NETGEAR vs. HP

[Mr_Jiminy]

Has anyone got history with either of these switches?

 

NETGEAR ProSafe GS724TS or HP V1810-24G

 

Not used HP, so keen for opinions.

[sidewinder]

Can't speak for the HP but the Netgear is ok, very loud but haven't had any problems with the 48 port version. Suspect most people will say go for HP though

[synaesthesia]

Not a sole on the planet in the networking biz will say go Netgear, that's for sure. Not had any experience of that model but the stuff we've had in the past worked OK. The 1810 is capable if not basic, and backed up with a warranty that's worth the cost of the switch itself.

[timbo343]

The 1810 is a quiet if not silent switch and web based admin. Its a nice little switch just remeber to keep saving the config.

[sidewinder]

Yeah tbf if I had the choice and the price was the same, I'd always go for HP too.

[ass17]

Just remember that most HP switches are only initially configurable via CLI and then you can enable the web interface.

[timbo343]

The 1810 is configured only by web interface.

[Mr_Jiminy]

Thanks folks, figured HP would be the better choice, was just a little concerned the hp switch in question would be somewhat lacking.

[AngryTechnician]

I've had some experience with Netgear ProSafe kit, and it isn't terrible (you could certainly do worse), but I'd go for the ProCurve personally. All my wired networking kit here is ProCurve and I've only ever encountered 1 problem with it in nearly 4 years.

 

As someone who despises pretty much everything else HP does, that's saying something.

[Achandler]

We have a lot of Netgear Prosafe (all edge switches) here, mainly due to budget restraints and we haven't had any problems with them, they have been in 3 years.

 

Get the best that you can afford, put in for HP if you prefer, if the school says we can't afford that then get the Netgear instead. We use Netgear and D-Link (core) here due to the costs, and haven't had any issues yet. Everyone has preferred manufacturers and everyone has different budgets, different students etc. Make the choice that benefits the school more, if your school is in dire need of new switches but also has very little money, then you need to way up the benefits of the better switch to the school as a whole, or whether money saved is better for the school.

[sted]

have had issues with netgear switches before including one model (cant remember which) that just seems to be really slow passing on dhcp leases so much so that i was at one yesterday pc plugged into that no dhcp lease plugged into another switch no problems

[m25man]

Most of the complaints I read here regarding Netgear Prosafe switches being "c@#p" are mostly made out of ignorance, frustration or simply based on speculative diagnosis.

 

They do what they do at probably the most cost effective price per port given a chance.

Even the warranty and support given has improved 10 fold in the last few years as they try to establish themselves as a major player in the SMB arena.

 

The real problem with Netgear switches is inconsistency in the manufacturing processes that cause so many different versions of the same model, these result in a plethora of similar physical switches some with the same model names V2, V3, V4 hardware etc.

This results in far too many Firmware version/updates with often incompatibility issues between switches in a stack or group.

 

Other annoyances such as not being able to change default VLAN settings causes inconsistencies when trying to integrate into other systems which means they are not flexible enough in some cases to be adopted into existing infrastructure and are better suited when building an "economy infrastructure" from scratch.

 

All in all this makes Netgear not always the best choice when seeking to add them to an existing network on a piecemeal basis.

In my experience and I have used a lot of Netgear Prosafe kit over the years they are reliable cost effective switches, they just require too much effort when trying to make them work in a mixed vendor environment.

 

We ALWAYS specify HP first with Netgear as the "Cost Conscious" second option but where we have Large scale Netgear Stacks and edge cabinets all with the same hardware and compatible firmware they run as sweetly as the HP kit.

 

I find the HP CLI and GUI easier to work with and the terminology used is more industry standard than some of the best effort translations of the Netgear and the HP's are certainly more friendly.

 

However you really need to compare what's on the inside not just the outside, the RAM and CPU and the switches OS determine the throughput and MAC Table capacities and its too easy to buy a cheap 48 port switch with woefully inadequate resources for some of the LANs used on this forum...

 

We see LANs with well over 2000 live MAC addresses and some clown will plug in a £50 switch destined for a home network and then complain bitterly when it fails to resolve network targets in a respectable time or fails to pick up an IP address from a server 7 hops away with STP running everywhere...

 

You only get what you pay for, hence why some people here will think nothing of spending £30k on a core cabinet.

I have Netgear Switches still running after 10 years of service and I have HP PoE switches that never made it 12 months before a PSU caught fire! So I don't believe reliability is a factor.

You pay a premium for HP switchgear you expect and receive (in most cases) a premium service but as far as the cheaper HP switches go they are no better than any other vendors budget c@#p

 

As said elsewhere you buy the best you can afford on the budget you are given, as an NM you are expected to do your homework and spend your budget wisely you can do no more!

[Bruce123]

We have had a number of Netgear switches/devices including their wireless solution (which worked very well).

 

All OK, the only problem we had was with the Netgear GS724T switch. Experienced connectivity issues including when trying to configured it via the web interface (it kept dropping the connection).

 

I am not certain what the cause was, I am fairly sure it wasn't caused by an external issue, but in the end we just swapped it out.

 

If you can go afford it go for HP/Cisco, otherwise Netgear are OK.

 

I hope that this helps.

 

Regards,

 

Bruce.

[cpjitservices]

HP = Lifetime warranty, what more do you need.

[sidewinder]

Yeah tbf if I had the choice and the price was the same, I'd always go for HP too.

 

To clarify this, I meant only if I could get the HP for the price of the Netgear

 

I like HP stuff but as a small school it doesn't make sense to spend many x the price on their switches. My core switch is a stack of a GSM7352S and GSM7328S which haven't missed a beat since being installed. They have all the featuires a decent L3 switch needs and I'm really happy with them.

 

It's only the GS748T I'm not too keen on, though theres nothing wrong with it

[Simcfc73]

We have netgear here, pricing was a huge issue for us. I have a meaty GSM7328S but most are L2 GSM7224 and similar. The Vlanning uses different terminology and some weirdness that I haven't got my head round yet but the warrnties are very good too...lifetime on most of my kit. I did buy a 48 port switch off ebay which had an issue and they exchanged it, accepting a ebay bill as prrof of purchase so i got the latest model.

 

As for the wireless... ermmm... get something better.

[m25man]

On another note - has anyone reading this got a GS748Tv4 showing more than 24hrs up time? I'm dealing with an issue where none of the GS748T's have more than 23:59:59hrs uptime?? Netgear Level3 support have not heard of it (yet) Im just putting one up in the Lab to see what happens have to wait 24 Hrs to get the results...

[CyberNerd]

I've got to disagree with the principal of "get what you can afford". For everything else; software, PC's etc I'd be inclined to agree. I see network products as the lifeblood of an ICT infrastructure and as such the rule should be "get what you need".Network issues cause a huge loss of productivity for all users, more so than a single server failure . It wastes our time debugging them and causes misery all over. Ultimately you need to match the feature set of your expected network requirements with that of the switch - not that of your budget. If your budget doesn't include what you need then just don't put a network in until it does. I don't have an issue at all with using low end procurves, netgear or even dlink on a small network with limited requirements but as soon as you start adding a several hundred network devices things change. Multiple VLANs, OSPF routes, LACP links, QOS telephones, IP cameras, door systems etc will affect things dramatically. The benefits of a decent operating system (read: comware, CiscoIOS) come into their own when it comes to debugging and setting up a manageable network.

[Achandler]

This debate has moved to far from the original one. As now products from different price points are being compared, afterall switch costs go from a few pounds for an unmanaged fesktop switch to 10s of thousands for top end data centre equipment.

 

In reality when you budget for the switch you compare at your price point and make the decision, and depending on what the switch is for helps makes a decision as to which one to buy as well. Different places put different thrings through the switches, as shown above, a lot of schools have only data with multiple VLANs, others have everything. Most medium to high end switches have decent OSs on them for debugging, when you move to the fully managed from "smart" switches, they might not be the best, and there is probably less perr support but then their in the argument of which OS is best in multiple aspects of IT.

 

We are also all trying to second guess the future, whether we will need extra features of better switches, how many extra ports to get in place. Is it better to get the 1gb HP Procurve or better to get a 1Gb Netgear with 10Gb uplinks? All are questions that need answering when we buy a switch. It also depends on what is already in place, if you have 95% HP Procurve then you would probably not put one odd one out switch in place.

[rich_tech]

We are predominantly a Netgear site here too, we have lots of GS724TS, one GS247T, a couple of GS748TS, 2x GSM7324s, a Netgear POE switch (forget which model) and a few older D-Link DES-3828 level switches (in places where the devices don't generally need 1gb connections like our print room).

 

We undertook to get the network on our site up to 1gb across the board when I was within the first year of post and unify it to a single brand where possible (going for netgear primarily because of price compared to the alternatives (Cisco and HP) and we had a mixed network with a lot of 100meg D-Link stuff and a few netgears here and there) and its worked very well with minimal fuss when installed, as we redid the network here two years back, the stacks we created using the Netgears in places worked straightaway with no problem at all (because they were not all bought at the same time, I did have a spell unifying and updating all the firmwares on the devices, primarily though because our D-Links were having an issue because of their firmware at the time, I just made sure all was the same), It is worth saying here though that at present we do not VLAN in our school, but thats going to be my next thing to try out around here tying in with our virtualisation project we have ongoing.

[Mr_Jiminy]

I'll nip this in the bud and say thanks everyone, I really appreciated the ace feedback... I went with the HP in the end, looking forward to the install.

[snoerre]

Well, too late, as the HP has really basic features, only: Comparison of fanless layer 2 switches - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Mr_Jiminy]

Went for this one in the end; HP 1910-48G Switch (JE009A) specifications - HP Small & Medium Business products

[synaesthesia]

We're using that one and hopefully getting some more in as edge devices. Work with the CLI, using the GUI is like dragging your testicles along sandpaper.

Plus, to show how much you need to avoid wikipedia, snoerre's link might suggest people should plump for the D-Link.... (port failure magnets)

Edited May 4, 2013 by synaesthesia

[Mr_Jiminy]

If I'm honest with you all, for the last three years I've been using Netgear switches and found them to be fine, albeit much of an uncertainty, especially when it came to upgrading the firmware on the blighters. I also found some to very VERY noisy, although this was usually drowned out by the fans on old 2950's, lol.