Question What can i do with these switches?

[a59]

I'm getting these from my older brother in a couple of days, i'm not sure what i can do with them, i'm not familiar with network switches, can any be used as a router or for my PPPoE connection?

 

[bill001g]

Mostly they have a bunch of features you will never use. If you don't even know the feature you might use then you don't likely need them. Someone might use say vlans in a home but even that is very rare.

The bottom device is a router. It depends on the port configuration on the back as to what you can connect it to. You would want 2 gigabit ethernet ports.

A cisco router is extremely complex to configure. Most times they are not configured from a web screen you need to do the basic configurations with a console cable. They have so many optional features they are confusing because when you start you don't know which you need and which you can ignore.

The largest problem using most cisco routers on a home connection is they do not have hardware NAT assist. This is the most important feature for a home user but since these routers are not commonly used as a main internet router they do not have this feature. Depends on how fast your internet connectionis is. Used to be you could not get even 100mbps on these router because they use the CPU chip to do the nat.

Unless you really need some feature in the cisco router a home router is going to perform better and be easier to use. The cisco router also likely does not support wifi.

 

[a59]

Mostly they have a bunch of features you will never use. If you don't even know the feature you might use then you don't likely need them. Someone might use say vlans in a home but even that is very rare.

The bottom device is a router. It depends on the port configuration on the back as to what you can connect it to. You would want 2 gigabit ethernet ports.

A cisco router is extremely complex to configure. Most times they are not configured from a web screen you need to do the basic configurations with a console cable. They have so many optional features they are confusing because when you start you don't know which you need and which you can ignore.

The largest problem using most cisco routers on a home connection is they do not have hardware NAT assist. This is the most important feature for a home user but since these routers are not commonly used as a main internet router they do not have this feature. Depends on how fast your internet connectionis is. Used to be you could not get even 100mbps on these router because they use the CPU chip to do the nat.

Unless you really need some feature in the cisco router a home router is going to perform better and be easier to use. The cisco router also likely does not support wifi.

You're right, sounds like an overkill for a home use, just a PC and couple of phones. I'll probably put them on sale maybe there are people who collect those or have use for them in an office or something.

Thank you!