Small Business Network

[belltt]

Novice trying to setup a network to connec four workstations to two shared printers and three shared network drives.

I would just purchase a switch and connect everything via the switch. However, the part of the setup that has me perplexed is that in our pre-configured office each workstation has its own internet connection via ethernet.

I believe I could just plug one of the four internet connections into the main switch and ignore the other three internet connections but I would guess that splitting the one internet connection over four workstations would significantly decrease the performance?

I don't have a solution for allowing each worstation to use its assigned internet connection while also connecting all four workstations on a network?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks

 

[jimbopalmer]

1) using one port and splitting it 12 ways will not reduce performance locally between those 9 devices.

2) Internet performance is likely bottlenecked between your building and your ISP, so a 12 port switch is unlikely to bottleneck Internet performance for you.

3) if any of 'two shared printers and three shared network drives' are inside the building but outside your switch, then you can be bottlenecked to them, although the printers are often bottlenecked by paper handling speeds, not network speeds.

I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[belltt]

Ok, so there is no need for me to look into:

A. A dual WAN router with load balancing
or
B. Some sort of daisy chain configuraion where each workstation has it own five port switch with an 8 port switch that brings all four workstations together with the printers and network drives

Thanks