In article , Atul Tyagi wrote: :We have a small network of about 70 machines (mostly development and :testing Servers).
:Here we are using Cisco catalyst 1900 switch to connect to :workstations and Catalyst 2900 and two D Link switches to connect to :servers.
:Cisco Catalyst delivers 10Mbps. We wish to replace this switch with :10/100Mbps switch.
The Cisco 1900 series used to be advertised as non-blocking wirespeed, but the hard figures given (370 Mbps, 550000 pps aggregate) don't add up to wirespeed when one takes full duplex into account.
12 or 24 by 10BaseT plus 2 by 100 BaseT is the equivilent of
3.2 or 4.4 by 100 BaseT; 370 Mbps divided by 3.2 or 4.4 divided by
2 (full duplex operations) gives less than 100 Mbps available throughput per 100 BaseT equivilent.
The Cisco 2926 is oversubscribed even more. 1 million pps, but it is 2 x 100 BaseT plus 24 x 10/100 BaseT. With only twice the pps performance of the 1900 and with 26 port-equivilents instead of
3.2 or 4.4, the per-port performance is going to be substantially worse.
:Any suggestions as to which make (Cisco/Nortal/D-Link) should we go :for?
:Price will be a big factor?
How many ports do you need of what speeds? What sustained performance level is necessary? Managed or unmanaged?
Is there a need for multicast snooping? A need to be able to span/mirror ports?
How long of a warrantee is important and would you consider buying an older workhorse box off of eBay?
Is it important whether the device setup be GUI, character-menu, or CLI?
What is your comfort level in setting up more complicated boxes -- if a box is inexpensive but has software that would leave you scratching what was left of your hair after you'd pulled it out, then would you buy that over a more expensive box that is easy to operate?
If you are looking for a box which is managed, pretty reliable, fairly easy to operate, which can handle typical end-user stations with no problem but which might start to give out a bit when you start getting enough traffic that you should be considering taking some of your ports to gigabit, and you don't mind that it is not current generation, then I would suggest that you consider a Nortel Baystack 450-24T, which you can get refurb for about $US310 from vendors, probbably noticably less on eBay.
If you are wanting to skip 10/100 and go right to gigabit nominal port speeds, money is very tight but your time is "free"; and you have a good supply of bandages around and an even bigger supply of patience, then there are a number of new gigabit devices out from obscure brands or from companies such as Netgear. Remember that "you get what you pay for", so if you buy a $300 24 port gigabit box, don't expect well-designed user interfaces, nor SNMP management, nor useful technical support people. (We bought a device like that. Getting it to work as advertised was costing us more in my time than it was worth, so we rejected it and we will buy a Cisco box at 5 times the retail price.)