@johnpoz:
So they are just moving large chunks of data back and forth?
Sometimes, yeah. Most of the GbE clients wouldn't be heavily transferring files all the time, but I'd rather not have, say my laptop over Wireless AC either getting slow speeds or causing slowdowns for everything else on the switch. Even being a half-duplex medium, it would be able to eat a sizable chunk of that 1Gb uplink from the switch by itself, not factoring in other clients' regular internet+intranet traffic.
@johnpoz:
What exact board did you get with that many integrated nics?
It's this one: https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/D/X10SDV-TP8F.cfm though I was initially considering Rangely Atom boards (like most of the mid-level appliances in the pfSense store) I decided to go with the newer Xeon-D architecture instead. So it really came down to that board and this one, which for the ~$20 price difference through the distributor I bought it through, it wasn't really worth passing up the extra GbE ports.
@johnpoz:
You don't need a managed switch, you don't even need a "smart" switch unless your wanting to vlan.
That's my main dilemma, I need to VLAN for the access points and management network, so a smart or managed switch would be required if I can't use the ports already on my box. I'll be able to handle some of that on the router that I'd be repurposing as an AP+Switch, but it still wouldn't be able to handle the second AP upstairs or my desktop over 10Gb fiber.
