so for now lets say my counter i got 10 pc and each of the pc will pull an ethernet cat6 cable direct to the counter from the 48 port gigabit hub that im currently using.
but when the quotation came, the cost is quite high and im thinking, if i pull a cat6 cable to the counter, then attach it to a small 16 port gigabit ethernet and from the 16port hub to each of the 10 pc at the counter would that be more efficient?
no heavy network workload though

we use a central synology NAS to store every employee's work data so that they can access it at any pc (local cloud storage style)
and also to run autocount system for ordering etc.

thx for advice

If you know exactly the purpose of those PCs and how much (which is not much) data they use then using switch is objectively better.

This post has been edited by failed.hashcheck: Sep 6 2021, 03:13 AM

yep. failed.hashcheck is right.. you might want to consider pulling 2 cat6 cable. the extra is for backup for whatever reason.

This post has been edited by ultramann: Sep 6 2021, 09:44 AM

both also attached to the same 16 port hub, which will then connect the rest of the 10 counter pc right? do i need to do any setting or it will auto route between the 2 lines?

Since you're not doing anything intensive on the network, 2 cables to the main switch where your nas, internet, etc will be. You can either run them redundantly (connect 1 at a time) or aggregate them (connect them both at same time e.g. 1GB X 2 and requires LACP / PGAP capable switch). The former one will be cheaper as you just require any basic network switch.

This post has been edited by mydurian: Sep 6 2021, 09:54 AM

thanks. now im clear what i should do.