Recommend a Rack Switch

C

Carlosinfl

Loves the juice
Joined
Sep 25, 2002
Messages
6,633
I am looking for a switch for my rackmount that will replace my old Linksys 10/100 switch. I would prefer "Gigabit" but don't mind to settle for 10/100.

Thanks for any suggestions.
 
We have had success with NetGear's Business Products. They are competitively priced as well.
 
Thanks - I prefer the Linksys performance over over NetGear but everything seems well. I just ordered the Linksys mentioned above.
 
Dell's business switches are rackmountable... right now you can get an 8-port gig web-managed switch for $99, or 16-port gig web-managed for like, $200. I'm *very* tempted to pick one up.
 
I'm currently wiring up my house with Cat 6 and connected to a Linksys SRW2024 and it works great. I don't want to start a flame war, but I have faith in Cisco's reputation and now Linksys's as well. This switch hasn't let me down and for only $400 brand new off eBay it was a pretty good deal, back when I got it after it came out.



A little off topic but if you purchase a 2 story house get your Ethernet wiring done BEFORE it is drywalled and you move in if possible. Running wires down to the second floor is a B%#CH.
 
We have a bunch of these deployed for non core infrastructure needs. Tech support is foreign based. Watch how many firmware updates they release in a month. I only wish you could span more than one port. The web interface is nice. 5 yr warranty.
 
ghopke said:
We have a bunch of these deployed for non core infrastructure needs. Tech support is foreign based.
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Depends what support service agreement you have. As a reseller, I signed up with Linksys VAR support, get a live voice, in the United States, within a minute, and no clunky phone menu to wade through. I get that top notch support with all their products, it's great.
 
Do you EVER intend to run jumbo frames on your net? Becuase if you do, then you don't want Linksys...sorry, they make good stuff, and they make bad stuff...but no matter which you get, Jumbo frames is hit or miss. And Dlink, hah..they just tell you it works and is supported, but it really isn't :rolleyes:

Any SMC product in their midrange on up will do it fine, but what makes SMC popular is switches like these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833129012

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833129013

They are attractively priced and they work as advertised... You can see for yourself by the reviews posted...you won't really find a bad word other than some people that say they are a bit louder than other switches...but I could never tell the difference really.

If you don't want Jumbos, then it won't make a difference. Here is a little bit more actual user experience on Jumbos and SMC (5 port/8 port) switches:


I thought it was going to be gimmicky but it really did make a big difference with cpu utilization. My transfers weren't necessarily faster (the large cd ISO images copied accross in about 15 seconds both with or without jumbo frames), however, the difference in CPU utilization with jumbo frames enabled was awesome. With standard frame sizes (1500 bytes), the cpu has to interrupt the NIC much more often so when transferring files, it works at about 90 - 100 percent until the file is copied. When you turn on jumbo frames (9000 bytes), the cpu has to send far fewer interrupts and only requires about 50 percent usage. When you have to copy large files or do scheduled backups in the background, you'll be able to use your computer at the same time without any noticeable slow down. This is a HUGE advantage.
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Tested this switch in the lab with the HP netperf benchmark with a couple of dual ethernet Xeons. Found that it ran 4 ports at continuous full theoretical bandwidth using 1500, 4K and 9K frames. So far I have not been able to make it hiccup no matter what load was applied.
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With jumbo frame 9k, the CPU utilization will reduce 50% when transmitting at 1000Mbps. I got almost 98000KBytes/sec both on my two computers and they are PCI-X NIC plugged in 32bit PCI slots only. If you have gigabit NIC on board (eg. INTEL CSA gigabit), you will get more. Inside the switch, each port is based on digital pulse transformer, not those analog type big black boxes. I highly recommend this product. It won't let you down!
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Oh, and the support is pretty good too..
 
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