Consumer Switch MAX Throughput

Question

So I am trying to find the specs on consumer switch I am thinking about buying but as it is consumer product...not a lot of info.

I am a Cisco Engineer which makes this all the more aggrevating...for example.

Depending on the switch you might have 48 10/100 ports but only 4 connections to the backplane totally 2Gigbit Throughput....so you might have 48 x 100 4800 Gigbit from first look but in actuality only have 2Gb...

See my concern... I have a few I am looking at like

Linksys Switch Doesnt mention it

Netgear Switch Does mention it... 4 port 1Gbit for total of 4 but actually has 2Gbit throughput based on the backplane..

Any help on finding a switch that actually has 4-12 ports under $100 thats total port speed combination is equal to backplane speed.

Answer 1

Almost all small 5-port and 8-port SoHo switches support full simultaneous bandwidth on all ports. They're crossbar switches and don't have any backplane.

For example, inside such a typical switch, you'll find an IC like the BCM53118 which is a low-cost, 9-port gigabit switch with 8 PHYs built in. It's a full non-blocking crossbar.

These ICs typically have support for VLANs, trunking, and mirroring but generally you can't actually use it on a cheap switch because no way to configure it is provided.