Recommendations for CCNA/CCNP lab

[TheCreator]

I'm starting to study for my CCNA/CCNP again. I put it off a year or so ago to finish up some other certifications. I am now ready to dive in and get it finished. What do you recommend for a decent home lab for hands on. I'm not looking to spend a ton but would like a couple routers and a switch.... what are my best options?

 

[Captain Colonoscopy]

That all depends on if you want to be able to use it in your home network after you're done labbing.

I managed to pick up a catalyst 2924XL switch for $86 on eBay. I'm currently hunting around for a 2600 series router but they all seem to be going for $150-250 and I don't have that kind of cash on hand right now.

I wanted the 2600 series router because they usually come with at least one, sometimes two 10/100 ethernet port. You can also pick up WICs that have more ethernet or serial ports.

You can get 2500 series routers pretty cheap but they only have serial and ATM ports, at least the ones I found anyway. That's fine for a lab but not for my setup.

If you don't care about using it later the 1900 series switches with two 100mb ports and the rest 10mb can be found for under $50.

So, if you're looking for cheap go check out ebay and get a couple 1700/2500 series routers and a 1900 series switch. There's also some guy on ebay that sells lab kits with multiple routers/switches and console cable, labs etc. They're not that cheap but you get everything at once and can dive right in. I think the name is ciscokits or something like that.

Good luck, I get to take my CCNA exam in the next week or so.

 

[Darkstar850]

Note: The 1900s and the 2900 series are not sufficient for the BCMSN (CCNP switching) course. If you want to just buy hardware that will work for both, go with a 2950. I just completed the BCMSN test, and while my 2924 supported some commands, it had some different steps for some things and did not support entirely some of the newer IOS commands.
Unfortunately the 2950s are still somewhat expensive.