Buying 3 new 24-port switches - need opinions

[cmetz]

Furor, that's a good price. Provantage's return policy (or, basically, no returns policy) always scared me away, but for $100 less that might be worth it.

SMC's web site doesn't work for me either. When it works, it is a pretty terrible web site... hard to get around on, and you just get innundated by products with similar descriptions. You can get info on this product using Google's cache right now.

This is not a "managed" switch, it's a "web managed" or "smart" switch. Basically, that's a class of switches that are between "managed" and "unmanaged." Make no mistake, a full managed switch with a CLI, serial port, SSH server, SNMP support, and spanning-tree support is what you are better off getting. But if your budget makes that impossible, crippled management beats no management.

This switch has a web UI, no CLI, no serial port, and I believe some SNMP support (in recent firmware). It has nothing resembling a CLI and no spanning tree support. That's enough to let you do things like get diagnostic counter information about ports, do some manual port speed/duplex configuration, and set up VLANs. It's enough to save your hide if there's a bad NIC or a bad cable in your network. But it's not a real managed switch and the little things that are missing (and the big things that are missing) are a real cripple. So it's better than an unmanaged, but not as good as a managed.

All switches I've seen come with a default factory configuration of acting like a big and basically dumb switch out of the box, so yes, with no configuration it will basically work like an unmanaged switch.

SMC makes real managed 24 10/100 + 2 10/100/1000 switches for about $300 (that's Newegg's price) that are good quality, and I believe the 48 10/100 + 2 10/100/1000 is about $500. I'd also suggest you look at those. If you don't absolutely need gigabit to the ports, you would be better off with a full featured switch at the same price point. In particular, spanning-tree is a big win when going out to end user ports.

 

[spidey07]

NO SPANNING-TREE???

Do not buy. Avoid at all costs.

Unless you really, really, really like banging your head into a wall.

 

[cmetz]

Actually it looks like that model might support spanning tree with current firmware, or at least so says strings(1). Even .1w.

 

[Madwand1]

Tough crowd here. Another couple of budget options to chew up/on; fairly feature-rich on paper.

Linksys 48 10/100 + 4 gig SRW248G4

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellit...mon%2FVisitorWrapper&lid=9235595123B23

~ $330 min:

http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__Linksys_...4e0a2f/search=srw248g4/sort_type=price

Linksys 24 10/100/1000 SRW2024

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellit...mon%2FVisitorWrapper&lid=9052995123B04

~ $410 min:

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getp...3d/sort_type=price/ut=d8633b9ca7851e3d

 

[acaeti]

Hi Furor.

I have worked at some less-than-gold-plated small biz too, so I am going to take a shot at your problem. My guess (and this is not an insult) is that you've never worked with a managed switch before, and trust me, that is ok. I'm guessing all your current gear is just dumb (unmanaged) switching hooked together. I'm also guessing that you don't use SNMP, don't want or have time to learn a switch CLI, and are comfortable using a web interface to do your config. My guess is that you are not buying a support contract for the gear either, so all the above about tech support can generally go out the window. However I will definitely state that spanning tree is a nice feature that does keep stupid problems like users plugging multiple feeds into the 8-port switch under their desk from jacking up your network. I also agree with a previous poster that you might as well spring for 48 ports for the workstation switches, b/c expansion is always on the way and you might as well have ports available for VoIP phones and other stuff that might show up on your network any day now.

For what you are looking to do (connect some workstations, some servers) a smart switch will do the trick. I might recommend the Netgear FS726T and FS750T2 switches - easy to use, generally work well (have used them in multi-year deployments in small biz), etc.

No offense, but some replies above are a bunch of data center and enterprise guys trying to push their level of gear on you and your office+warehouse scenario; not everyone can afford gold-plated switching, and not everyone needs the ultra-tunable hot rod for a very simple setup like you seem to manage.

 

[Furor]

I forgot about this thread...

Thanks Madwand1 and acaeti for the suggestions.

This is kind of weird, but you're exactly correct on all statements...almost like you have been following me around or something...

Lets see..
Managed switch assumption - correct
Current gear - correct
SNMP, CLI guess - correct
Comfortable w/ web interface - correct
Not buying support - correct
Problems w/ users and routers/switches - correct
VoIP setup in progress - correct

The only thing i'm not sure about is having a 48-port switch.

For the 10/100mbit side -
We currently have two ISP's, so we are using two routers and splitting up certain areas of the office to be on different internet connections. With one 48 port switch, this doesn't sound possible.

For the gigabit side -
We can't fit any more than 10-15 servers in one rack..so thats like 20 ports MAX (taking into consideration extra ports for laptops, NAS, or something else)

 

[robmurphy]

VoIP opens another big can of worms, especialy as the network gets busy. Most of the IP phones contain a small switch, so how will spanning tree react to that. I know of spanning tree, but do not understand it.

In the VoIP projects I've worked on the IP phones were always on a seperate VLAN, so the port on the switch would have a least 2 VLANS configured for it. The switch used was Cisco catalyst 3750, and this would do that. The switch was set to mark the VoIP packets as priority. Beware of the amount of traffic that will be generated with VoIP. G711 codecs at 10ms periodicity will generate about 110Kbps. If all your phones are on the same VLAN you should not have to worry about the router. If they are on different VLANS then you are going to need a router or a L3 switch. The 3750s can, as far as I know, do this but they may need a seperate build.

If the boss is worried about spending a few hundred on the network switch then they will be in for a shock with VoIP. The VoIP phones cost much more than the POTS (plain old telephone system) ones. The VoIP phones need power as well, so you will have to make sure each phone is close to a power outlet, or your going to need a power over ethernet switch, and one that will power all the ports needed. The POTS phones do not need power. If you are staying with POTS phones then do not worry about VoIP over your network.

Just my 2p worth

Rob.

 

[Madwand1]

Linksys has a varied product line -- for a bit more, you could go with 2 24-port 10/100 switches in the same line, and you could also consider going down to a 16-port gigabit switch.

 

[acaeti]

Originally posted by: Furor
The only thing i'm not sure about is having a 48-port switch.

For the 10/100mbit side -
We currently have two ISP's, so we are using two routers and splitting up certain areas of the office to be on different internet connections. With one 48 port switch, this doesn't sound possible.

Any 48 port "smart switch" or managed switch, like the netgears I recommended, can be configured to perform a simple partitioning sceme called "port-based vlan". Think of this as a logical partition of the physical switch device. You pick which ports are part of a which VLAN, and different VLANs can't see each other's ports and traffic, unless you assign a port to be part of both VLANs. You can have a number of VLANs, but it sounds like you only need two. The netgear manual for the FS750T2, available here (PDF), has a chapter at the end that covers how to setup very simple port based VLANs.