Switches, differences between manufactures and pricing

[mdrabble]

Sorry to hijack this thread - but it is slightly related in that I'm also looking to replace an old 3com switch with either Netgear or HP. Current network is a mixture of HP and Netgear already. Looking to future proof the switch ready for rolling out 10G fibre to the switch that is linked via 1GB copper at the moment.

 

I am looking at either:

 

Netgear GS728TX (S3300-28X) - Approx £400

Comes with 2x10gb Copper and 2xSFP+ ports

Bandwidth 128gbps

 

or

 

HP 2530-24G-2SFP+ Switch J9856A - Approx £800

Comes with 2xSPF+ ports only

Throughput : 65.4 Mpps ¦ Switching capacity : 88 Gbps

 

 

Both are 24 port switches (replacing switch which has less than 15 connections)

[caffrey]

You could look at the ubiquiti edgeswitch, I believe its only the 48 port that has sfp+ though, end of the day it's down to budget

On another note, how are the Dell N2000 series switches ?

[NB9457]

Just fitted the EdgeSwitch I ordered yesterday and I must say I am very very pleased with it!

[m25man]

I'm a great Ubiquiti fan having first imported the UAPs from the US when they hadn't been heard of here!

Whilst the kit remains innovative and cheap, as far as switching goes it's primary use is to support and enhance its other products especially 24v PoE device support, CCTV and IP phones.

 

Warranty is still extremely limited (1y) there is no stacking support or redundancy.

Whilst they offer great functionality and management with Unifi V4 kit they are still well off the mark as serious option for infrastructure use.

 

I would certainly use them to integrate unifi wifi or video onto smaller networks but they won't be introduced into any of my core cabinets for a while!

The firmware updates continue to be released without full testing resulting in a lot of weird issues the last broke uplinks between SFP to SFP+ ports and took a month for them to fix.

Personally I wouldn't use them anywhere that I consider "critical" without a hot swap backup device available.

Hopefully proper stacking (not daisy chaining) and redundancy options will appear in later models but these cant be retrofitted into current models.

HP and even NetGear set the bar higher (especially warranties) than UBNT can jump at the moment but by all means put them in the right locations keep an eye on the product range as it evolves and ensure you have a backup plan for when you overload the PoE ratings or brick the units with a bad update!

[sidewinder]

My school is mostly Netgear now, with the exception of a few ancient 3Com's which are going this year.

 

Got a GSM7328 and GSM7352 stacked at the core and M4100-50G and 24G at the edges.

 

Been rock solid for years. For a school like ours, with less than 200 PCs but multiple sites and buildings (and so more switches) I just couldn't justify paying for HP