Hi All: I have an EdgeRouterX set up as recommended by Tom Lawrence on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb2K-uNiq0g): enabled hardware offloading (which in turn disables QoS) to allow for high speeds. Now I need more ports given the COVID-19 related ‘work from home’ situation and am looking to get a switch to plug in more devices at my home office. I have read that switches should not slow down my routing speed, but have also seen many switches advertise that they support QoS (which I associate as a feature that slows down routing speed). My main use case is to maintain a high speed remote connection to my trading workstation in the office from my home PC. Can anyone recommend an ideal switch to pair up with my EdgeRouterX? Thanks!
I would recommend a used Cisco switch for a couple hundred dollars. QoS would be supported, but not on by default. QoS is often misunderstood in what it does and how it works. The first rule to QoS is that if you hit the ceiling where it needs to prioritize traffic, you need more bandwidth. I wouldn’t look to integrate it unless you just want to learn how to set it up and how it works. Chances are you won’t be saturating your network where it becomes an issue.
If you have QoS on the router you should not really need it in the switch in a home/small business setup unless you have some special use case. So most any switch should work, if you need VLAN’s get a managed switch.