Recommendations on a 24-Port 10/100MB Ethernet Switch?

[subgenius]

I work in a small office that has nearly doubled in size over the past year. Our existing 8 port 10MB Hub is ready to go, and our local tech support company has recommended upgrading to a 24-port 10/100MB Switch, and if the way our tech support guy explained it is correct, it sounds like a no brainer.

Is there a 24-port 10/100MB switch anyone would recommend? If it makes a difference, we're currently running a Mac OS 9, OS X and Windows XP. By this fall though, we should strictly be OS X and Win XP.

 

[Boscoh]

Dell PowerConnect series

 

[DainBrammage]

Cisco Catalyst 2950. it will be the last switch you will ever have to buy

 

[cmetz]

subgenius, the Dell PowerConnect 3324 & 3348 are decent switches, and cheap enough that you should get a managed switch (that is, the cost delta from a good rack-mount unmanaged switch to one of these isn't so much $$). Make sure to load the 1.1 firmware onto them (available for download off Dell's web site).

2950s cost more and I've had to pull them out of the field due to failures - looks like software problems handling some of the Windows viruses going around. I don't really care - switches that fall over twice in my networks don't get a chance for a third strike.

 

[Boscoh]

Interesting. Only problem we've ever had with the 2950's was a CDP memory leak that affected everything from the 2940's to the 3550's. What IOS version were you using, and what viruses were causing the issue?

 

[subgenius]

Thanks for the recommendations.

 

[cmetz]

Boscoh, up to the previous to the latest version (blah blah 19 I believe, where 20 is the latest?) of the 2950 software. Failure mode is pretty much total failure to move traffic and errors spewing on the console - definitely appears to be a software problem, I'm 3/3 on 2950s doing this. From what I've been told, the 2950 is a cost-optimized product with quality to match.

At least with the Dell switches, you're not paying for the highest-quality product.

 

[Boscoh]

12.1(19)EA1 had some major bugs in it. I think Cisco even deferred customers from it because it was so buggy. 12.1(19)EA1a is rock solid though. We havent had any problems with it on our 8 switches. I've got 12.1(19)EA1c running on one of those switches, doing some testing on it. It really just fixes the TCP-Reset vulnerability. Appears to be running well so far. Been up for almost a month.

12.1(14) (or maybe it's 13) I believe is still the most solid of all the releases thus far. That's the one every TAC engineer I talked to when we had problems with 19EA1 told me to fall back to...it was funny, because they actually called it an upgrade.

 

[cmetz]

I'll certainly try those versions, thanks for the clues. My problem is that these only fail after a week or so in production, and then they fail massively, and users SCREAM - I can't really be experimental about it, I have to replace first and debug later. In my lab, I've not been able to reproduce any problems with these.

 

[SaigonK]

Baytack 450 if you want to pay for it..or a baystack 470 (48 ports) plus two Gig gbic slots.

 

[MulLa]

Interesting, I've never considered Dell before for networking gear. Maybe I should change my mind a bit from now on. Anyone else with good experience with Dell's switches??

 

[Boscoh]

We use the 5212 and 5224 gig switches in our network. Damn good switches. The management interface sucks, and so does the CLI. But with enough patience I got them to do everything we need. They were cheap too, cheaper than they are now, we got them on sale + with the purchase of a couple servers, so they worked with us on price.

I havent used the Dell 3324/48's. We looked at em and got the 2950's instead because of couple very important features (to us) that the 2950's had and the Dell's didnt. Also because we got an amazing one-time price on them which was within "nickle and dime" range of the Dells. I cant complain about the 2950's. We havent had but one major problem with them. It didnt effect network connectivity, and it was resolved during the normal maintenance window for the day. If we'd paid full price for them, it might be a different story .

 

[Crucial]

Shameless self promotion. Look in my sig.

 

[cmetz]

SaigonK, IMO the BS450-24T (haven't tried other models) ranks very high on the POS equipment scale. For one thing, I have a lot of experience with the things randomly forgetting their configuration. Very bad. Oh, and their text-menu user interface is truly awful. All that, and Nortel's prices and corporate stability.

And guess what the switch chipset guts are? Broadcom chipset, previous gen to the cheapie Dells.

Note on the 5212/5224 vs. 3324/3348 - they're totally different. Different chipsets, different software, different "Cisco like" CLIs. It's quite annoying that Dell couldn't make their switches at least appear the same to the end user, but that's what you get from a company that just negotiates a tough deal with OEMs and rebrands.

 

[nightowl]

subgenius, for your situation I would go with a Dell switch. Maybe look into getting a switch with 1 or 2 gigabit uplinks for future expansion. As for the problems with the 2950s, the network that I work on has hundreds of 2950s for access switches in place and next to none of them have failed. This was with previous code versions too. Currently we are using 19 EA1c and have not had any problems that I am aware of. These are all the models with 2 GBIC slots (24 and 48 10/100 ports) which IMO are better built than the ones with out the GBIC slots (better quality fans).

 

[ITJunkie]

Though they can't really compete with Dell switches on price, Extreme Networks switches stack up very well against Cisco gear. IMO of course.

 

[cmetz]

Extreme's i-series switches are great, but are in a whole different price point than the L2-only switches.

 

[GTiBri]

Well the first question I would ask you is: do you need a managed, or unmanaged switch.

It sounds like an unmanaged switch is what you are looking for. I recently picked up a couple 24 port 10/100 Linksys for a little over 200 each at compusa. Of course I needed them FAST to replace some broken equipment, so I paid a little more than I had to.

I would recommend staying away from Cisco switches unless you really need a managed switch. I have a 2950 here at work and I never even use the managed stuff except for network sniffing. But it sounds as if you don't have that many machines to connect, hence my recommendation for an unmanaged switch.

Summary: IMO your situation doesn't call for a managed switch, don't waste money on one. Dell's are good priced. But so are a lot of the "dumb" switches.

 

[SaigonK]

Originally posted by: cmetz
SaigonK, IMO the BS450-24T (haven't tried other models) ranks very high on the POS equipment scale. For one thing, I have a lot of experience with the things randomly forgetting their configuration. Very bad. Oh, and their text-menu user interface is truly awful. All that, and Nortel's prices and corporate stability.

And guess what the switch chipset guts are? Broadcom chipset, previous gen to the cheapie Dells.

Note on the 5212/5224 vs. 3324/3348 - they're totally different. Different chipsets, different software, different "Cisco like" CLIs. It's quite annoying that Dell couldn't make their switches at least appear the same to the end user, but that's what you get from a company that just negotiates a tough deal with OEMs and rebrands.

I have over 80 450's and have yet to have one forget their configuration. I have them in stacks up to eight units, etc.
i am running the most recent code of course....

I have TONS of Nortel gear, and it is all good. The 450's are EOL, but you can find them cheap and they are a good solid unit. Plus you dont use the text interface except for the initial Ip setup, JDM is the way to manage them in a GUI

 

[cmetz]

SaigonK, how often do you change the config on yours? Ours don't forget them out of the blue, but usually just after somebody makes a VLAN change in the CLI. That may be related. Never used their GUI... not a GUI person. I have been working to configure them via SNMP as a big crutch around the UI and the config issues.

GTiBri, as of the Dell/D-Link/Linksys cheap managed switches, the price difference is now small enough between managed and unmanaged that the labor savings and debugging features of a managed switch are much more valuable than the delta-cost for all but the most tight budget environments (e.g., home). If your business depends on it, $400 for a 24-port Dell switch is not a problem. Small businesses I work with routinely move up to cheap managed switches and quickly realize a net cost savings for doing so.

 

[GTiBri]

I should have been a bit more clear. I was talking more about a $1500 Cisco switch being way more than needed. A less expensive managed switch is just fine.

 

[subgenius]

I probably should have been more specific in my initial post, but I guess a healthy debate is never hurt anyone. I work in a small office with an unmanaged Netgear 8 port 10MBps Ethernet hub. Although it would be a bit of a stretch to call me a Sys Admin, I'm the geek in the office, so any computer question on any topic lands in my lap. Right now we're in the process of looking to replace our hub with an unmanaged 24-port Fast Ethernet switch with a budget of roughly $400. I don't think a managed switch will be necessary.

Thanks again to everyone who posted.

 

[blakeatwork]

Originally posted by: cmetz
I'll certainly try those versions, thanks for the clues. My problem is that these only fail after a week or so in production, and then they fail massively, and users SCREAM - I can't really be experimental about it, I have to replace first and debug later. In my lab, I've not been able to reproduce any problems with these.

You don't ahve a couple boxes that you can hook in to test out your connection do you? I had something similar happen to a small workgroup (about 7 users), that brought my 2621XM down like a cheap whore with a lot of cheap red wine in her... turns out the NICs were at fault. $100 and 1 hour later, and voila, up and at'em, ready for a new night.. err.. day...

 

[blakeatwork]

Originally posted by: subgenius
I probably should have been more specific in my initial post, but I guess a healthy debate is never hurt anyone. I work in a small office with an unmanaged Netgear 8 port 10MBps Ethernet hub. Although it would be a bit of a stretch to call me a Sys Admin, I'm the geek in the office, so any computer question on any topic lands in my lap. Right now we're in the process of looking to replace our hub with an unmanaged 24-port Fast Ethernet switch with a budget of roughly $400. I don't think a managed switch will be necessary.

Thanks again to everyone who posted.

If you're just worried about amking sure everyone's connected, then definitely unmanaged, as you can get some decent network sniffers that will work in conjunction.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: blakeatwork

Originally posted by: subgenius
I probably should have been more specific in my initial post, but I guess a healthy debate is never hurt anyone. I work in a small office with an unmanaged Netgear 8 port 10MBps Ethernet hub. Although it would be a bit of a stretch to call me a Sys Admin, I'm the geek in the office, so any computer question on any topic lands in my lap. Right now we're in the process of looking to replace our hub with an unmanaged 24-port Fast Ethernet switch with a budget of roughly $400. I don't think a managed switch will be necessary.

Thanks again to everyone who posted.

If you're just worried about amking sure everyone's connected, then definitely unmanaged, as you can get some decent network sniffers that will work in conjunction.

you won't be able to sniff much of anything with a unmanaged switch. The requires a span or mirror port.