Ideal usage of ethernet ports

Hello, as I am running out of ethernet ports I came to situation I will need a switch. As I am using Unify AP I am thinking about one of Unify switches.

I have generally two categories of devices in my network - “low traffic” ones such as blue ray, meteostation, TV (used only for firmware upgrade), tradfri gateway eyt. and “high traffic” like laptops, gaming console, NAS etc.

I am using standard Turris Omnia network configuration, so LAN4 is on its own switch port - eth2 and LAN0-3 on the shared one - eth0.

Unify AP is connected to eth2- LAN4.

Switch will be connected to one of LAN0-3.

NAS will be connected to switch (it support LACP so I would like to play with it).

Now the question, will it play role if I those “high traffic devices” will be connected to switch or directly to one of remaining ports on TO? In my internal network most of data transfers are between NAS and wired connections (laptop/desktop etc).

On first look for me it looks like good idea to have all those “high traffic devices” connected to switch and those “low traffic” directly to TO, but maybe I am just creating problem where it is not and where I connect what is not important at all:-)

If your NAS on in the same subnet as your „high traffic“ devices (so no routing is involved) I think your assumption is correct, connecting all high traffic devices to your switch should be most efficient.

But I don‘t think you will notice any difference if you connect some devices directly to your TO ports.

If you‘re curious you can set up your network and then test throughput between your nodes using iperf3 (available for most devices including Turris Omnia).