Thanks to everyone for the feedback, much appreciated.
Final question. As daisy-chaining from the Cisco switch is ruled out, I have a spare 0.75m AQ Cinnamon cable lying around. Is there a benefit in shortening the NAS-to-switch distance from the current 5.0m AQ cable to this 0.75m one?
Bit of a squeeze round the back of the TV, so the NAS would sit next to the switch and be plugged in the same (bog-standard) mains block. It’s currently on the other side of the room sat on carpet, and the AW cable runs alongside a shielded CAT6 cable carrying broadband from router to the switch.
If you need to daisy chain switches in order to get Ethernet ports where you need them, it’s fine to do that. Some of my local streaming involves the signal passing through 3 Cisco Catalyst switches due to the layout of my network as required to get connections all around the house.
As for cable length, I believe there is a recommendation to keep them to 3m or more for optimum performance, although I have used shorter lengths with no obvious problems.
