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Do Orbi satellites act as unmanaged switches? (e.g. RBS50)
Hi,
This might seem like an obvious question but I haven't been able to confirm one way or the other through documentation. I've recently bought the RBK53 for my household and planning to have one of the satellites in my office. If I connect multiple devices to the satellite's 4 avaliable gigabit ethernet ports, will those devices communicate at gigabit speed (as if they were plugged into a switch)? I would have thought so (and hope so) but there may be a good reason why they wouldn't.
Thanks
Most networking devices and the switches on Orbi work as a switch. The switch depending upon configuration and destination will directly traffic to the destination device. If the two devices are on the same RBS, then the traffic should go directly to the connected device, not the the RBR then back to the RBS.
11 Replies
The connection rate supporting on all Orbi systems is 1000Mbps on the RJ45 jack. So if you have wired LAN devices that support 1000Mbps then they will connect to the RBS at 1000Mbps. This is a connection rate only between the device and the RBR/RBS. This is not the same as actual data flow speeds which differ.
Thanks for the quick response! What you're saying makes sense - so if two devices were plugged into the same satellite via RJ45 (both devices capable of gigabit ethernet) and say you wanted to copy a file from one to the other. Would that data go from the device to the satellite at 1000Mbps (or whatever the real world speed is), from the satellite to the main router over WiFi (or ethernet backhaul if configured), then back again to the satellite before going to the other device (that final leg being 1000Mbps)?
Or does the satellite act a bit like a switch, allowing the two devices to communicate "directly" without the need for all the data to flow via the router?
Most networking devices and the switches on Orbi work as a switch. The switch depending upon configuration and destination will directly traffic to the destination device. If the two devices are on the same RBS, then the traffic should go directly to the connected device, not the the RBR then back to the RBS.