Switches, differences between manufactures and pricing

[caffrey]

If I went to the governors with a proposal for new switches and I gave them different options e.g.

 

a Netgear NETGEAR GS724T (Which we currently use and have done for over 5 years without issues, except for the rubbish interface) for say £110 inc. vat

and a HP 2530-24G for £390 inc.

 

Now they would ask me, what's the difference? Why does the HP cost 3 times more ? What benefits does it bring ?

 

How would you answer ?

 

I don't think there is much difference in Bandwidth capabilities but I could be wrong (I don't know too much about the HP switches)

[Boredguy]

HP gives you a nicer interface, and typically higher total bandwidth compared to the Netgear.

 

Then again I'd be asking why your paying £110 for the GS724T when we get then for £95 ex VAT

[mthomas08]

How would you answer ?

 

In my experience if I looked back at 10 Years of failures, the higher % has been non HP. HP on the other hand has had around 2-3 failures which were warranty sorted out in 24 hours (they did come with long time warranty too).

 

For Netgear and other brands that are cheaper, I find the rate of failures is much higher.

 

Only my experience though, at the moment I stick to HP unless it's cheap/urgent but the long term plan is to replace every switch with an HP one. We are currently around 90/95% complete.

[NB9457]

Where is the switch going and what is it being used for?

 

I've managed to talk one of the schools into buying one Ubiquiti 500W 48 Port PoE switch and that wasn't cheap, but it was based on the the fact it's full PoE, so never really have to worry again, the fact it is replacing two 24 Port 10/100 switches and it also give us 10Gb uplink ability should we need it in the future to add another switch or decided to go mad and get a crazy full SSD fibre server.

 

That being said now, the 48P non PoE model is around £3/400 with 2x10Gb uplinks, whilst the outright cost is more, if it was for a main cab, it's gonna last a longer, you'll have more ports spare and again 10Gb capability!

[caffrey]

We're a full Netgear site and have been for a few years (at least 6) with no failures, we're just planning a full revamp of switching gear and I'm trying to justify the cost of moving to HP. Are people just going to HP because of the badge ? I mean Netgear although awful to manage are cheap (and in reality you rarely touch them once installed). Lifetime warranty seems a bit pointless when netgear are so cheap anyway

 

I considered the Ubiquiti switches as we use Unifi AP's but I can't really justify the extra cost for PoE, although there is the possibility of us moving to VOIP soon as well as IP CCTV (we have unifi cameras too in test) It's a shame they don't do non PoE

[Chris_Cook]

It depends on what features you use.

 

Netgear are great if you want just a basic switch. But once you start doing things like VLANs etc, they can be a pain in the bum. Especially if you have several different models/firmwares.

 

The HP stuff is still pretty low cost compared to what you could spend on switches.

[caffrey]

I can't really use pain in the bum to justify the price difference I know the VLAN pain as I've set up a few but it's a once in a blue moon job

[mrwoberts]

I started supporting a school that had HP kit already installed, although some of it needing upgrading.

 

One thing that I don't like about the HP kit is the restricted availability of firmware. The previous support team didn't update the firmware on the HP wireless Hub, even though the school say they've had various problems for a while; I know, it might not be related, but...

 

Am I right in thinking that you need some sort of service contract to access it?

Just did a quick search for the Netgear GS724T firmware and there it is, no such restrictions.

 

I'd be interested to hear some reasons why the HP firmware is restricted access.

Edited March 11, 2016 by mrwoberts

[Boredguy]

We're purely Netgear and not had any issues with vLans with the switches. The only thing we don't have is a layer 3 to do intervLan routing, but that's not really much of a issue.

 

The reliability of our current switches is night and day to our old Allied Telesyn units, and the only time we replace a switch is if we're increasing the capacity in an area from 24 port to 48 port.

[caffrey]

@Boredguy we went from Allied Telesyn too, they were just layer 1, what are you routing with ? We route on Smoothwall currently

[Geoff]

Am I right in thinking that you need some sort of service contract to access it?

Just did a quick search for the Netgear GS724T firmware and there it is, no such restrictions.

 

I'd be interested to hear some reasons why the HP firmware is restricted access.

 

I cannot speak for the wireless APs but there is no requirement for an active service contract to access HP switch firmware (unlike, for example Cisco). e.g. here is the firmware download for the E2824's we use.

 

https://h10145.www1.hp.com/downloads/SoftwareReleases.aspx?ProductNumber=J4903A

[Boredguy]

@Boredguy we went from Allied Telesyn too, they were just layer 1, what are you routing with ? We route on Smoothwall currently

 

We are not doing any routing between the vLans really (apart from a Linux VM that handles the BYoD traffic out via our secondary IP range). We do keep looking for a L3 switch but can't justify the cost from our tiny budget =(

[m25man]

I've always used NetGear switches over HP purely on price per port.

There is little argument from that perspective NetGear wipes the floor with HP when it comes to this point, but that's about it.

 

Where HP provides it's core value is the common platform, refined OS, unbeatable warranty and almost infinite chassis options.

The newer zl2 and zl3 chassis and modules now incorporating Aruba Wireless and Security components built into the switches now makes HP a formidable choice.

There really is no comparison between them.

 

HP are the masters of the chassis and the Aruba tie up is going to have every HP switch owner look closely at Aruba's wireless (you would be stupid not to)

 

NetGear are the kings of cheap stacking and will remain so for sometime to come.

If you don't have the finances for HP Aruba and want to stick with 3rd party wireless systems like Ruckus and Unifi I can see more schools switching to NetGear and stacking if only to make the budget go further.

 

It's very much like comparing the Mondeo to an EClass we all know what we would like to drive but reality sucks!

[timbo343]

Ummm, hp give lifetime warranty on their procurve switches.

[caffrey]

Netgear do lifetime warranty too apparently, although at the cost of them you can get 3 24 port for the price of 1 HP 24 port..

 

So all I've got is :- Interface is better

 

Going to be a tough sell, just worked out there is a £7300 saving if I just renew all our Netgear switches instead of moving to HP. (We tendered this out, and were recommended HP by all as we just wanted ready configured switches with L3 routing already done)

[forkies]

Try looking at these reviews: http://www.storagereview.com/netgear_prosafe_gs724t_switch_review and http://www.storagereview.com/hp_253024g_switch_review_j9773a

Then just make it a bit easier for them to understand, so better latency, more switching capacity and better buffers. Future proofing, improving keeping up with technology and curriculum needs.

 

Technology moves fast and replacing 5 year old switches with the same switch is like replacing your X reg fiesta with an X reg fiesta, instead of a eco boost fiesta, if you get what I mean?

[forkies]

Also we had net gear (still have in some places) but core and most major parts of our network now are HP, definitely seen an improvement it is worth the extra cost for us.

[m25man]

The selection algorithm is remarkably simple,

FAST - CHEAP - GOOD

Pick any two.

[caffrey]

Thanks everyone for the responses, much appreciated - it's still going to be a tough sell either way, you all know how it is! I'll probably end up running our current Netgear for another 5 years....

 

Slightly OT but has anyone done a full UBNT site ? I'm looking at the 24/48 edgeswitches and the edgerouter for routing just to add a comparison

[Roberto]

A comparison of the detailed technical specs of the two shows that the HP switch has better throughput, switching capacity, mac table size, etc.

 

My prejudice against netgear is fairly famous in some areas but if you can't articulate why you need to spend more money on the HP system then perhaps you don't need to spend that money: If you're happy with the NetGear systems, support, etc. in general, a better question than "which is better" is "which is good enough". If you don't need the extra capacity then don't spend the extra money.

[caffrey]

It came about because we tendered out replacing our network switchgear due to lack of routing - all VLAN (VLANS for wifi) routing is done via zone bridging on a Smoothwall box (we bridge due to iPads and Airserver not being on the same range) , all quotes came back with HP. We wanted L3 routing to be able to easily change our filtering solution as how we a currently set up makes that difficult. I work on my own and this was a fairly major job, I've not a huge amount of experience with L3 routing and network downtime has to be kept to a minimum.

I'm not expecting these quotes to go through at all and I'm considering other avenues, e.g. setting up a linux VM with routing / MDNS repeater

[m25man]

TBH there is little to be concerned about over L3 routing.

Even on HP's will need a reboot at some point to take a config change so regardless of vendor your going to have some kind of disruption.

A spade is a spade!

Same goes for routers and switches, using a L3 switch as your gateway for your subnets and VLANS is convenient but not always optimal and the bigger the network the more evident that can be.

You may be better off sticking with L2 switching and dedicated routing we do this all the time with Mikrotik as border routers.

This can be just as effective without over complicating topology.

A decent router can be found for less than £100 why spend £000's on L3 core switching when you can Just as easily stick a Mikrotik between your BYOD Lan and the data network?

[caffrey]

True, I'm thinking along the lines of a Ubiquiti Edgeswitch lite 24 port or just a linux VM that can handle both avahi and routing (I think the edgeswitches can manage MDNS reflection too) Of course if we didn't have iPads I wouldn't need to do any of this!

[sammy]

HP warranty support, nicer interface , more robust and reliable over the years is will be in service , but, and the big but is that the cost difference often means you can just keep a couple of spares in the cupboard for swapouts when needed. One other feature , and a slightly selfish one is that being comfortable with the HP interface will put your cv in good stead for a possible move to corporates in the future, if that was ever part of your plan.

[Jose]

have you thought of using Cisco small business,

 

we use sg500x switches here with cheap chinese 10GB modules,

 

10GB fibre and much cheaper than HP.

 

The price difference was massive in SEA not sure it the price difference is the same in the UK