There are also great 8port switches which I know for certain support jumbo frames. If I get two is it the same as one 16port switch? How do I connect them? Any information would be great. I plan on hooking up my consoles perhaps and a print server as well. If you could recommend me a great wireless (G with wireless-N future capability maybe?) print server on the cheap, that'd be helpful too. Thanks again, to anyone who responds!
One more thing, there's also some advertised as being "copper." Does this mean they just run cooler or dissipate heat better?
You could get 8 port switches and connect them with a cross over cable, unless they have MDX ports (auto-crossover), in that case you can use a standard cable instead. If you pursue that path, you will loose 1 port on each switch, giving you an effective 14 port switch. The other thing you will loose is speed between the two switches; 1 16 portswitch will, in general, have a greater non-blocking backplane bandwidth than 2x8 port switches. (I can describe this more if you want.)
edit:
Never mind
The other thing is the '5-4-3 rule' for networking might come into play. You can only cascade so many devices on a network before having problems.
{Router}--{Gigabit switch}--{Gigabit switch}--{wireless access point}
I never really understood if this applied to switched networks or just 'hubs'
Can't help you with a wireless print server, my experience is with wired. I have a built in printserver on my OKI 5150 (works great) and prior had a Intel 3 port print server connected to a HP 5L (old laser -worked good) and a HP 11x17 inkjet (worked but was a PITA) I would recomend avoiding wireless and get a wired device (preferably built into the printer), may save you many headaches.
Copper just means they use copper cabling as noted above, fiber (or rare now, coax) are the other options. Fiber is common enough with gigabit to need to differentiate.
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