Probably a very basic question but confused the hell out of me - say if I have 100mb internet at home, and scenario one, a router with 100mb port speed and I connect two PCs to it, each has a 100mb NIC card, is it true that ignoring other factors I should be able to get close to, if not 100mb connection on each of the PCs? On the other hand, scenario 2, if I have a (unmanaged) switch and I connect the PCs to the switch I would only ended up getting 50mb each on each of the PCs (i.e., the switch essentially “halved” my internet speed if I connect 2 PCs to it, 1/3 if I connect 3 PCs to it, etc)?
No. In all cases all devices have maximum speed of your network equipment and themselves. I think what you meant to ask if a switch would reduce the bandwidth available to the devices, which is also a no. Both PC’s using the internet at the same time will reduce the bandwidth, but not 50:50. A normal unconfigured router will give 100% of the bandwidth to each connection, meaning, if PC A is downloading a 1GB file that takes 10’ to download, the internet for all other devices for the next 10’ would appear to be very slow, till that download is finished. A more advanced router, would reduce the bandwidth of PC A to like 70% so that 30% can be used by PC B. In any case, the network equipment you use, as long as it is faster or the same speed as your internet connection, and not connected by dozens of switches, will not slow down your internet. Multiple clients do. I have a network of over 250 clients at home, so there are rules in place to guarantee the bandwidth needed for certain devices (like TV’s for streaming) where as other devices (like phones or tablets) are less prioritized.
Thanks a lot, yes indeed that’s the question I have but I wasn’t just not sure how to ask it. So if I understand it clearly, roughly speaking if there is a device on the switch that saturated the pipeline then all other devices are slowed, but in router with the QoS settings you could guarantee a minimum bandwidth for each of the device? So if I do not use any sort of QoS settings would that essentially make router almost like a switch in terms of routing traffic? I understand obviously routers these days have a lot more functionality like VPN gateway or printer server but let’s just ignore those for the sake of discussion.