Good ethernet switches

[connortm]

I recently built several more servers and I have run out of ports on my router. I have always just used the ports available on my router so I have no clue about switches. I need a 16 port, 10/100/1000Mbps, managed ethernet switch and it needs to be good quality. If ya'll could point me in the right direction as far as brands/makes to choose/avoid that would be great.


Thanks.

 

[kanewolf]

The used HP and Dell switches on e-bay are a good way to get a 24 port managed switch.

 

[InvalidError]

If you have no clue about switches, you may want to ask yourself what you need a managed switch for. Unless you are using a fancy router, your router is just an SoC connected to an unmanaged switch IC over a GMII interface.

 

[boosted1g]

HP and Dell managed switches are pretty decent, only downside to buying them on ebay (at least with HP, I have no experience with dell) is that you loose all warranty.

If you mind me asking, why do you need a managed switch if you were just using a traditional router before?
If you don't need VLANs or Port Security there is really no reason to spend the premium on managed switchs

 

[skit75]

Netgear GSM7224. Nothing fancy and not very new but gets the job done. Also, there are plenty of used ones out there so price will be just right. What to look for in the listing..... make sure a Power ON test has been done at the very least. Seeing something about being reset to factory defaults is also nice. I believe these are discontinued(EoL) from Netgear. Should be able to find one for less than $100.00 on eBay

 

[connortm]

@invaliderror @boosted I am trying to learn since I am increasing the variation of things i'm doing including VLAN.

 

[boosted1g]

@invaliderror @boosted I am trying to learn since I am increasing the variation of things i'm doing including VLAN.

I see, well it also comes down to your router then.
Your router will have to directly support the managed switch (so be the same brand/family) or you will need a layer-3 switch. If you are not familiar with network topologies layer-3 gives it the ability to perform DHCP and thus actually setup/assign VLANS, while a layer-2 switch can only tag a port for a specific VLAN setup on the router.

 

[connortm]

@invaliderror @boosted I am trying to learn since I am increasing the variation of things i'm doing including VLAN.

I see, well it also comes down to your router then.
Your router will have to directly support the managed switch (so be the same brand/family) or you will need a layer-3 switch. If you are not familiar with network topologies layer-3 gives it the ability to perform DHCP and thus actually setup/assign VLANS, while a layer-2 switch can only tag a port for a specific VLAN setup on the router.

I did not know this, thank you very much.

 

[skit75]

FYI: The Netgear GSM7224 is Layer 2 switch.

 

[Kewlx25]

When I was looking into a managed switch, I heard a lot of people saying Netgear fails a lot. For cheap switches, I heard TP-Link is pretty good, but make sure you back-up your settings if you flash. The switch itself works well, but people saying the management interface is a bit sketchy.

 

[skit75]

When I was looking into a managed switch, I heard a lot of people saying Netgear fails a lot. For cheap switches, I heard TP-Link is pretty good, but make sure you back-up your settings if you flash. The switch itself works well, but people saying the management interface is a bit sketchy.

The Netgear blue box 12/24/48 port switches are ubiquitous. Because there are so many in use, they might have the appearance of some high failure rate but, if you don't want to pay Cisco prices & still want an easy interface with a managed switch, they are perfect. Perfect for learning on.

 

[Kewlx25]

When I was looking into a managed switch, I heard a lot of people saying Netgear fails a lot. For cheap switches, I heard TP-Link is pretty good, but make sure you back-up your settings if you flash. The switch itself works well, but people saying the management interface is a bit sketchy.

The Netgear blue box 12/24/48 port switches are ubiquitous. Because there are so many in use, they might have the appearance of some high failure rate but, if you don't want to pay Cisco prices & still want an easy interface with a managed switch, they are perfect. Perfect for learning on.

I am just going on second hand, but I've read quite a few stories where people had many different Netgear switches fail many times in a row getting replaced and eventually just went with another brand and never had an issue again.

There are a lot of long term people in some highly respected forums, like Arstechnica or PFSense, that swear Netgear is one of the worst, complaints of locking up under load and complete failures are common complaints.

In my searching the Internet for a cheap L2 managed switch, Netgear is the only such brand that I have regularly seen complaints uniformly across all forums. Even DLink, which has a lot of switches that don't support full line rate, got better remarks.

Like I said, not first hand, unless someone is trying to smear them. I personally went with HP. Nothing flashy, not a lot of features, but full speed and no complaints about the switches reliability or performance.