Which switching method has the lowest level of latency?

The switching method that has the lowest level of latency is cut-through switching. In this method, as soon as the switch reads the destination address within the incoming frame, it begins to forward the frame to the outgoing port before the entire frame has been received. This leads to minimal delay because the switch doesn't wait for the complete frame to be processed, allowing for quicker packet forwarding.

Fast-forward switching, which is a subtype of cut-through switching, also maintains low latency but has a specific mechanism that deals with packets with sizes up to a certain limit, accounting for status and ensuring operational efficiency as it forwards. However, in the context of switching methods with the absolute lowest latency, cut-through switching is often regarded as superior because it typically allows for the immediate forwarding of frames as soon as the addressing information is received.

Store-and-forward and fragment-free switching methods introduce additional latency. Store-and-forward waits for the entire frame to be received and checks for errors before forwarding it, which can lead to higher latency. Fragment-free aims to reduce this by only waiting for the first 64 bytes of the frame (assuming that the majority of errors occur in the first part), but it is still not as low-latency as cut-through.

Hence, cut-through switching is