24 Port Switch vs Daisy-chaining 8 Port Switch

As technology booming and networking devices proliferating, network expansion has become common in all data centers. Thus choosing an Ethernet switch with abundant ports is of great concern. However, one can also connect small switches like 8 port switches together by daisy chaining them. For SMBs and home usage, the choice between deploying a 24 port switch vs daisy-chaining 8 port switch has confused many people. We’re here to make an analysis for your selection guide.

24 Port Switch Solution Analysis

Deploying a single 24 port switch owns all the edges over several small 8 port switches. Above all, 24 port switch is designed with advanced features for high-performance. Say S1400-24T4F 24 port PoE switch, which has a 400W power budget and 52Gbps switching capacity rather than 130W and 20Gbps of S1130-8T2F 8 port PoE switch. Besides, more unoccupied ports provides you redundancy for network expansion. An 8 port switch can easily get saturated than you’ve expected. Also, running one 24 port switch saves space, power and is easier for management than daisy-chaining several 8 port switches. But meanwhile a single 24 port switch loses redundancy for network outage and separate placing flexibility.

S1400-24T4F 24 port switch

Figure 1: S1400-24T4F 24 port rack mount PoE switch complies with IEEE 802.3af/at, fit for VoIP phones, wireless APs and IP surveillance cameras for intelligent switching and networks growth.

Daisy-chaining 8 Port Switch Solution Analysis

In general, we don’t recommend one to daisy chain 8 port switches. The main reason is that it brings low performance and unnecessary troubles. Chaining switches makes your network too big a diameter, which is difficult to achieve effective Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) and Shortest Path Bridging (SPB). As a result, it forms a loop and your network will grind to a halt. Also, the 1Gbps uplinks for connecting those 8 port switches will become a bottleneck, which causes random dropped connections and incidental throughput issues. To alleviate the loop, mind never daisy chain more than 3 switches together. Besides, keeping hooking up 8 port switches, your network layout will look like a spider web of switches and cables in all different directions. In this regard 8 Port PoE switch may be a good way to go for saving one extra power wire for each device.

However, daisy-chaining 8 port switch can make things easier in some situations. For example, you have a 24 port gigabit switch in the garage and you plan to run each room with a cable to a port. But how about rooms needing more than one port? In this case you can daisy chain an 8 port switch to that port in each room, then all your devices can be connected. This is also the easiest solution when PCs in different areas requiring for separate IP locations.

S1130-8T2F 8 port PoE switch application

Figure 2: Applications of S1130-8T2F 8 port PoE switch for IP cameras, VoIP phones, wireless APs.

24 Port Switch vs Daisy-chaining 8 Port Switch Deployment Guide

To highlight, using a single 24 port switch with redundant ports is a more advanced solution in modern market. It leaves management troubles and low-performance issues like loop and connection drops of daisy-chaining 8 port switches. However, daisy-chaining 8 port switches is a solution to situations when you need several ports in different rooms or separate IP addresses. But all in all, even if you choose daisy-chaining 8 port switches, you need at least a reliable gigabit switch as core switch in the data center. Then you can add 8 port switches as small branch circuits.

Whatever you are choosing, gigabit PoE switch can fit the bill in any situations cruel for power cabling. For the loop issue, one key is to use managed gigabit switch. It detects loops and quickly shuts them down. All managed PoE gigabit switches in FS.COM are fully managed, supporting both Web Interface and CLI command. For replacing clumsy daisy chaining, you can stack switch by using stackable managed switch, which can let your switch stack work smoothly as a single one. Say stackable 24 port gigabit switch managed with 4 10Gb SFP+ uplinks: S3800-24T4S 1000Base-T copper switch and S3800-24F4S SFP switch. Both supports up to 4 24 port switches stacked together, providing up to 512Gbps total switching capacity for your network.

S3800-24T4S and S3800-24F4S stackable 24 port switch

Figure 3: S3800-24T4S and S3800-24F4S stackable managed switch stacking solution for network expansion.

Conclusion

24 port switch vs daisy-chaining 8 port switch: which to employ? For separate placement requirement, daisy-chaining 8 port switch can be a solution to go. A suggestion is to deploy a good 24 port gigabit switch in the data center. Then daisy chain 8 port switches as access switches. For reliable performance concern, one should go for 24 port switch. And for future-proof network growth, to stack switch with stackable 24 port switch can make sense. It also gets around performance issues in replace of daisy-chaining 8 port switches.

8 Port PoE Switch Selection Guide And Tips

POE(Power over Ethernet) is ideal for using in smart applications which makes CCTV even more effective and easier to manage. The network can be monitored, controlled, and managed from a smartphone or tablet. With a POE switch such as the Netgear ProSAFE 8 port switch, remote IP surveillance cameras can be controlled and managed no matter where they are located. Facing the selection of 8 port PoE switch, most of people would occur allodoxaphobia. For fixing this hard-decision problem, this article would put emphasis on 8 port PoE switch selection guide and tips.

8 Port PoE switch-FS.COM

Overview on 8 Port PoE switch

There is a variety of 8 port PoE switches with different brands. Today, we would take FS.COM 8 port switch as an example to introduce 8 port PoE switches. FS.COM S1130-8T2F managed PoE+ switch comes with 8x 10/100/1000Base-T RJ45 Ethernet ports, 1x console port, and 2x gigabit SFP slots. It can supply power to network equipment such as weather-proof IP cameras with windshield wiper and heater, high-performance AP and IP telephone. This managed PoE+ switch are highly flexible, the transmission distance of the SFP fiber port can be up to 120km, and with high resistance to electromagnetic interference. It also features superior performance in stability, environmental adaptability. FS.COM PoE+ Gigabit switch comes with a one-year limited warranty, including any quality problems during the free maintenance. The detailed specification of FS.COM S1130-8T2F managed PoE+ 8 port switch is shown in the below.

Switch Class Layer2+
Switch Chip VITESSE
Fans Fanless Design
Jumbo frames Up to 9KB
Power Consumption Per PoE Port Max. 30W
Max. Power Consumption 130W
Power Supply Input 100-240VAC, 50-60Hz
Switching Capacity 20Gbps
Forwarding Rate 14.88Mpps
Packet Buffer Memory 4M
PoE Standard Compliant with IEEE802.3af/at
VLANs Up to 4K
Web Management Interface Supported
Power Pin Type End-span

8 Port PoE switch Selection Guide & Tips

—Power Requirements

Review the data sheets of the camera’s you have specified on the installation to see if any have higher power requires known as PoE+. If you have 1 or more camera’s requiring PoE+ power you will need to heavily consider this when choosing your switch. (Please note PoE+ switches will happily power standard PoE devices but a standard PoE switch cannot power any PoE+ device, regardless of the amount of wattage unused by the other connected equipment). However some switches are designed to power both PoE and PoE+ devices, please check the specification sheet of that exact switch model to see if this is possible on your selection. If this is the case you will usually find a the switch will handle half the PoE+ devices it will PoE e.g. An 8 port switch can power 8 standard PoE devices or 4 PoE+ devices.

—Cable Run Length

Make sure when planning your network you do not have cable runs longer than 90 meters. This is particularly important when using PoE due to voltage drop. PoE is particularly hard to measure voltage on so if you break the 90 meter cable rule you could be in for a world of pain if devices do not operate correctly.

—8 Port Switch Price

There are many 8 port PoE switches of major brands on the market, such as Cisco, Netgear, HP, TP-Link and etc. The 8 port switch price varies in difference brands. But they all controlled in a certain range, it’s around $40~$300. For brand selection of 8 port PoE switch, that depends on your preference. You can check the price discrepancy with major brands in the following table. Notice: All the following prices except FS.COM are from Amazon.

Brand Model Price
Cisco SF302-08P 8-Port PoE Manged Switch $153.11
NETGEAR GS108PEv3 8-Port PoE Managed Switch $79.99
FS.COM S1130-8T2F 8-Port PoE managed switch $159.00
HP 2530-8-POE+ Ethernet Switch $270.00

Conclusion

This article mainly introduce FS.COM S1130-8T2F 8 port PoE switch and provide 8 port switch selection guide and tips. How to choose a reliable supplier from so many 8 port switch manufacturers? Before buying 8 port PoE switch, the quality, power requirement, price, cable run length should be considered. As one of well-known 3rd-party optics manufacturers, FS.COM is suggested to be a good choice for 8 port PoE switch.