How to connect multiple switches together?

I have 4 "NETGEAR ProSafe GS724T Gigabit Smart Switch" that will need connecting to each other. I am not sure of the best way to go about this. Normally, I would just daisy chain them or hook all switches into 1 switch so there is only one hop for data.

Is there a better way to connect these switches?

For Info: Network traffic is for about 30 people running databases, accessing files, VoIP phones ect over the network.

If any more information is needed then please let me know.

Thanks

Solution 1:

Daisy-chaining's not a good idea for connecting more than a couple of switches; if you do something like sw1->sw2->sw3->sw4, then users on sw1 have to share the bandwidth of sw1's connection to sw2 between them. Users on sw2 have to do the same with sw2's connection to sw3, except that their link also has to accommodate all the traffic from sw1. By the time you get to sw4, the uplinks from switch to switch can easily become congested as the traffic from all three of the other switches gets stuffed through it. Not a great result, especially if you need guaranteed available bandwidth for your VoIP traffic.

Your second idea is better; connect sw1/2/3 to sw4 and rely on spanning tree to disable any loops; unfortunately, I don't think GS724Ts support any kind of port aggregation, so you'll be limited to 1Gb/s for all your links, whether user to switch or switch to switch.

Solution 2:

The data sheet for the switch provides the following information:

• Dedicated SFP ports provides fiber uplinks without sacrificing any downlink Gigabit port. Up to 4 SFP ports provide not only redundant uplinks, but can also build dual redundancy by a trunked uplink with link aggregation and failover, the dual-redundancy, a powerful design for the network virtualization

Solution 3:

Some switches have specific ways they like to be connected together (or stacked), which may give advantages such as allowed them all to be managed as a single unit, or a faster interconnect between the switches. The Netgear switch in question doesn't have this however, so they can be seen as normal standalone switches.

As the switches support Spanning Tree Protocol you are not limited to simply daisy-chaining them together, and you can introduce potential loops into the system for redundancy. I think that if you do this it is best to increase the STP priority of one of the switches.

I think that unless you have some reason for needing a full mesh (connect each switch to every other switch), which would use up 12 switch ports, I'd probably just use a loop, connecting switch 1 to switch 2, switch 2 to switch 3, switch 3 to switch 4, and switch 4 to switch 1.