This is a continuation of my Homelab journey, currently trying to build a DIY router. My previous post here.

To recap my journey, I finally bought a generic "industrial" Mini PC that comes with several 2.5G NICs which uses Intel I226-V chips, and I plan to use it for my DIY router using OPNsense (virtualized through Proxmox with LAN passthrough, but that's gonna be a separate story). As this mini PC comes with tons of multi-gigabit LAN ports, I figure I might as well try to maximize its use case by turning them into bridges. Shown below are 2 separate diagram variants of my proposed network topology:

Left: PCs that needed 2.5G connects directly to the DIY router; Right: An additional 2.5G unmanaged switch is added.

Additional information for the diagrams above:

• I am planning to set up VLANs, however for now I'm only going to do it on my WIFI AP through SSID to VLAN mapping; other wired devices are going to be grouped into my Home VLAN instead.
• The difference between the left and right is only the additional 2.5GbE unmanaged switch for devices that supports (and benefited) it, while the left one will be mostly a temporary configuration for now to the near future.

Now, onto why I'm thinking of doing a mix of bridges and switches for my current config:

• In my country (I'm from Indonesia), so far it's very seldom for me to find switches that have 2.5G of speed with reasonable prices sold locally, let alone smart ones. They usually are marked up to 2x their original price or more (I have looked ServeTheHome's video for model suggestions, unfortunately the situation still held up).
• Trying to import goods are its own complications, especially with my country's high tax, convoluted process and other gobledygook (for instance, Ali-Express is no longer able to ship to my country due to this afaik). I might going to reconsider this in the future, however it's just not worth it for now.

Finally, my disclaimer: I admit that I really have zero experience regarding computer networking, let alone on network bridges and switches. I do have done some research and as expected, most (if not all) do suggest to have dedicated switch instead of only bridges (for example, I understand it has something to do with its dedicated ASIC chip, among many things).

However, with my current situations I've mentioned above, I do still have concerns and unresolved questions that I would like to have discussion with, hopefully it can shed some lights to them:

• Most of the answers I found randomly on the internet do lead to concerns regarding the throughput and speed, however I can't seem to find resources with data that shows how much the difference it. In addition, my understanding with the cons of using bridges instead of switches are within the situation of offices with many computers, and I am considering if my set up is small enough that those cons are small enough.
• I do still uses switches in my diagram. It's just that, as I cannot find 2.5G ones in my area, I decided to use the bridge feature on my leftover NICs and configure as such shown above. If you all have opinions, suggestions, or insight regarding above config (such as from your experiences, your predictions on what'll happen, pros and cons), please do share them.
• I reckon that, with the configuration in the diagram above, it sort of like nesting switches (instead it's switches nested in a bridge). Again, please feel free to comment out your opinions, suggestions, and insights here --- I only point out that why I go with this configuration because: a) I already have an 8 port gigabit unmanaged switch, b) I also already have a dedicated WIFI AP, and c) I would like to re-use my existing devices instead of having to re-buy different things if they still are able to be used.
• You might also notice that I directly connect my WIFI AP into the DIY router NIC instead of going through the unmanaged gigabit switch there; I only wonder whether if the VLAN tags will be retained if I go through the unmanaged switch first or will it be stripped out / broke the switching (the switch is TP -Link LS108G)