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[benn600]

I'm going to want to transition to a nice, managed, very large switch of probably 48-ports, gigabit.  Now I'm probably going to need right around 24 ports for everything I connect to the network and a lot of those devices are 100 Mbit only.  So, I could just get a 24 port gigabit and 24 port 100 Mbit but it seems like it would be better to just get a 48-port gigabit switch.

Now I found this Netgear:
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=698653

It looks like just what I want and is $750.  Unfortunately, the reviews are pretty bad.  What is the cheapest 48-port managed gigabit switch I can buy that has good reviews and doesn't have dying ports and fans?  That's already very expensive.  I saw a $2K(+) Cisco switch but I'm not spending that much.

[GHammer]

Look at HP ProCurve

[benn600]

I found this 24-port gigabit HP Procurve.
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1248948

Unfortunately, I think I'll be using right around 24 ports and obviously need extra ports available.  That's a reasonable ~$400.  I found a 48-port switch--also Procurve--but it was only 100Mbps!  I really need gigabit across the board.

Where is the next step up that just adds more ports?  I'd be willing to pay up to $1,000 I think.  Otherwise, I'll just settle for the Netgear $750 solution...maybe.  I don't want to regret the purchase!

[GHammer]

You are not going to find 48 Gb ports for that budget. The network fabric would kill you.
You could go with 2 24 port with the ability to link to another 24 port when you need it.
A very capable 24 port ProCurve is:
http://tinyurl.com/yyzrvm

Should be able to one for around US$400 or so.

[benn600]

So double the ports can't equal double the price?  What is the jump and why is it so great?  It was looking like $2,000 or more for a 48-port gigabit ProCurve.

Now I'm not against two switches but if they are managed, which I have never had/used/seen before, wouldn't that get confusing because there would be configuration on both switches?  It seems like it would be better to have just one switch.

Now a lot of my devices are only 10/100.  I'll probably get around 24 total things but 10-15 or more are only 10/100 like my security cams, network printers, etc.  However, it would be nice to just have a full 48 ports of gigabit goodness.

The $750 Netgear 48-port gigabit switch seemed good except had very poor reviews.  Ports kept dying, fans would go out, and other strange things would happen.  Why is it that an 8-port gigabit switch seems to work fine for $50.  That would yield a cost of $300 for 48-ports.  Now more than double that and it's worse?  I've never lost a port on any of my cheap 100 or gigabit switches...although one entire switch did die, which surprised me.  It's our first EVER 100 Mbit switch that we probably got in 2000.  Plus, I had unplugged it for some reason and I don't think it came back on...could be something to do with the lightning storm we were having.

I tend to have good luck with computer equipment not dying, in general...  Such as--I've really never had a hard drive die--even in my 16-drive RAID6 array which has been up (except for restarts that I called) for over 2 months now and 10 of those drives are 6-14 months old (bought spread over some time).

But I just wonder--if I got the Netgear would I regret it?!  What about Linksys?  They are good too!  I'm going to price theirs.  But believe me, I remember reading about how bad their high-end products are.

[benn600]

Well, this looks like the least expensive HP ProCurve 48-port switch:
http://www.buy.com/prod/hp-procurve-2810-48g-managed-ethernet-switch-48-x-10-100-1000base-t/q/loc/101/202937170.html

Why is there such as jump adding double ports?  Between the other 24-port switch I posted and this one, is it JUST adding ports?  It's a different model number so I doubt that.  What else is it adding?  What kind of features will I notice with the managed system?  I have never used a managed switch before so this will be a new experience.

[newsposter]

as you add more ports, the arp tables and packet switching becomes more complex.  Horribly so if you insist on running a single flat network.

It is NOT just a matter of adding 10 cent RJ45 jacks and another dollar each of glue electronics.  The internal cpu, memory, crossbar data switches and firmware all have to be more robust to handle the possibility of 48x2 (duplex) gigabit conversations.

This is why anyone who really knows networking starts to break things down into subnets, either with subnet masks or different class C segments.  Going with more manageable sub-sets of the overall network layout really simplifies the human-machine design and management interaction and lets you get by with less expensive equipment instead of trying to brute-force solutions in terms of dollars spent and bit-banging potential inside of the boxes.

This art-not-science is one of the core competencies that lets Certified Cisco Engineers earn well over $100k a year and what separates poseurs from people who know the concepts and business instead of just the vocabulary.

[GHammer]

If you want to have multiple audio and/or video streams you will not get the job done with cheap switches. Now, I have a hard time seeing 48 Gb ports in a house, but I'm used to 70 m2 4 room flats.

I have a D-Link broadband router that works just fine for its intended use.

I'd never consider them for an actual switch that carries lots of traffic. Same for the rest of the consumer brands. HP and Cisco make some of the best, lowcost commercial grade gear and there is a reason it is pricy. It works.

I used ProCurves to feed a VoIP lab and we could pump 1000s of calls a minute through the building. And carry the normal damin/server traffic. VLANs are a wonderful thing as is subnetting.

But no, you are not going to get a 48 port box for 400-500, stick wires into it and be pleased with the service you get.

[benn600]

I was asking for a 48-port switch for double the price of the 24-port version, $400 * 2 = ~$800 or so.

We will need around 25 ports because we have a lot of random network devices and I plan on getting a network thermostat and some other home automation devices that will hopefully attach to the network.  Some house-wide telephone systems can even connect to the network and let you check weather, email, etc. on them.

Many of the devices are only 100 Mbit so I could get a 24 port 100 Mbit switch, too.

Either I should get 2 of the 24-port HP Procurve switches totaling less than $900
Or the Netgear 48-port for $700.

What are the disadvantages to having two switches and connecting them?  I understand the bandwidth limitation with only a single cable connecting the two but what about the management side?  Do you have to manage them separately or can they be managed together?  What types of management are available with such a switch?  What does stackable mean--that they can be connected to add more ports?  Perhaps two HP's would be the better choice?  I should have plenty of rack space.  At this moment, I only have my 4U server and most racks are 20 U or so.

[newsposter]

There are 'breeds' of network switches that have dedicated interconnects that actually extend the internal 'mesh' of crossbar switches and cpu/memory pretty effectivly.  Those are the kinds of switches you are going to want to invest in to obtain and maintain full network throughput.

HP & Cisco makes these, so do/did 3Com and many others.

But I seriously doubt that you need that many gigabit network paths.

Set up your house with 2-3 subnets and in your storage/streaming servers, dedicate a network card (Intel chipsets, remember!) to each sub-net.  Run GigE from the servers to the switches needed for each subnet.  Maybe add another gigE subnet for dedicated inter-server communications.

Then run 100/full to each end-user desktop.

If you can get your servers streaming with gigE into each subnet, then the end-user machines will be more than happy with 100 meg.

This way you can get by with using 16 port 100 meg switches that happen to have 1 or 2 gigE uplinks.  Use those gigE uplinks to connect to a single, very intelligent, 8 port gigE switch.  Use the 16 port 100 meg switches as 'departmental' switches dedicated to each of your in-house subnets.  Put any wireless service onto it's own sub net too; this makes managing security and DHCP pools very easy.

You do not have to use bitmasking to set up subnets.  Just pick 2-3 class C ranges and assign them to the individual subnets served by dedicated switches.  You also do not have to get into using Vlans to split things out like this.  Vlans are nice in that they can be used to carve up a very capable switch (in terms of throughput and packet handling) up into many smaller virtual switches.  But not all switch hardware that is able to config via Vlans will support them properly.  Sometimes using Vlans in a switch can cause severe throughput problems, so much so that it's better to use simpler/cheaper switches and go with multiple Class C address ranges instead of trying to be all fancy with virtual lans.

Simple is easier to manage, generally faster, and almost universally cheaper.

Think of gigE as your trunking circuits and 100 meg as your last mile delivery circuits.  For home automation stuff and even IP Voice 100 meg is overkill.  You could easily go with an older, used 10 meg switch/hubs for those lines.  Spend your money on speed where it's needed.  The money saved on appropriate speeds can be used elsewhere, bigger UPS, more in-wall terminals/desktops, etc, etc.

This is why each of the many 'network points' in my house are all wired with cat5e but most of them have 100 meg into them (very little gigE outside of the mechanical room).  With proper trunking and subnet design it's just not necessary.

You'll also have to start to understand the implications of running your network ports on auto-negotiate vs locking them in at whatever speed is desired.  It's NOT ALWAYS a good idea to lock in speeds espec. if you are mixing different brands of network cards and switches.

See how you can save a lot of $$ by understanding the big picture and having a decent network design.

[benn600]

Now I do want gigabit to my computers, though.  My main desktop has gigabit and I definitely need the speed because video editing (miniDV footage) requires about 11% of a gigE connection, which would be 110% of 100 Mbit.

I really don't want to mess with subnets and all that extraneous networking configuration.  I use IPCop right now and simply have a lot of MAC addresses setup to use certain IP addresses so I get static IPs without having to configure them at each device.

I have to use 2 because my modem is strange and takes over 1:
I have my computers at 192.168.2.99 and less.
My main server is 192.168.2.2
My dsl modem is 192.168.2.1
My printers are 192.168.2.100 -> 109
Media boxes (MP101) .110 -> 119
Wireless Access Points .120 -> .129
Cameras .130 -> .139

Say I got two of the HP 24-port switches for $400.  That would be $800, a very reasonable price for high end Procurve switches and port to price ratio.  I then connect them together via a single gigabit cable.  Then, everything that needs higher bandwidth, even including any 100 Mbit computers, will be attached to the first switch so it gets more bandwidth.  The lower end devices, such as our security cameras, printers, wireless access points, home automation things, etc., could be attached to the second switch.  They would then all be sharing that single gigabit connection but that wouldn't matter at all because I sincerely doubt it would ever even hit 100 Mbits total!  The cameras hardly take a percent of 100 Mbit (four of them), printers--big deal, I wait an extra half second to transfer my large document.  The printer is the bottleneck!  And wireless, right now we're at G so that's 54 Mbits (MAX).  I've got 1000 to work with.

I would rather not even buy a 100 Mbit switch at this point because $400 doesn't seem bad for price at all.  Remember that it will be a rare occurrence that there will be three simultaneous users!  Okay, I guess it could get to 5 or more with company.  But, in many cases, there will only be a few people accessing the server.  And streaming a DVD takes NOTHIN'!  I had 13 simultaneous DVD streams going from my server without any hiccups at all.  And on 100 Mbit I still got around 8 if I'm not mistaken.  I sincerely doubt I would ever need more than 2 or 3 DVD streams at once--this is more of a proof of concept.  We don't even have enough TVs!  I was running them all in VLC on one computer.

I don't think I'm anywhere near the insufficient bandwidth problem.  If I've got 23 full gigabit ports why would I bother plugging things into a 100 Mbit switch if I'm not out of ports?  (24th for second gigabit switch).  That's another issue.  If I'm right at 24 ports, I don't need a second switch but then when I need another port, I'll have to unplug something or wait for another switch.  That's why I really need to start with 48-ports.  Remember this is simply a personal place of residence (home) and not a business in any way.  I just happen to have quite a few ethernet devices (4 printers, 4 cameras, 2 wireless access points, 4 MP101's, TiVo, etc) so I need lots of ports but at low cost.

My main concern is that the switch could introduce issues.  I was using two D-Link 8-port gigabit switches ($50) and they were introducing severe problems into network activity.  Using two computers would cause severe stuttering video.  As soon as I took them out and went back to my 100 Mbit switches, everything ran fine.  So the switches can introduce big problems, obviously!  I just hadn't ever had 100 Mbit switch issues so it took me a while to start diagnosing the switches as problematic.

[newsposter]

Taking your bad experiences with two junk DLink 'switches' and transposing that into the use of two HP/Cisco/3Com switches is wholly incorrect.

If you are going to dismiss good, competent network design in favor of a brute force spend of $$ then go for it.

[benn600]

The fact of the matter is that I need 24 or 48 ports.  $400 is the least expensive Procurve.  I seem to be brute forcing with the cheapest equipment I can find.

I'm not quite understanding why there needs to be design involved in a tiny network like this.  In a large corporation where they have hundreds or thousands of computers it is vital.  If I had 3 computers and a D-Link security camera, I wouldn't design the network structure and add subnets...I'd just buy a $30 Linksys router.  Here, I'm more midstream, requiring more capable hardware but still while managing a small home network.

Part of my trouble is that I don't quite understand exactly what everything you said earlier means or how it would better my networking layout.  If I add additional subnets, how does that help things?  One subnet can hold over 250 IP addresses, correct?  I have around 25 or so so I'm at 1/10th capacity using one subnet.

[GHammer]

With a proper switch, subnetting keeps traffic running only on ports that serve that subnet. No need to push all traffic to all ports. But, simply limiting broadcast traffic will do wonders if you don't want to subnet. A commercial grade switch has the option to limit broadcast traffic.

On the one hand, you say you have to have 48 Gb ports because (I missed the why actually).
On the other hand you say your traffic would never require subnetting/VLANs, etc.

As for the connection of two switches, I simply use 1 or two ports for trunking and be done with it. There are switches that have special interconnects, but they are pricy as a rule and I've not had a need for them yet.

I'd recommend looking over these:
http://tinyurl.com/2y3cvt
http://tinyurl.com/2z9hvy

Especially the 'why' portions. You may find you have no need now, but if you do use 48 ports and have many devices active, you'll need it sooner or later.

[newsposter]

Make that much sooner than later.

The way ip addresses are jammed into a single class C with no attention to 16/24 subnetting or even address boundaries is going to make it impossible to reconfigure without tearing the whole thing down, readdressing everything, and starting from scratch.

[benn600]

So if I see flashes on all network ports simultaneously at random intervals, I am probably seeing broadcast traffic?  I personally don't like it simply because it makes it more difficult to see what traffic is taking place between computers.

Now isn't the purpose of a switch vs. a hub to send traffic only to the recipient?  You're saying that subnets do that as well?  I remember hubs, lol.  Our first networking equipment in our house EVER was a D-Link, probably 5 port, 10 Mb single-duplex.  I remember installing Monopoly on one computer over the network which was accessing the files from the CD drive on our second computer.  That impressed me beyond belief.  My how far things have advanced at this household...I rarely use CDs or DVDs EVER.  They're just all stored on the server now!

I do not need 48 gigabit ports.  I just thought it would simplify things having a SINGLE switch instead of two or more.  And when you get a single switch, I don't believe I've seen a 48 port switch with half 100M and half 1000M ports so I just assumed all gigabit ports would do the trick.

I can't see having more than 48 ethernet devices for quite a while unless I find some new house-hold device that uses ethernet and that we've gotta have in every room!  My plan is to keep pretty much everything in the server room on UPS devices so I would think one switch would average lower power usage than two switches.  Anything to lower power requirements will simply mean longer runtime in power failures.

Off Topic UPS Paragraph
I've already got two 1500 VA APC units.  I think one will go for the switch(es), DSL modem, and IPCop computer.  It should power all that for 30 minutes or so.  Then, the other will be used for a house-wide battery backup circuit (this is eventual, not yet!) that will power cameras in special in-wall units that have exterior shaded windows for the cameras, the house-wide phone system, and any other smaller devices that are plugged into the circuit.  Then, I would like to buy a larger unit for the main server.  I get 18 minutes on the 1500 VA units so I would like to double that if it's not too expensive.

Thank you for all your assistance.  I'll read those articles and keep everything you said in mind.  With my general requirement of ~30 ports with ~10 needing gigabit, what hardware would you suggest buying?  I would like inexpensive but good quality.  Also, are there any places I could go to see the HP Procurve managed interface?  What kind of settings are there?  I'd really like to see what the interface looks like.

[newsposter]

As far a powering remote cameras, you are far better off with PoE devices instead of trying to plumb an isolated 110v line to every place you could possibly want/need a camera.

[horse]

Benn600,

Sounds like you should look at some stackables and get a 24 port 10/100/1000 for the server and PC's and a much cheaper 24 port 10/100 for the other devices that will never require more than a few K of bandwidth anyway. Then stack them so they are managed like a single unit. I don't know the Dell and HP switches, I mainly use Cisco equipment. Alternativley get a managed 10/100/100 for the PC's and just plug in a unmanaged 10/100 24 port for the "other" stuff.
If your installing IP camera's, as newposter mentions, PoE is much simpler (and safer), just ensure the switch can handle the power class of products and quantity you need. Some don't have the PSU's to handle it on all ports.
Also note, PoE+ is comming and supplies at least double the power for devices needing it. i.e. Pan and Tilt camera's.
My camera's are low voltage (Consumer Swann models) and hence are powered using a combo cable (power / video / sound) from the central location. Not IP.

If you want to get fancy, get a Layer 3 switch to route between multiple VLAN's to seperate the traffic. If you want you can have multiple sub interfaces on your PC by enabling .1Q

I use 6 Vlans, mainly because of wirless and public address space that needs to be available at different locations and still provide a level of seperation / security. That and because I could :-)

The Voice is for the IP Phones, powered via PoE (802.3af)

Vlan 1 - Private wired 192.168.1.0/24
Vlan 2 - Private Wireless 192.168.2.0/24 WPA2
Vlan 3 - Private Wireless 192.168.3.0/24 WEP128
Vlan 4 - Public wired and wirless bridged xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/28 WPA2
Vlan 100 - Private Wired Voice 10.0.0.0/24