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We are currently looking to upgrade the hubs we have in the office to some unmanaged switches. Does anyone have any brands they prefer or know of any good websites with reviews? I have already searched google but not extensively and have not found much or websites that promise reviews but have none.
Just out of curiousity.. why unmanaged switches?
How many ports do you need and what type of capabilities are you looking for?
Dell has decent switches for a good price. www.dell.com
I know you are looking for unmanaged but they aren't priced too bad and there are several product levels. They have been pushing them for market share so I have been getting excellent deals.
More defined link here: http://www.dell.com/us/en/biz/produc...t_networks.htm
Korp Death: Well I really dont have a preference eithier way... I will probably end up getting together a proposal for both. We have a need for about 25-35 ports for general office use. Our network is crawling with the 10/100 hubs that we are using now. We transfer huge sets of files over the network (from users computers to the server) just about every day.
Do your hubs have a usage meter? If so is it maxed? I noticed my netgears getting maxed and replaced them with some dell switches and noticed a huge increase in traffic flow. It also is a good idea to centralize everyone and then break out work groups assigned to switches based on their traffic flow or functional areas.
Yeah .. why not get manageable switches ...that way you can create VLANs ... this way you can devide certain departements in to groups and give them there own VLAN ...this way you can also keep an eye on the traffic and the troughput.
For a more in-depth explenation about VLANs ..check this site out , it's realy well written and very intresting if you wanna learn a bit more about VLANs :D
VLANs
Ps: Don't use ALcatel 6024 switches ...nothing but trouble :rolleyes:
Hope this helps you deside a bit.
As for switches with VLAN possibilities .. I think Cisco has some catalysts with this feature and 3 Com ... but others like Dell probably as wel.
C.
I make my living with switches and routers.....for the money, in my humble opinion you CANNOT beat Foundry switches. They are un-freaking-believable. Click
You can beat Foundry switches. Alcatel's new breed. Code names Eagle, Falcon, and Hawk.
But, I agree don't touch the Alcatel 6024, they are manufactured by LiteOn and they suck. Way too much trouble. But the new OmniSwitch line is sweet without a doubt (8000, 7000, 6000, etc.). You get all the capabilities up front without having to buy RSM cards to route (Cisco) and invest in add ons later. Per port cost is a fraction of what Foundry/Cisco/blah blah blah charges. QoS built in plus web manageable and one touch QoS is killer. (I still like to tweak the settings later but as far as setting it up on as many switches as you like from one place is just too cool.
My 2 cents
P.S. they just might be a little big for what CXGJArrod is looking for, but to all you big network admins out there they are worth looking into.
CXGJarrod, SMC has good unmanaged switches in their EZ line, nothing realy cool like the switches presented in the posts above... but reading your post I thought you were looking for some small unmanaged 'plug and play' solution to replace your hubs?
Well, the SMC EZNET-24SW does this for a low pricing. 24 10/100 ports. D-Link has similar products like the DES-1024D
If you want to have more ports and VLAN's and such look for managed products like the SMC6750L2 Tigerswitch
Another possibility is Nortel BayStack switches for instance the 350
http://www.nortelnetworks.com/produc...hes/index.html
Anyway if your network tends to grow a lot in the future -> look for the managed switches presented in the posts above. -> = Alcatel new series
CXGJarrod :
Whatever the switch you buy there all unmanageable by using the default config.
I've worked with 3 types of switches:
- Catalyst
- Alcatel Omnistack, omniswitch (Xylan)
- 3Com
- ExtremeNetworks
I'm afraid that a 24 port switch may always offer enhanced features with the price that goes with it. (don't know about SMC).
Like Korp said the Omnistack/omniswicth product line is really good and upgradable.
Just one little point of information about security and switches: Few of them are now on implementing 802.1x (authenticator).
- Catalyst does it badly for the moment (no accounting)
- Alcatel implement it (within the 6000 serie)
- ExtremeNetworks
This is a really good feature. U can authenticate a user facing the network using its login/password when accessing the PC.
Just thought I'd add.......
If you are really looking for a pure layer 2 unmanaged switch allied telyson/centre com makes pretty stable ones. I'd guess if you looked hard you could get a 48 port one for a few hundred bucks. That's swell and will help tremendously if your network is presently flooding with unicast traffic. If you generate a lot of broadcast traffic, however, a pure layer 2 switch isn't going to help you much. You will have to look at some of the 'big boys' out there in order to control that.
My advice-- before you buy, stick a sniffer on your wire and see how your traffic breaks down. What percent is unicast/multicast/broadcast? That should influence your decision as to whether or not you need a 'dumb' or a 'smart' switch.