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I am restructuring my home network after finally upgrading my aging Linksys WRT54G router to an Asus RT-N66U. All desktop computers are gigabit ethernet wired connections utilizing multiple switches.

After moving some things around I ended up with the cable modem, router and switch next to my primary machine. I have a VoIP adapter, network printer, and two switches connected to the ports on the router. That leaves one open.

The internal network does see a fair amount of traffic due to DLNA HD video streams served to the other PCs from the primary machine.

The question is: Should I connect the primary machine directly to the router, or keep on the switch?

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  • the engineer in me says put it as close to as many of the clients as possible, and that the router has other jobs to do than handling lan traffic on its backplane, whereas that's exactly what the switch is for. jacking into the switch would also allow you to use nic aggregation on the server (if you ever wanted to), without running out of ports on the router. All that said however, for most practical purposes, it makes little difference. if you have problems, look for solutions, but it'll probably work sufficiently for your needs to just jack into the router. Jul 15, 2014 at 4:01

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It really doesn't make a big difference - It'd be only two ethernet ports away. If you need special features like subnets, your serving machine being the DMZ or it having a different gateway or being on another broadcast domain, then connect it directly to the router, if not, you can leave it directly connected to your switch and avoid having the traffic to pass through that extra ethernet port. You have a very capable network infrastructure so your choice really depends on the features you want your server to have.

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