Use normal trunk port or use channel for connection access switch

[Michael Turkstra]

Good afternoon people,

I have a question,

What will be the best option, I have backbone 4705E2x,  2x 3750X core switch (stacked) and will attach around 35 access switches (2960) to it for some production area.

I want to connect them as channel so I have a uplink of 2GB, when I would make just a trunk on both GB ports, SPT will automatically block one and I will have a uplink of only 1 GB.

What is the best option ?

See PDF file for drawing

Thanks guys!

[michael o'nan]

If you are going to do two links I would put them in an etherchannel. You will have bandwidth and failover capabilities.

[Karsten Iwen · Accepted solution]

I think, you already knew the answer while writing your question? ;-)

Yes, use a channel! Why wasting half of your uplink-bandwidth when you don't have to. Ok, also without a channel you could utilize both links with different spanning-tree costs for different links. But a channel should be better in every way.

[Michael Turkstra]

Thanks Karsten,

Well i was a little in doubt and needed some confirmation to be shore.

That's why i asked this question.

Thanks a lot.... 

Have a great day

[Karsten Iwen]

In your picture it seems that both 4k are only connected to one core-switch each. Make sure that you connect one channel-link to the first stack-member and the other channel-link to the other stack-member. With that you also have redundancy in case of a failing stack-member.