Dual network switches

Hi Len,

I'm going to say it's a definite "maybe".

Network switches aren't all equal in terms of performance, even if they have the same port speed configuration. Internally, there is a crossbar of some kind doing the port-to-port routing, and it has some maximum bandwidth. Even if a single port-to-port transfer may support the full gigabit speed, the switch may not have internal bandwidth on this crossbar to support gigabit transfers on multiple ports simultaneously, resulting in lower speeds (for a given connection) when under additional load. In addition to the total bandwidth, the internal crossbar may also experience increased jitter or latency depending on the number of simultaneous data streams and routing "fairness" strategies employed internally.

With that in mind, consider what your new topology does:

• Any traffic from the radio to the computer stays on a single switch - no routing or extra hops needed
• The TeensyMaestro isn't very latency sensitive, so jumping between switches through the router isn't a big deal
• Any traffic from other devices going to the Internet (e.g. TV) doesn't affect the switch the radio traffic is on

If we assume that one of your networking devices was running into either of the internal networking limitations described above, then your new topology would likely help, not because you separated the speed classes into 100Mbps vs 1Gbps, but because it eliminated traffic patterns that would interfere with your radio-to-computer connection, and streamline the radio-to-computer connection for minimal hops.

Reed