Switches... 24 or 48 ports?

[gshaw]

As above, if you were speccing switches which would you go for? Basically we're getting the HP 2610 series, originally thought 48s as we have now with another brand but was advised to get 24s instead.

 

What it kinda comes down to I guess would be...

 

- noise... 24 ports are silent but 48s have a fan, will soon see how much noisier

- cable management... easier with 24 ports

- switch throughput, per 1GB link into it?

 

Any other ideas as I'm still a bit torn which to go for...

[StewartKnight]

I suppose 48 port also gives you a single point of failure

but

2 x 24 ports require 2 plugs!

[Geoff]

48 ports were possible. Rack space is at a premium round here.

[richard.thomas]

we've got a few 48s where rackspace is tight. Otherwise we have the 24s!

 

If you've got the space you may aswell go with the smaller. As already been said, you've spreading the eggs over a few baskets is always good

[dgsmith]

We're having some redevelopment work occuring during the summer (well.. building work is starting next week), and will be having an entire floor newly wired, so I have been pricing and speccing up what switches we'll want.

 

I do tend to find recommendations for 24port switches only, which I guess for the reasons of noise and minimizing inconvenience if one breaks (you only lose 24 ports instead of 48), and of course to load balance the switches. We will just go for 48port switches all round as there is still inconvenience whether you lose 24ports or 48, and surely the more switches you have, the more heat it will generate (defeating the aim of noise reduction as you'll need more cooling)?

 

Factor in the cost too, whereby a 48port switch is generally a tad more expensive than 2x 24port (although I noticed this being the other way around with HP switches), and given HP is whom we are going for, the cheaper cost of 1x48 also made the decision easier. Rack space wont be a problem for us as we'll be buying a new rack which will naturally provide ample capacity for current and distant future expansion.

 

I'm not aware of any technical reasons why one should favour a 24port over a 48 (load balancing probably wont make any real noticeable difference here), but I guess you need to see what switches you will go for, and decide upon the price, space you have got and capacity required.

[gshaw]

After last night I've decided... 24s all the way!

 

Had a loopback issue with the current crappy cabling, diagnosing the fault was a bloody nightmare! First had to check the stack (Allied Telesyn switches blehh) then try to narrow down the ports.

 

Could barely get near the connections as the cables are in such a mess, after uplugging about 96 cables (yeah I know the 50% rule but didn't apply very well when you can't see what's being unplugged ) finally found the duff one

 

Can't wait until it's just a few fibers, much easier to diagnose that way!

[AlanD]

I always try to put switches in pairs and so would use a stack of 2x24 ports rather than 1x 48way. Then I always use a trunk/lag to feed them...and take trunks/lags off to any edge switch...and of course team network connections from servers into multiple core switches. This way any link between switches ..such as fibre module...can fail and network continues to operate. Even if a switch fails anywhere, network still works to edge swiches with only clients on failed switch that lose connectivity..

 

Needless to say, because I've gone to some trouble I've never had a switch fail....but it's good to know the redundancy is there.

[Blue_Cookeh]

We're ripping out all our 24 port switches and replacing them with 48 with PoE. Our cab space is becoming very limited in all our locations, so anything I can do to free up a U or two is happening!

 

Generally each switch will have two uplinks (two LACP bonds to give us x2 2Gb uplinks) to different switches in our network.

Edited September 16, 2017 by Blue_Cookeh

[AJWhite1970]

Ripped everything out here over the summer and went for a Unifi US-48 and a US-24POE switch in each cabinet with a 10G link back to a Unifi US-16-XG core switch. Made a big difference to performance.

 

To answer the question, personally if I could only choose one I'd go for a 48 port with POE capability, maximize expenditure while it's there as you may get to a time when 24 ports isn't enough and there is no money available to expand

[AlanD]

We're ripping out all our 24 port switches and replacing them with 48 with PoE. Our cab space is becoming very limited in all our locations, so anything I can do to free up a U or two is happening!

 

Generally each switch will have two uplinks (two LACP bonds to give us x2 2Gb uplinks) to different switches in our network.

 

...so make sure you can support 802.11at rather than the low power 802.11af - because most of the new "ac" access points (and even some of the older "n" multiple stream ones) don't run at full speed on the lower power. Yes - I know the "tech" specs will say 802.11af compatible on the box - but they "forget" to tell you that you don't get the full feature set if you only have the lower power.

 

...and yes, FWIW I subscribe to the 2xCACP bonds ...but I do prefer 2 x smaller switches in a stack with one of the cable/fibre bonds going to each switch to mitigate against failure.

[caffrey]

Depends on the cab, since moving to Ubiquiti the 48 ports are the only ones with sfp+ so If I want a 10Gbps backbone I need to install those and the majority of the time I only need a 24 port and a 24 port PoE. I could go just for a 48 port PoE but there's a big price difference.

Would be nice if Ubiquiti did 24 ports with sfp+

[gtranter]

At a school i support they have 2 data cabs with a fibre link between them (cab in both sides of the school).

Broadband is terminated in one cab and Server resides on the other cab.

 

i have a 48 port Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch in each cab with a 10Gb link joining them, Ubiquiti UAP-AC-PRO Access Points mounted in the middle of the ceiling in every classroom with shed loads of laptops and iPads.

 

Not had a single issue, Same can't be said with a similar school running a Meru system ...

[mtillbrook]

harder to make 48 port switches look tidy when patching but advantages over power (plug sockets) and data speed - depending on how you connect the links between 24 port switchs!

[Michael]

48 every time, 24 rarely (such as an end point cab). As others have pointed out, there isn't (to the best of my knowledge), a 24 port switch with SFP+

[Geoff]

48 every time, 24 rarely (such as an end point cab). As others have pointed out, there isn't (to the best of my knowledge), a 24 port switch with SFP+

 

https://www.amazon.com/HP-Procurve-E2620-24-J9623A-ABA/dp/B005XUE486

[Mark-wilde]

Besides HP series switches, there are several 24-port optical switches with SFP+ ports, e.g. S3800-24T4S from fs.com.

[PotNoodleTech]

Do you guys realise this thread is NINE years old??!!

[djm968]

Do you guys realise this thread is NINE years old??!!

 

LOL......

[southhamster]

So are some of my switches!

[fiza]

Slight tangent but do the new Aruba switches come with lifetime warranties same as the older HP Procure switches?

[njc235]

Slight tangent but do the new Aruba switches come with lifetime warranties same as the older HP Procure switches?

 

Yes they do. Product Warranties | Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company

[fsbilby]

48-port is good for future-proofing.

[CraigM]

Have started slowly deploying 48 port POE switches now to where it made the most sense. Most end points never had more than 24 connections planned, but with the addition of IP CCTV, Wi-Fi and some DECT base stations, we've gone over 24 port use in some locations. 48 port is more costly, but it does give us that bit of room to handle future changes.

[Mr_Jiminy]

What OS/UI comes with the Aruba/HP switches?

[CraigM]

What OS/UI comes with the Aruba/HP switches?

 

It's now called ArubaOS, but on the command line the interface is the same as always with HP switches. On the web UI side, Aruba has released a "next-gen" web interface that's a lot prettier than the old HP web UI (2620, 2530 initially etc) and doesn't use Java like the 2 generations ago web UI (2900, 2610, 2524 etc range switches)