A system and method provides for delivering substantially uniform performance to all hosts in a network while minimizing a total number of switches required to deliver that performance. In a multi-stage network having a plurality of switches in a first tier and a plurality of switches in a second tier, additional switches may be deployed in the second tier to alleviate problems occurring as a result of uneven striping. A minimum number of second tier switches to be deployed may be determined as a function of a target level of throughput, for example, when using WCMP flow distribution.