Say I have 4 IPs in a subnet.
Scenario 1 (/24):
Client A: 10.0.0.1/24
Client B: 10.0.0.2/24
Client C: 10.0.0.3/24
Client D: 10.0.0.4/24
Scenario 2 (/16):
Client A: 10.0.1.1/16
Client B: 10.0.2.1/16
Client C: 10.0.3.1/16
Client D: 10.0.4.1/16
Scenario 2 allows for a bit more logical organization so I would rather use that. The broadcast traffic is going to be the same for both subnets.
So which is more efficient?
What do I mean by efficient? Lower latency, more throughput, etc.
Intuition tells me that they should be exactly the same, but experience tells me that there might be cases where routers can make more efficient calculations when certain things are true (e.g. smaller number of bits can change.) Is my intuition correct? Does it only apply when the network pipe is 99% utilized?
Edit:
Some clarification... I am using the term switch loosely to apply switch hardware in general (i.e. could actually be a router.) - My mistake.
What this particular subnet would be used for is routing packets. I have several campuses that would be connected to this subnet to route between each other.
So perhaps the real question should be: is routing packets into/out of a smaller subnet more efficient than a larger one?
So which is more efficient? What do I mean by efficient? Lower latency, more throughput, etc.
- Neither. The ip addressing scheme has nothing to do with latency or throughput.experience tells me that there might be cases where switches can make more efficient calculations when certain things are true (e.g. smaller number of bits can change.)
- Switches don't make any calculations based on the ip address. Switches (in the strict term) are layer 2 devices and don't know nor care about layer 3.