All to one vs Many to Many

Question

I am setting up our small office of around 30 users, divided into 2 rooms.

Plan A:

• 1x Router
• 1x 48-port smart switch
• 2x Wi-Fi APs
• Room A (10m x 7m) has developers which need 1Gbps link, 17 Users. So, 20 LAN ports, 1 wireless AP (less than 5 users).
• Room B (5m x 7m) has developers which need 1Gbps link, 13 Users. So, 16 LAN ports, 1 wireless AP (less than 5 users).
• All the users get wired to the 48 port switch, and I end up running 17 cables into the second room (running 17 cables of 20m would be approximately 350m of cabling).

Plan B:

• 1x Router
• 1x 48-port smart switch
• 1x 24-port unmanaged switch
• 2x Wi-Fi APs
• Room A users and AP get connected to the smart switch. Room B users and AP get connected to the 24-port unmanaged switch, and we connect the 24-port switch to the smart switch. I end up using less wire here (one wire of 25m), but my link from Room A to Room B suffers because of a bottleneck if 3-4 users are transferring data between Room A and Room B.
• Is there a way to connect Switch A to Switch B with a higher bandwidth line (maybe more than 1Gbps)? I know I cannot connect 2x lines from Switch A to Switch B. Is there any way around it?

Answer 1

You can only connect switch ports at the lowest common speed between the connected ports. Some switches can bond multiple ports to look like a single link, but unmanaged switches can't be configured that way.

Typical users are not using the full bandwidth all the time. Cisco recommends a 20:1 access to uplink bandwidth ratio for access switches. For every 20 access ports at 1 Gb, you need 1 Gb in the uplink.