Switch recommendation, to add more wired ports to network

I have a home network that goes from a broad band modem to an Apple AirPort Extreme. I use the wireless for our iPhones and iPads. However, ive wired the house so that my computers, NAS, and Apple TV are all wired. It works great -Time machine is much faster, and the microwave doesn't interfere with Apple TV. My only issue is that I don't have enough ports to connect everything at once. I thought I'd just get a Gigabit switch to connect the computers and Apple TV to (8 port?), and then connect that to the Extreme. So the extreme will still be the firewall out to the cable modem.
Any recommendations on what switch to buy? I want to get something reliable and fast... But don't want to go overboard. I was looking at a netgear, but got confused between 802.11 and 802.3a? I also got confused about PoE. I don't plan on hooking any phones to it, so I don't think I need PoE... But if I bought a switch with PoE, would that cause issues? Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

Hi Bob & edex67,
Thanks for the quick responses. I'm glad you both recommend Netgear... I'm looking at two models and would love your recommendations:
GS108 (http://store.netgear.com/store/netgear/en_US/pd/ThemeID.17545600/productID.12452 9400/parentCategoryID.44216100/categoryId.44398900)
GS608
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Netgear/GS608/
They are both 8 port Gigabit switches, but I can't tell really what the difference would be between them? Is it just the case? I'm sure the GS108 is more durable (dropping and such) since it has a metal case, but am I missing something else?
Thanks again for your help!
-Ryan

Similar Messages

I have a current 2TB Time Capsule. I would like to add more ethernet ports for needed expansion. Will an Airport Extreme conflict with the Time Capsule for needed ethernet ports and will wireless from both units conflict?

I own a current 2TB Time Capsule and I need to expand my network system to include more ethernet (wired) ports. I am considering an Airport Extreme that would give me enough wired ports. Will the wireless capabilities of both units conflict with each other? I only need one wireless network. Thank you for any help.

While you could certainly add an AirPort Extreme to provide additional Ethernet ports, you could also save about $150 by purchasing an inexpensive switch, such as one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-DGS-1005G-5-Port-Gigabit-Desktop/dp/B003X7TRWE/
http://www.amazon.com/TRENDnet-Unmanaged-GREENnet-Auto-Negotiation-Auto-MDIX/dp/ B001QUA6R0/
Consumer grade Ethernet switches typically come in five and eight port configurations. Just be aware that a five port switch only conveys the ability to add three additional devices. An eight port switch conveys the ability to add six additional devices.
An 8 port switch provides twice the capacity of a 5 port switch for considerably less than twice the cost. The price difference between the two is often only $10 or so.
I just checked, the 8 port version of the Trendnet switch above costs exactly $4 more.
An AirPort Extreme is a very flexible full featured wireless router, and would provide three additional LAN ports for wired devices. If all you need is a few more ports though, it's overkill.

Trying to figure out how to get more wired ports

I have an Airport Extreme and since it only has 3 wired ports, I need some addtional wired ports. Directly off the Airport, I have an iMac, PS3 and my VOIP phone. I need additional wired connections for my TV, Directv box and my new Mac Server. I want to be able to see the entire network so that I can share files.
Any advice??

An ethernet switch will perform better than a hub and it will be only a few dollars more. Ethernet switches come in 5 port, 8 port, 16 port, etc versions.
Since your Extreme has Gigabit ethernet capability, be sure to get a Gigabit switch.
If there's a Best Buy or electronics superstore near you, they will have what you need. $50-60 for a quality Netgear or Cisco 5 Port switch.
Message was edited by: Bob Timmons

Use a router as hub to get more wired ports

This is my first experience using a Cisco Linksys router. Up to now I've always used DLink. But when my newest Dlink router failed for the 3rd time I decided it was time to find a better make. The Linksys E2500 came highly recommended.
The trouble I am having is that I've been using an old DLink DI-604 wired router as a hub to get 3 extra wired ports. But with the linksys router I can't get this to work..
Can this be done with this router and if so, how do I have to setup the routers?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

kenmoore wrote:
This is my first experience using a Cisco Linksys router. Up to now I've always used DLink. But when my newest Dlink router failed for the 3rd time I decided it was time to find a better make. The Linksys E2500 came highly recommended.
The trouble I am having is that I've been using an old DLink DI-604 wired router as a hub to get 3 extra wired ports. But with the linksys router I can't get this to work..
Can this be done with this router and if so, how do I have to setup the routers?
You can also refer to this article http://www6.nohold.net/Cisco2/ukp.aspx?vw=1&docid=544875a49c5c4896bdae485fa7968550_4529.xml&pid=80&r....

I am looking to add more USB ports to the back of Mac Pro

Will this fit the Mac Pro? Any other recommendations?
http://www.maczone.com/site/product/index.html?id=001392119

I don't know the specs. on the early Mac Pros, but the latest ones all have PCI Express. That's why I said "if".
If they all have PCI Express, then you'll need the Express version.
I have the USB Express version card in my Mac Pro right now.

Add more usb ports

I have the microsoft arc mouse and keyboard and each of them have seperate transrecievers. The macbook air only has two ports. If I bought a usb hub would this enable me to plug the transrecievers into the hub so I would have 1 usb port free? Or is there no way to do this?
Thanks.
Im considering returning them and getting logtech's unifying transreciever, but they have no small keyboards that are compatible with it:(

RF/Bluetooth dongles and small flash drives are very low power, and provided the USB hub itself isn't a power hog, you should have no problem using an unpowered USB hub to connect those two transeivers to the Air.
I bought one of these a couple of years ago. It's ideal for a MBA user, as it is small enough to fit right in with the portability of the Air. And I have never had a problem with two transceiver dongles or two flash drives.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817732001
Sadly though, it appears that Griffin stopped making them when the Air added an additional USB port on the 2010 edition.
But there are still a myriad of miniature 2 and 4 port unpowered/self powered hubs that should work just fine for you.

Connecting a BEFSX41 to a WRT610N to provide extra wired ports

I just upgraded my home network to use a WRT610N as the primary router/switch (just behind the DSL modem). I've got more than 4 wired devices that I'd like to connect to the network. Can I use my old BEFSX41 as just a simple Switch (or router/switch) to give me extra ports (even though they're slower 10/100 ports rather than 10/100/1000 ports like the 610 has)? How do I wire them together? How do I reconfigure the 41 to behave nicely in the new network config? (that is, any machine (including wireless) can connect to any other machine in the overall network, and possibly even machines outside the network can come in and talk to machines on either router?) What other device(s) can I use instead of the 41 to give me extra wired ports (especially if I need 10/100/1000 ports)? Thanks very much.

The ideal solution for your setup would be to use a gigabit switch, such as the SD2008, or the EG008W.   A switch has no setup, just wire it to any LAN port on your WRT610N and it will work, allowing all computers on network to share files and/or printers. Note that when you wire a switch to your router, you will "waste" one port on each device, therefore a 4 port router wired to an 8 port switch will give you 4+8-2 = 10 useful wired ports.
If you prefer, you can convert your BEFSX41 to a switch, and use it.   However, this will only add 2 wired ports to your network, because 4+4-2 = 6.
To convert your BEFSX41 to a switch, do the following:
1) Power down the BEFSX41 and disconnect it from your network and all other devices, then wait one minute.
2) Next reset the BEFSX41 to factory defaults. To do this, power up the BEFSX41 and allow it to fully boot (1-2 minutes), then press and hold the reset button for 30 seconds, then release the button and allow the BEFSX41 to reset and reboot (2-3 minutes). Then power down the BEFSX41, and wait one minute.
3) Power up the BEFSX41, then (using a computer that is wired to a LAN port) login at 192.168.1.1 and make the following changes:
   a) Set "Local IP address" to 192.168.1.2 (this assumes that your WRT610N is using 192.168.1.1, and that you are not using the 192.168.1.2 address elsewhere in your network.)
   b) Set the "DHCP server" to "disabled".
   c) Click on the "Save Settings" button, then wait (3-60 seconds) for the screen to refresh. You will likely be disconnected from the BEFSX41. Do not worry about this. Power down the BEFSX41 and your computer.
4) Next, wire the WRT610N and the BEFSX41 together, LAN port to LAN port. Do not connect anything to the Internet port on the BEFSX41.
5) Power up your network. It should work.
Message Edited by toomanydonuts on 03-22-2009 03:53 AM

Adding more Eithernet ports to TC

How do I add more wired eithernet ports to my TC network. Can I use a Linksys switch?

Hello Jetsun. Welcome to the Apple Discussions!
How do I add more wired eithernet ports to my TC network.
By connecting an Ethernet switch to one of the TC's LAN ports.
Can I use a Linksys switch?
Yes. If you want to take advantage of the TC's 1 Gbps Ethernet, I suggest you go with one of Linksys's 10/100/1000 models, like the Linksys SD2008.

How do you add more lan to airport extreme?

how do I add more ethernet ports (LAN) to my airport extreme?

A switch has no routing functions....just as if a router were in Bridge Mode.
The switch will be on the same subnet as the LAN port on the router....assuming that the Ethernet cables, etc are all working correctly.
You can plug into the switch, or into one of the Ethernet ports on the AirPort Extreme. The connection is the same....everything is on the same LAN. If you want, you can plug another switch into the switch.....or into another LAN port on the AirPort Extreme. All the same.

How do I add more ports to my new Airport Extreme?

How do I add more ports to my new Airport Extreme? What do I need to buy?

Thinking to leave as is for now- one 2013 extreme.
That would certainly keep things a lot simpler.
Does it seem right that using speed test I'm getting similar speeds, no matter if I'm connected via wi-fi, or Ethernet?
A very good sign assuming those speeds are reasonably close to the your plan offered by your ISP. The Extreme itself is capable of much faster speeds than your ISP can ever hope to provide.
I'm thinking that all the speed in the world is not going to change Time Warner Cable, the provider for earthlink cable
Not sure what you mean here. Time Warner provides various plans, some up to 50 Mbps. I get 60+ consistently with this plan. I had a 30 Mpbs plan before that consistently delivered about 35-36 Mbps.
The math is simple. If you download a lot of files from the Internet, a 50 Mbps connection is going to take half as long to download a file as a 25 Mbps connection, for example.
One word of caution though....if you try a higher speed plan...plan to stay, as you will never go back to slower speeds once you have sampled higher speeds. Comcast now owns Time Warner by the way. I don't know whether that will be a good thing or a bad thing.

Need More Ethernet Ports

I have an 500gb APTC and in need of more Ethernet ports for my small home office. I considered picking up a new switch, but first wondering if digging out from the mothballs, a "Linksys BEFSR41 EtherFast Cable/DSL Router with 4-Port 10/100 Switch" would do the trick. ?? I have 3 Mac's in my office that are hard wired along with an Ooma Telo that also needs a port.To add on top of this I also have Zyxel Powerlines throughout my house, the main one is is my office also where the cable comes in.
Taking all this into account and assuming the Linky would do what would be the best order to set this up?
Would the ceiling of "10/100" (not "10/1000") on the Linky be a concern for our newer Macs?
Thanks for any help or recommendations.

Thanks Bob, as cheep as they are I'll just pick up a new switch for the speed.
As far as the power line's I have these along with these. They're the same, yet one type allows passthrough and the other does not. I'll admit that I didn't thoroughly research these, but see that they're rated as "Gigabit" and I am running cat6 if it matters.
My network goes like this:
Cable comes into the house then to---> Surfboard Modem (SB6121) ---> Ooma Telo ---> APTC ---> Powerline.
The APTC has two (not three as mentioned earlier, one's WiFi) office computers hardwired to it, A Mac Mini and an iMac. The other APTC ports go to the Powerline and the Ooma Telo as mentioned above. If it matters in my family room I then have a ZYXEL Powerline PLA225 which is basically the same as the others, but has 4 ports. Two of those are used by an Xbox One and a Roku 2. Then upstairs in the master I have two Powerlines connected to an ATV and a Roku 3. Then lastly I have two kids rooms with the same Powerline's in them and Mac Mini's connected to them. Other computers and printers run on WiFi.
Just as a note I checked Network Utility and Link Speed is 1Gbit/s. The only reason I mention this is the fact that my download speeds have been terrible for a couple months and not sure why. I've changed nothing in that period. The reason that I need the additional ports is so that the Ooma Telo isn't in the middle of my configuration, but instead after the APTC somewhere. I have suspicions that the Ooma is the culprit, but just guessing.
In case you're not familiar with the Ooma Telo it's basically a VOIP box. The back looks like this. The two ethernet ports are "Home Network" and "To Internet".
Other suggestions?

How large of an Ethernet Switch can you add to an Airport Extreme gigabit router?

I have a gigabit Airport Extreme router. I like using the Airport Utility to control my network. I want to convert a large number of wireless connections to wired ethernet devices, about 24. The reason is that I just get too many wireless dropouts, and I need a more reliable network. I am looking for the best way to design this. It seems like adding a gigabit Ethernet switch is the easiset and best way to accomplish this. My questions are:
1. How large of a gigabit switch can you add to the LAN port of an Airport Extreme: 24-port, 48-port?
2. How far down can you cascade switches? In other words, can I connect three 5-port switches (level 1 switches) to the three LAN ports on the Airport Extreme, and then connect more 5-port switches to the level 1 switches?
3. What are the performance implications for either design. Can you achieve gigabit performance with these designs?
Thanks for the help.

I have a network with an Extreme base station, 3 Extreme wired extenders and 1 express wired extender - in the mix are four 24 port gigabit switches and two 8 port gigabit switches - so you can add as much as you want within the limits of the internal IP address range which is controling the number of devices on the network.

Is there ANY way to configure the wired ports on Airport Extreme with 7.6.1 software?

I need to connect a Cisco router to one of the wired ports because I'm creating a home lab with several switches and routers and attached hosts. I need the VERY BASIC ability to set (or even just to SEE) what IP address the AirPort is using/assigning, but with the current AirPort Utility, you apparently can't show the DHCP table for wired connections or set up a static pool of addresses to use or really, to do anything else that is ABSOLUTELY BASIC networking configurations for a router. I don't even know what range of IP addresses the AirPort is using for the wired ports.
I love this device - it works much better than my old Linksys that I replaced a couple years ago, but this is the Apple Nannies taking things too far. Sure, make the products easy to configure and use, but stop taking away the ability for advanced users to actually use the product because all you're doing is ******* off your power users - which are the exact people whose friends always ask for recommendations on what products to buy. I've always recommended Apple products to everyone, but if they're going to engineer everything so that only stupid people can use them, then only stupid people will buy (and recommend) them. (Can you tell I'm annoyed that I've wasted so much time on a completely unnecessary and irrelvant side-issue when I should be already working on my actual work project?)
/Rant-off
So, does anyone know how to access the actual configuration of the AirPort Extreme so I can use a static IP address for my Cisco router that's plugged into one of the AirPort's wired ports? That's all I need.
Thanks.

The AirPort assigns IP addresses via DHCP in a range you specify. You may also elect to assign devices their own static IP addresses. That does not involve the Extreme at all, though you may "reserve" those addresses in its DHCP Reservations table.
AirPort Utility > Network > Network Options...
Assigning static IP addresses obviates any need to determine the IP addresses the Extreme assigns.
Update its firmware to version 7.6.3.

WRT320N Can't get IP Address - only using 1 wired port - no internet access - web setup pages hang

Just bought Linksys WRT320N to replace Netgear MR814.
Can't get connected to internet using Linksys WRT320N.
Setup:
ISP: Cox Communications (Cable)
Firmware: v1.0.03 build 010 Jul 24, 2009
1 wired - port 1- to Windows XP SP 3 Dell Desktop
Setup Attempts:
1. Tried to setup using install CD. Kept erroring out with Error 302: Internal Error. tried this 3 times
2. Went through the reset, power down, power up procedures.
3. Ping 192.168.1.1 = success
4. Connected to 192.168.1.1 via web browser
5. Set MAC Address = computer's MAC address
6. Set MTU = Auto (1500). Also tried Manual 1492
Was unable to get IP address using IP Address Release and IP Address Renew. Internet IP Address still = 0.0.0.0
Note that the web page will always get stuck after perfoming a couple of actions (like after switching between tabs). Message in bottom of browser is "Wating for http://192.168.1.1/Status_Router.asp". And on the screen the hourglass symbol never goes away.
Note that the old Netgear router still works fine and I am currently connected to the internet using the Netgear router. I'd appreciate any help getting the new Linksys router functioning/connecting to the internet/obtaining and IP address.
Thanks for your help.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

I don't know where I was unclear: you wrote before that you have used the mac address clone function on the WRT to clone the MAC address of the PC. This way the WRT "pretends" to be the PC if you connect the WRT internet port to your modem.
However, the PC is not the device which you used before to connect to the internet. The PC was not the device which was connected before to the modem. If you connect the PC directly to your modem it won't get an IP address either. It won't have internet.
The problem is that your ISP only allows you to have a single active internet connection at any given time. If you simply connect a different device with a different MAC address to your modem this other device won't get an IP address. As you have connected the Netgear router to your modem and you have internet then you have to clone the MAC address of your Netgear router. That's the device which is connected to your internet and that's the MAC address for which your ISP has locked your internet connection.
Thus, one more time: clone the MAC address of the netgear router (the internet or WAN port MAC address) on your Linksys router. Then the Linksys pretends to be the Netgear router and your ISP should accept the Linksys router. The netgear router should have a status page in it's web interface which shows you the correct MAC address to be cloned.

TS1363 when I plug in my IPOD into my computer to add more songs, my computer, nor itunes recognizes the IPOD.

i can know longer see my IPOD connected to my computer. My IPOD is functioning fine... even can play on my docking system. Trying to add more songs.

try a different usb port, or try the wall charger, change ipod usb wire, turn ipod on to see if the low battery screen pops up by holding onto the switch above the ipod. try that stuff

Switch recommendation, to add more wired ports to network

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