In a packet relay method and device which can reduce a congestion of switching even when segment data are concentrated, segment data dividing portions respectively extract a destination address and a packet length from received packets, divide the packets into predetermined length data based on each packet length, and generates location information indicating locations in the packets respectively for the data. The segment data dividing portions add segment headers in which the location information, the destination address, and an address of its own device as a source address are set are added to each of the data, generate segment data, and provide the segment data to switches within a switch card in parallel.