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What Switch should I get?

Tags:
  • BT
  • NAS / RAID
  • Switch
  • Ethernet Card
  • Internet
Last response: in Networking
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September 24, 2014 3:22:00 PM

It's really a simple question, with WAY too many answers; and I don't need a ton of technical reasons (frankly, because I don't understand half of them). I know I want to move to 16-Port, but Smart? Managed? TP-Link? Netgear? Etc? Price matters, but if we're talking $50 vs performance - I'll take the performance 8 days a week. I plan on buying from NCIX Canada, or Amazon US (depending on the price difference, which is usually very little).

Here's what I have (and their primary network needs):
DSL Router & simple Hub: (4 & 8 Ports)
My system: LOT of Internet & BT (local DL, completion moving to a NAS) & scheduled Backups. Dual-Ethernet ports
GF system: Internet, rudimentary fileshare with my system. Dual-Ethernet ports
QNAP NAS: Integrated/downloadable BT software is disappointing, so really just a specialized BT HDD enclosure and backup device now [:-( Does have Dual-Ethernet ports
Access Point: Wireless upstairs, hardlined into the basement switch(G-Bit)
2x Printer: Xerox Colorqube(G-Bit) & a multi-function device(10/100)
2x PS3: (10/100), plus one more Wireless thu the AP
Spare port: Used to run a cable into my system-build room

So that makes 13 total connections - hence the 16-port model. However, with Dual Ethernet on both desktop systems, and the NAS - I could link one Dual from each of the three directly into the DSL Router, using all 4 ports (including the link to the Switch) on that device to be dedicated to Internet traffic, and then a 12-Port Switch solution would work for pure system-to-system transfer.

I would prefer a 1-row setup if possible (for better labeling & organization), but only have 9" width to work with in my current cabinet.

So there's my config - what do you experts say I should get, and how should I set it up?

More about : switch

September 24, 2014 5:13:11 PM

You want to keep all you equipment that needs high speed transfer between each other on the same switch. Obviously if you dsl router is only 100m then you will bottle neck any traffic coming from a lan port on the dsl to a device on the switch. If everything is gig then it is not as big a issue.

You likely do not even want to think about using both ports on dual nic equipment. First you need a managed switch that support 802.3ad. This will increase you costs quite a bit compared to a simple unmanged switch. Still even if you would manage to get all the bonding setup correctly in all your equipment it is not actually designed to work in a environment like you have. It does not actually load balance over both connections. Although overly simplified what it does is if say both the source and destination mac addresses are even it uses the first cable. If they are both odd it uses the second cable. It will never actually use both cable for a single session. If you are very unlucky it will use a single cable for all your machines and leave the other unused. This really only works well when you have a very large number of machines accessing a single central server. It is almost no longer used in larger installation for increasing bandwidth because it is simpler to just put in 10g interfaces.

I would just get pretty much any unmanged switch that has the correct number of ports and will fit in your rack. There is not a huge difference between them. The only feature to watch for is if they state the total backplane speed. On a 24 port switch you want 48g. This assume all 24 ports can transmit and receive 1g all at the same time. It is of course unrealistic to even think you could do that but it is a indicator of a switch that is higher performance than one that can not run all ports at full speed. You will find only a small handful that do not claim to run at full wire speed.
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September 24, 2014 5:16:10 PM

Gigabit switches are basically similar in performance. The extra costs are for things like managed vs unmanaged. If you want to do link aggregation (two network ports on a single device acting as double the bandwidth) then you really need some kind of managed switch. There are full managed switches -- they have web interfaces and also usually have a command line interface. There are smart managed switches -- they are kind of "managed lite" switches. They usually only have a web interface or they may even require a client on your PC.

9 inch wide is pretty small for a 16 port switch. Most of them are 19 inch wide (standard rack width). I don't have a recommendation that would fit in that space.
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September 24, 2014 9:50:26 PM

So let's say I wanted to play with a smart switch what brand is the best way to go. What would be thre difference between a $110 Smart and a $150 Smart from the same manufacturer (or Managed for $175, which I don't want to get into, because I don't do command-line stuff). What brand is the best bang for the buck with the best GUI interface (a bad interface is a fatal flaw to me).
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September 25, 2014 4:39:34 AM

You really only have 2 types of switches. Unmanged ones and varies levels of managed ones. The unmanaged ones pretty much are all the same. They pass traffic in one port and send it out another. Managed just mean you can configure it and even high end cisco ones have gui....but nobody actually uses it.
If you are going to buy a managed switch you really need to know WHY you are buying it. You need to know which feature you plan to use and how it will benefit you. Does it really matter if your switch support multi instance spanning tree when you only have a single switch and do not even use vlans to begin with.
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September 25, 2014 9:42:32 AM

Because, simply put, I need a new switch anyway, and might as well go 16 (over 12). So if I'm going to spend 80-90 on a "Dumb" replacement, I might as well look at a 110-150 "Smart" one instead. There is never any point in buying obsolescence, and 10G is WAY out of the price range. If there are even one or two settings that can boost performance, than it's worth it to me. And I want to at least play with the Dual port and data pathing - if it's worthless/negative, I can just pull the cord, easy... So again, please, what brand tends to have the best GUI/software, and be the best purchase for a SOHO user.
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September 25, 2014 10:00:42 AM

I have no clue which has the best GUI since I use almost all commercial grade equipment when it comes to doing stuff like this. The hard part is not actually the configuration it is understanding what the options all mean and that will be no different if you use a gui or a command line.

The only switch that is not commercial that I have ever used to do port aggregation was TL-SG2216. This one does lacp which many end user device require to bond ports correctly.

I suspect very strongly you will find your equipment will bottleneck well before it even gets to 1g but its your money to waste I guess.
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