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Looking for a gig switch

Phaetos

Phaetos

Senior member
I will be upgrading my home network here shortly and am in the market for a new switch. Currently using the 5 ports on my Cisco wireless/switch. I can count that I need 6 ports at least for wired connections.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA29J0S46228

I was looking at this option, as it's affordable, but not sure if I should just suck it up and find a 16 port switch, preferably without all the bells and whistles. I don't see any need for a managed switch at home. Any other options y'all would recommend?
 
Can you describe what you do with your home network? How many wired network devices you have now, and possibly in the future? How much usage you expect to see over how many devices at any one time?

For the average home use, I feel that a switch is a switch is a switch, and I would get the cheapest yet most reliable switch possible for the number of ports you need.

Depending on the physical locations of your devices, you might consider getting two 8-port switches instead of one 16 port switch. Depending on your financial situation, it may be cheaper to get two 8-port switches, especially if you buy one now and keep an eye on newegg/tigerdirect/etc for a sale.

The disadvantage of having two 8-port switches is the bottleneck between the switches. If all of your devices on the 1st switch want to send lots of data to different devices on the 2nd switch at the exact same time, you're bottlenecked by the link between the two switches. This won't happen with a 16-port switch, but if your devices are spread over several rooms, that's a lot more cables to run to the single switch.
 
Phaetos said:
I will be upgrading my home network here shortly and am in the market for a new switch. Currently using the 5 ports on my Cisco wireless/switch. I can count that I need 6 ports at least for wired connections.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA29J0S46228

I was looking at this option, as it's affordable, but not sure if I should just suck it up and find a 16 port switch, preferably without all the bells and whistles. I don't see any need for a managed switch at home. Any other options y'all would recommend?
Click to expand...

Why would you spend $52 on an 8-port gigabit switch (not even sold by newegg, but by a third party)?

Look up TrendNet Gigabit "GreenNet" switches. They are often on sale for an 8-port for under $25-30.
 
You may be able to find a 24 port unmanaged gigabit switch on ebay for under 100 bucks. Though if you don't need that much more ports an 8 port consumer one is fine too. In fact when I had a bunch of dlinks daisy chained I was still getting very close to gigabit speeds. Transfers would hit around 115MB/sec or so and that's what what I get now with my Dell powerconnect 24 port switch.
 
Data usage is transfers between workstations and servers mainly. Currently have 4 wired devices on that Cicso wireless 5 port router. I will be adding a new server with 2 gig ports plus a dedicated port for IPMI(not that I need that, but it comes on the mobo). I am also considering building a Linux based firewall to tinker with at some point, so that is 2 more ports needed.

I did think of cascading two 8 porters when I need the port density. I was trying to "future-proof" myself. Doing this, would it be beneficial for them to be from the same manufacturer?

VirtualLarry, that's why I was asking here. I will look into the Trendnet ones you mentioned.

Thanks for the help guys. There is a ton of info and options out there, and it's been years since I needed to upgrade anything.
 
Hmm, servers and workstations, eh? That sounds a little more "heavy duty" than the average home network, so I am reaching the limits of my advice.

Phaetos said:
I did think of cascading two 8 porters when I need the port density. I was trying to "future-proof" myself. Doing this, would it be beneficial for them to be from the same manufacturer?
Click to expand...

In theory, one switch brand should at least "work" with another brand, but I don't know about more advanced features, like jumbo frames or whatever, and whether or not they'd be compatible.

My previous configuration of two 8-port D-link switches daisy chained to my Linksys 100-Mbit switch built into the router has always worked. So has my current configuration of one 24-port Trendnet switch (1-day sale on Tigerdirect!) connected to the same Linksys router+switch. I've never had to think about switch compatibility, but then again, my network needs haven't come anywhere near straining my switches, and I've not tested (nor needed) any advanced switch features.

But there could be some edge cases where they are not compatible. For example, one review for this D-link switch:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833127422

said that he couldn't get it to be detected by a Trendnet switch. Perhaps it has something to do with both being "green" switches with power saving protocols or whatever.

So I suppose if you want to ensure compatibility, you should consider getting two switches of the same brand, especially if you find one on sale anyway.
 
Cheeze,

So the only difference between the one I posted and yours is that the S80DG has an internal power supply?
 
dunno if that's the only difference. I can tell you I have a couple of those trendnet's and they work good. Never heard of planet technology...
 
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