Looking for a FC switch

I have been checking Ebay for a 4gbps fc switch and have been going a bit crazy...

Most switches seem to be priced well and does not seem to be the problem however...
I have been fighting with this P.O.D. ( ports on demand) and I feel if I am buying something i should have full use of it and or if a port does not work I feel like I bought something broken.

p.o.d. seems like a nice idea for the makers of the products but I will not pay 2,133.68 for the use of 8 more ports on something I dropped 150$ on....

I am looking for any suggestions on switches that would meet...
4gbps ( or better)
6 ports ( or more)
1u
web interface would be nice but not required
something without p.o.d.

If anyone has any switches they could suggest or think of that would help I appreciate it.

I'd suggest just trying to find one that already either has the majority or all the ports already licensed. The affordable ones I've been able to find have all had the POD feature on them, seems like something that was really popular at the time.

There's also other licenses usually involved, depending if you want to do port trunking, fabric spanning across switches, etc. If not, those are more easy to find.

Personally I've been using various re-brands of the Brocade Silkworm 4100. Works pretty well, has a minimum of 16 ports active (base license for these) and is in pretty good supply. Just bought a pair of them with 24 licensed ports last week for about 170$ total.

Only drawback to the 4100s is the fans they used. These are anything but quiet, but that's expected. The real issue is the fans have a horrible whining noise at lower speeds. I've had 4 of these various models and every single one had that same issue, not sure why they never picked a different fan. Figure on replacing them with some slower speed fans if that's an issue for you.

Otherwise, maybe you can look at a Silkworm 200E model which seems to be the smaller brother of the 4100. Those have 8 ports minimum with most being licensed out for the max 16.

Pay attention to the descriptions of the licenses included with the switches and you should be able to find one which meets your needs.

Good luck!

Most of the switches i see do not have any sort of info on how many ports are active or what lick they have currently. Also resetting the switch. Will this also clear the license as well?

All the ebay ads I have seen, list how many active ports it has, normally the number of sfp's it comes with. And if it has zoning or fabric licensing.

It's just how FC works, the makes have opted to do per port licensing. Even intel has been working on this for years to do on their cpu's. And switchs have done this, but normally just for l3 enable, or FCOE.

The FC switches will come with half their ports working, and then two more licences, for 1/4 more ports. So a 16port switch, comes with 8 active, and two more POD licenses to activate all 16.

Does anyone know if i reset a switch will it clear the licenses for the ports as well?

That depends on your definition of reset.

If you follow the instructions, it won't.

Well was looking at a switch but a lot of them I am afraid cause the password may not be reset and was worried in resetting the password or the switch to factory defaults (if needed) that I would lose possible licenses on ports is all... I just remember how much of a pain it was when I used to reset cisco cat 3500 xl switches and it would lose all data when needed to recover a password

For the brocade switches, the licenses are just Hex codes that you can copy/paste.

I have cleared all config from my switch (Brocade MP8000-B) and all the licenses remained installed.

I would strongly recommend that you only buy from ebay vendors that power up the switch and copypaste the serial logging output to the ebay listing. This more or less guarantees a working switch and no surprises on licensing.

The one I bought had a full boot log in the listing and the output of the licenseshow command. (Brocade specific).

thank you for all the answers for my questions it has helped a lot I ended up getting a fully licensed switch with 32 ports much more then i will ever need but cheaper then some 8 port ones I saw x.x Just trying to find rails for it now to be able to mount it and waiting on my cables to come in the mail still

Switch A7394A if anyone knows where i can get rails for it let me know ( not sure could use universal ones maybe)

Just bought a 200e, Unlimited licenses on everything. Finding firmware is a pain. IBM/HP versions work with my Brocade branded version


Grab some firmware here

http://whp-aus2.cold.extweb.hp.com/.../COL22074/co-86832-6/FOS-Drawer_Statement.htm

if you need more/different versions let me know. The upgrade procedure is a pain. You have to do incremental upgrades (IE go from 5.0 to 5.2 to 5.3 to 6.0 to 6.1 to 6.2.2(Last 200e supports)

I use some Cisco MDS9020 units, they use POD I think but pretty much every one I came across on eBay had all 24 ports enabled