An apparatus includes first, second, and spare ports, where first data having a data length less than a predetermined value is transmitted from the first port and second data having a data length not less than the predetermined value is transmitted from the second port. The apparatus obtains a first determination result indicating whether input data is the first data or the second data and a second determination result indicating whether a transmission rate of each of the first and second ports is equal to or greater than a threshold. The apparatus sorts the input data to one of the first, second, and spare ports, based on the first and second determination results. The apparatus fragments the second data and transmit the fragmented second data to the spare port when both the first data and the second data are sorted to the spare port.