Ring idea makes a loop and crashes the net completely.
This has happened to me when I do a lot of eth switch work and make a mistake causing a loop on a switch.
So for now the loop idea is out.
I want 10 of these as soon as I can get the ten.
If I get that many I will do extensive tests of eth cables.
Chain of all cat 5
Chain of all cat 5e
Chain of all cat 6
Chain of all cat 7
I will measure hashrate on all 10 units with each set of ten cables
As we all know most of the time cat 5 or cat 5e are fine.
1gpbs ethernet mandates the use of 5e. Testing 5 is pointless at this point in time, no one should be buying those anymore. If the miner only does 100mbps 5 vs 5e the 5e will let less errors in (translates in slightly faster speeds). Similar to...
Using cat 6 for 1gbps. Its not really needed, but its better. For 10gbps it can work in short lengths only (50m vs 100m). 10gbps should be done by cat 6a or cat 7. I don't think you are going to find any miners with 10gbps lan ports, but it might be available for cascading switches and such.
And since you enjoy the fun, there are also cat 8 patch cords...
In short:
cat5 100mhz
cat6 250mhz
cat6a 500mhz
cat7 1000mhz
cat8 2000mhz
If you ask me, 5e or 6 at most is what any mining operation (and most LANs) would ever need.
I did not want to confuse you, but you can actually use anything from 1 bit to 32, not necessarily just 8, 16 or 24. You could use, 12, or 20 bits. Just remember there is always a network address and a broadcast address, any remaining IPs in the middle are the IPs you can use.
Use
this calculator and see the endless possibilities.
Private nets are up to 24 bit (10.0.0.0/8)
Most switches are layer2, they don't care about this except the very smart ones that can to layer3, and those, of course, can do the whole 32 bits. Limiting yourself to 8 bits is nonsense. Maybe that was more critical when people used 10mbps hubs instead of switches, but that's long gone in the past. Unless you have real cheapo gear... (TP-Link?
)
Computer with pfsense is good too! There are also many embedded devices with multiple ports, such as
pc engines you can install any decent os yourself for routing, firewall, etc.
