cheap(ish) stacking switches?

[Kakumba]

I am looking to upgrade (in a big way) my home network, and as part of this I am looking to implement 2 24 port gigabit switches, but I want them to be in a stack. Obviously there are options from Cisco, like the 3750 series, but that's kinda spendy for a home network.

So, can anyone suggest a decent 24 port stackable switch, which also supports port trunking and VLANs? Those features are most likely standard on this kind of switch, but just to ce clear.

The other question I have is: is it possible to trunk ports across a stack of switches? IE, I want to have 2 ports trunked to enable bonding of interfaces on servers, but the ports will be on separate switches (HA configuration).

 

[Cooky]

3Com has stackable switches.
I've never used them, and have no idea how much they cost or how they perform.

Distributed etherchannel is supported on Cisco 3750's; not sure about switches from the other vendors.

 

[Jamsan]

The PowerConnect 6224 series switches from Dell are stackable, gigabit, and can have 10 gig modules. They also support the open standard of etherchannel vs. Cisco's proprietary implementation. They run about $1500 through our premier portal, so it'd probably be around $2k per switch if you buy it direct without any sort of discounts.

 

[Cooky]

Just an FYI Cisco switches also run the standard LAcP ether-channel protocol, on top of their proprietary PAgP protocol.

 

[TheKub]

You have the need for 48 active gigabit connections on a home network? Thats a lot of PCs.

 

[kevnich2]

2 24 port gigabit switches? I've only used this in a business with 40 PC's, what kind of network are you running in your home??

 

[Cooky]

He's probably running a porn site, and need the bandwidth for video editing
Send us trial logins...

 

[yoda291]

ok, silly question,

by trunking -- do you mean aggregation of multiple links into a single faster link or do you mean multiple vlans over an interface ala cisco?

having said that, you can pick up (1) hp procurve 2848 for cheap going secondhand or refurbed. Last quote I got for our office here was ~900 for 1 switch from networkhardware.com. You could probably find cheaper on places like ebay. It's a 48 port switch with 4 of those ports being multi-personality (GBIC or Copper) all of it tri-mode. Definitely does vlans and trunk ports(cisco definition) and Fast EtherChannel (cisco definition again).

 

[reicherb]

HP is relatively new to the switch game but they offer a decent quality switch with enterprise level features and a lifetime warranty with no annual (smartnet) fee. I've been slowly replacing some older Cisco 3500 edge switches with HP 2650s and been quite happy.

 

[Kakumba]

In response to your questions about trunking: Yes, I am wanting to enable port aggregation for higher bandwidth and fault tolerance, via 802.3ad mode bonding on the server side. This, in combination with a stack of switches would be the most HA network configuration available to me..

Different machines will be in different VLANs, for sure.

As for why so many ports: I have several machines, and am getting a whole lot more. I guess im a pretty serious VMWare etc enthusiast, and need the network to back it up.. If I had everything I wanted, I would need something like 36 ports all up... plus some for people to come over and LAN..

 

[TheKub]

Originally posted by: Kakumba
As for why so many ports: I have several machines, and am getting a whole lot more. I guess im a pretty serious VMWare etc enthusiast, and need the network to back it up.. If I had everything I wanted, I would need something like 36 ports all up... plus some for people to come over and LAN..

You geek...