need advice for budget gigabit switch

[mcveigh]

need to upgrade a network. I need a managed switch although I've never used one, so hopefully there's a switch with a simple setup.
currently we have a 24 port 10Mb 3com switch and a 12 port 10/100 3 com switch.
need to prioritize some traffic and setup a port for the wireless network in a Vlan for security.
we have 3 servers (data, exchange, phone) on a small 5 port linksys gigabit switch. I want to dump that and move the data and exchange to one switch, the phone server can be 100Mb.

thinking about these...


D-Link DES-3226L
3com
Netgear ...looks good for someone like me!

 

[mcveigh]

bump

 

[futuristicmonkey]

As for the 3com switch, do you really want your business to rely upon a switch you got from eBay? In regard to the Netgear switch, I'm not sure about it, as I don't really have any 1-st hand experience with this sort of stuff.

Now, as for that Dlink switch, it looks good, costs 399.99-ish but is a layer 2 switch. Now, from what I've heard, higher-end switches seem to be faster if they are layer 3 (of the 7-layer ISO chart). On Dlink's site I found this, which is very similar to the one you have suggested, however, it is a layer 3 switch, and although it doesn't have any of those gigabit ports, it has two GBIC slots, which provide a degree of flexibility of the gigabit uplink ports/connectors/cables you want/need to use.

Now, please don't take my words 100% for this, as I read most of this out of .pdfs, but a good comaprison of Dlink switches can be found here. This is a .pdf comparing different Dlink switches, in the categories of their "web-smart" switches, layer2/4 managed, and layer2/3/4 managed switches, along with their MSRPs (marketing suggested retail price).

I hope this helps

 

[Boscoh]

I personally wouldn't put any of those into a production business network. But if I had to choose one that I would be most confident in, it would be the Dlink.

Take a look at Dell switches. A little more expensive...but they're solid switches.

 

[Cscutch]

I was going to recommend a dell switch for a low end solution as well as a Cisco Catalyst 2950 Series switch for a long term investment. This Cisco is a higher up front cost but most of the time you can win that back the cost differenc with a resell on Ebay if you do upgrades.

 

[Boscoh]

The 2950's would work too and are great switches. However, they only have 2 gig uplinks on them.

 

[mcveigh]

but how is the cisco to manage? I don't want to learn IOS. this is for a small business about 20 users max

 

[Cscutch]

Cisco switches are easy to learn, well the 2950 and the feature you will be using are at least.

Here is a link for you: Cisco 2950 Configuration Guide..

There is alot of information in there you don't need, but it has all the steps that you do need.

Chris.

 

[InlineFive]

Take a look at the Dell switches, mine has worked very well.

 

[Boscoh]

The 2950's include a very easy-to-use Java-based GUI called the Cluster Management Suite (which has been replaced in the newest IOS by something else...cant remember what it is called but it looks exactly the same as CMS).

It's *extremely* easy to use, you dont have to learn IOS at all really. You can manage one switch, or a bunch of them that are installed into a "cluster". You just hit one IP address and go.

 

[err]

cisco 2950 or Dell 3324

 

[cmetz]

3324