I've heard the "27XX are bad, don't get them" in other threads too and never got a solid answer why they are bad. I respect cmetz and what he says but I need more than someone saying a opinion on a forum before I can make my own opinion.
I've heard the "27XX are bad, don't get them" in other threads too and never got a solid answer why they are bad. I respect cmetz and what he says but I need more than someone saying a opinion on a forum before I can make my own opinion.
I understand.
As a somewhat cisco-bigot...I will firmly tell people to stay away from the 2900/3500XL line. Mainly because they suck arse. This board doesn't have enough space for me to go into it.
What I'm trying to say is there are particular model lines from all manufacturers that should be avoided. For good reason.
I've mentioned the 27xx's problems several times in more detail, don't know if the forum search can pick that up.
The main problem I have with the 27xx series is that it's not too hard to wedge the switch's CPU up. Once you do that, you have no management interface and no MAC learning. The former you can deal with for a while, but the latter is pretty much fatal. It takes a power cycle to fix this.
I also have problems with the Marvell switch chipsets, which are used in the 27xx series.
Dell's technical support is completely useless, so if you have problems with these switches, the best you can really expect is for them to swap it with another unit. Hardware design problems or software problems will not get fixed.
Every site I work with that has deployed 27xx switches -- against my advice -- has regretted it. They're really cheap, I know, but it's the really cheap things you have to watch out for - they could be a great value or they could be exactly what you paid for.
I would not be surprised if the SMC24GS24C-SMART is similar inside to the 27xx switches, but the software appears to be a lot different. I have not yet seen one do the bad things that the 27xx switches do. I haven't been in a position to take the SMC apart and peek inside to really find out what it is.
Anyone who says that I'm just a Dell-hater (well, I am, actually) hasn't read too many of my switch recommendations, because I have recommended rather strongly the 33xx series. The 34xx series I do not.
It's exactly as Spidey put it. When you have experience with a set of products, you learn which ones are good and which ones are bad. I can't say I've ever met a vendor who's produced 100% good products - everybody has some duds.
robmurphy, it might be possible to avoid the CPU problem I mention by not turning on managed mode. All of my experience has the web management turned on. Turning it off means giving up a lot of important features!
The main problem I have with the 27xx series is that it's not too hard to wedge the switch's CPU up. Once you do that, you have no management interface and no MAC learning. The former you can deal with for a while, but the latter is pretty much fatal. It takes a power cycle to fix this.
I also have problems with the Marvell switch chipsets, which are used in the 27xx series.
Dell's technical support is completely useless, so if you have problems with these switches, the best you can really expect is for them to swap it with another unit. Hardware design problems or software problems will not get fixed.
Every site I work with that has deployed 27xx switches -- against my advice -- has regretted it. They're really cheap, I know, but it's the really cheap things you have to watch out for - they could be a great value or they could be exactly what you paid for.
I would not be surprised if the SMC24GS24C-SMART is similar inside to the 27xx switches, but the software appears to be a lot different. I have not yet seen one do the bad things that the 27xx switches do. I haven't been in a position to take the SMC apart and peek inside to really find out what it is.
Anyone who says that I'm just a Dell-hater (well, I am, actually) hasn't read too many of my switch recommendations, because I have recommended rather strongly the 33xx series. The 34xx series I do not.
It's exactly as Spidey put it. When you have experience with a set of products, you learn which ones are good and which ones are bad. I can't say I've ever met a vendor who's produced 100% good products - everybody has some duds.
robmurphy, it might be possible to avoid the CPU problem I mention by not turning on managed mode. All of my experience has the web management turned on. Turning it off means giving up a lot of important features!
Since I just use my 27XX for basic home use, I should have nothing to fear. If I were going for a commercial enviroment, I would go with something better anyways. I haven't played with the management options on the 27XX so I am not gaining anything there.
No, the search still sucks. But if you knew what you were looking for, you could dig something up. E.g.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...hreadid=1964304&enterthread=y&arctab=y
I agree that when something comes in at the lowest price in its category, odds are that there's a catch. And there are a few. I wouldn't recommend these switches to a business, short of the Ma &/or Pa perhaps that for the most part can't be distinguished from a home user. I understand where the enterprise guys are coming from -- there's no time in this field for some of this crap. Move on, save time and money, etc.
But the enthusiast is really someone else. He's got time, etc. I decided to go against cmetz's good advice and see for myself and bought a 2716. I hoped to find some critical flaws and return it on that basis, and get something else. I did find some flaws -- slow boot-up, a clunky UI, lack of Firefox support, weird log-on behaviour (I'm sure I typed in the password correctly, but it didn't take), performance loss with flow control options turned on on the switch (off by default), and link aggregation distribution algorithm that doesn't seem to be worthy of the name (but I'm not sure about this, and didn't pursue this much further). All tolled, this was not enough to get over my laziness to ship the device back, and I have to admit that it's been doing the basic job quite satisfactorily, being always on and never giving a problem I've noticed once I decided on the settings and left it alone. I've gotten great performance through it. OTOH, I've also gotten great performance through a cheap Netgear.
I think they're OK for the enthusiast / home user, keeping in mind the general value. I think they should be avoided by businesses. You have to use the management interface to turn on jumbo frames, and you should change the password and IP as needed for your network, but beyond that probably stay away from doing much on the switch. Hence you should consider it equivalent to an unmanaged switch.
But now that I've tried it, given another chance, I'd probably try the HP 1800-8g or something else instead.
Anyone want a burned-in and tested Dell 2716 for not much more than list + shipping?
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...hreadid=1964304&enterthread=y&arctab=y
I agree that when something comes in at the lowest price in its category, odds are that there's a catch. And there are a few. I wouldn't recommend these switches to a business, short of the Ma &/or Pa perhaps that for the most part can't be distinguished from a home user. I understand where the enterprise guys are coming from -- there's no time in this field for some of this crap. Move on, save time and money, etc.
But the enthusiast is really someone else. He's got time, etc. I decided to go against cmetz's good advice and see for myself and bought a 2716. I hoped to find some critical flaws and return it on that basis, and get something else. I did find some flaws -- slow boot-up, a clunky UI, lack of Firefox support, weird log-on behaviour (I'm sure I typed in the password correctly, but it didn't take), performance loss with flow control options turned on on the switch (off by default), and link aggregation distribution algorithm that doesn't seem to be worthy of the name (but I'm not sure about this, and didn't pursue this much further). All tolled, this was not enough to get over my laziness to ship the device back, and I have to admit that it's been doing the basic job quite satisfactorily, being always on and never giving a problem I've noticed once I decided on the settings and left it alone. I've gotten great performance through it. OTOH, I've also gotten great performance through a cheap Netgear.
I think they're OK for the enthusiast / home user, keeping in mind the general value. I think they should be avoided by businesses. You have to use the management interface to turn on jumbo frames, and you should change the password and IP as needed for your network, but beyond that probably stay away from doing much on the switch. Hence you should consider it equivalent to an unmanaged switch.
But now that I've tried it, given another chance, I'd probably try the HP 1800-8g or something else instead.
Anyone want a burned-in and tested Dell 2716 for not much more than list + shipping?
I bought the 2716 for a few reasons:
- Jumbo frame support.
- Port mirroring.
- Enough ports so I can have 1 switch for the 100 Meg network and the 1 Gig network.
As I will be using jumbo frames and port mirroring I will be using the switch in managed mode.
The port mirroring will be used to investigate the problems with 1Gig networks I'm having. If you are having problems getting the PC to send the packets quick enough, then adding an extra overhead like wireshark may not help. Hopefully using the port mirror and tracing on another machine may result in being able to tune the TCP/UDP parrameters on the PCs involved.
I hope to have 2 networks connected to the switch. The gigabit network uses static IP addresses in the 10.X.X.X range, and is used for file and printer sharing. The 100 meg network is on 192.168.1.X and is used for internet access via a router. There is no route between the 2 networks, though this may change. At present there is a netgear wrt624 router, a generic 16 port 100 meg unmanaged switch, and a netgear GS608 switch. The dell has enough ports to replace both switches.
It will be intersting to see if the Dell switch is any slower than the Netgear GS608. At present on a PC-PC connection the GS608 gives the same speed as connecting the Intel pro gigabit NICs directly with a cable.
I will have to see how the Dell goes. Quirky/clunky UI I'll live with. If it starts locking up then Dell will have to replace it with something better. I can always go back to the 2 switches I have at present.
Rob Murphy.
- Jumbo frame support.
- Port mirroring.
- Enough ports so I can have 1 switch for the 100 Meg network and the 1 Gig network.
As I will be using jumbo frames and port mirroring I will be using the switch in managed mode.
The port mirroring will be used to investigate the problems with 1Gig networks I'm having. If you are having problems getting the PC to send the packets quick enough, then adding an extra overhead like wireshark may not help. Hopefully using the port mirror and tracing on another machine may result in being able to tune the TCP/UDP parrameters on the PCs involved.
I hope to have 2 networks connected to the switch. The gigabit network uses static IP addresses in the 10.X.X.X range, and is used for file and printer sharing. The 100 meg network is on 192.168.1.X and is used for internet access via a router. There is no route between the 2 networks, though this may change. At present there is a netgear wrt624 router, a generic 16 port 100 meg unmanaged switch, and a netgear GS608 switch. The dell has enough ports to replace both switches.
It will be intersting to see if the Dell switch is any slower than the Netgear GS608. At present on a PC-PC connection the GS608 gives the same speed as connecting the Intel pro gigabit NICs directly with a cable.
I will have to see how the Dell goes. Quirky/clunky UI I'll live with. If it starts locking up then Dell will have to replace it with something better. I can always go back to the 2 switches I have at present.
Rob Murphy.
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