Aggregate Bandwith of Stacking two Sg500 using both stacking ports?

[patrick.hurley]

Is the bandwidth 2Gbps when using both stacking ports to connect just two switches together?

[ghostinthenet]

No. If you're using both ports in a two-switch stack, you're using a ring topology and Fast Stack Link Failover will cause the inactive link to be used if the active one fails. Only 1Gb of bandwidth will be available on a single link.

If you want to maximize the bandwidth between the stack members and the switches have close physical proximity, you can use dedicated copper stacking cables (SFP-H10GB-CU1M) to get 5Gb out of each link.

[patrick.hurley]

Do I need two of those: one for the active link and one for the passive?   Those go in S3 and S4 correct, so SFP-H10GB-CU1M goes from S3 to S3 between the switches and another goes from S4 to S4 between the switches?

[ghostinthenet · Accepted solution]

Two if you want fast failover. Otherwise a link failure will cause the stack members to become disconnected. For the SG500, they go on S3 and S4. On SG500X they go on S1 and S2.