Quality of Service (QoS) lets your switch focus on delivering the most important content when your home network is carrying a lot of network traffic. The GS808E Nighthawk S8000 Gaming & Streaming Switch offers two types of QoS: port-based and 802.1p.
Port-based QoS lets you configure your switch so that traffic on high-priority connected devices is always sent first whenever a conflict occurs. For example, if your gaming computer is set as high priority, and your network-attached storage device is set as low priority, your switch sends and receives information to your gaming computer first. If your network is not busy, high-priority and low-priority devices are treated the same way. QoS helps to keep your most important devices running quickly during periods of peak network congestion.
The other kind of QoS, 802.1p/DSCP, is based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.1p standard for network traffic classification. With 802.1p QoS, traffic on your network is prioritized based on what type of traffic it is rather than what device it is being sent to. For example, streaming video and voice over IP (VoIP) receive higher priority than web browsing.
Unless you have networking experience, NETGEAR recommends that you use one of the GS808E S8000 Nighthawk Switch’s preset modes for gaming or media streaming. Preset modes let you configure QoS, rate limiting, storm control rates, and other advanced features with a single click. For more information about preset modes, see How do I use preset modes for gaming or media streaming on my GS808E S8000 Gaming & Streaming Switch?.
To manually configure QoS on your Nighthawk switch:
- Log in to your switch by typing its IP address into the address bar of your web browser or using a saved bookmark.
- Enter your administrator password.
- At the top left corner of the screen, click PRIORITIZATION.
- Under QoS Mode, select either Port-Based or 802.1P/DSCP:
- If you want your switch to prioritize network traffic on certain connected devices, such as a gaming console or a smart TV, select Port-Based.
- If you want your switch to prioritize network traffic based on traffic type, such as streaming video over web browsing, select 802.1P/DSCP.
- If you selected Port-Based, select a priority level for each port that is connected to a device.
If you set every device’s priority level as high, port-based QoS is not very effective. For best results, set only one or two devices as high priority, especially if the high-priority devices are likely to be used at the same time.
After you configure QoS on your switch, you might want to change settings for flow control, rate limits, broadcast filtering, storm control rates, multicast, and IGMP snooping. For more information about these settings, see the following knowledge base articles:
- What is flow control and how do I enable or disable it on my GS808E Nighthawk S8000 Gaming & Streaming Switch?
- What is port-based rate limiting and how do I configure it on my GS808E Nighthawk S8000 Gaming & Streaming Switch?
- What are broadcast filtering and storm control rates and how do I configure them on my GS808E Nighthawk S8000 Gaming & Streaming Switch?
- What are multicast and IGMP snooping and how do I configure them on my GS808E Nighthawk S8000 Gaming & Streaming Switch?