. It has no ability to be logged into or change anything. It does not need a IP or a mac of its own since no data ever talks to the switch itself. Data is just transparently passed though the device.

 

[aidiewright]

So If I have a 100mb router with a gigabit unmanaged switch and two gigabit devices, will they transfer files at gigabit speeds? or will the router bottleneck?

And can I assign devices attached to the switch static IP's?

 

[bill001g]

The switch may be unmanged but it is smart enough to send the traffic directly between the 2 end devices and not send it to the router. You can if you like assign ip to the end PC. The PC "think" they are directly attached to the router so you could get ip from the router or assign them manually. The switch is completely transparent to the end devices.

 

[aidiewright]

So the router won't bottle neck my LAN Speeds if everything else is gigabit? and transferring a file across devices? I thought that was the case but i read elsewhere something different.

Cheers for the help Bill

 

[Kewlx25]

For the most part, any two ports on a switch can transfer at full speed. Obviously if two or more ports are trying to communicate with the same port, they will have to share, but for the most part 1gb is quite fast.