I have a Cisco SG200-26, and it appears to cause random network problems like timeouts, etc. Error logs on the switch do not indicate any problems.
I replaced the switch with a different switch, and the network problems no longer happen. I'd like to extensively test the switch in a way which would really put a big load on all the ports without the need to use 26 computers to flood the switch.
I was thinking about using VLANs to create small LAN segments, connecting them with patch cables in daisy chains, and putting one computer on port 1 with a second computer on port 26. I would then copy a big file between the two computers to see how it goes. I don't know how to setup switch ports and VLANs to make it work. Maybe it is not possible to do; you tell me.
To explain in detail, I would set ports 1 and 2 as VLAN 10, connect a computer on port 1, connect a patch cable between ports 2 and 3, which would be VLAN 11. Port 4 would also be VLAN 11, and would be patched to port 5 in VLAN 12. Port 6, also VLAN 12 would be patched to port 7 in VLAN 13… and so on until we reach port 26, where we have the second computer.
I hope that such a setup will make the traffic between ports 1 and 26 to go through all the ports in between. How should I do it, and, in case it can't be done, please explain why it can't be done. Thank you.
Best Answer
Judging by your switch, I'd say you don't have the budget for a real ethernet tester like those from Fluke Networks.
Your switch is Layer 2 (L2) only and doesn't support routing, so you'd need an external router (L3) to move packets between the VLANs. I would conjecture that your random network issues were caused by either bad cabling or mismatch on speed/duplex between the switch and your systems.
You can look at using iperf configured on a server, and then have each of your client computers run a test from their respective ports to the server (one at a time), then look for interface error counters being incremented to help isolate any issues or misconfiguration.