 JTCAlways Mount A Scratch Monkey
join:2002-01-09
USA | ...Or am I just being too cheap? Continuing on from my, ahem, less than good experience with D-Link and their 'support' for what is supposed to be their 'enterprise' level switches, I'm looking at other devices for my rack/lab at home.
The current contenders are a powerconnect 5324 or procurve 2824.
Normally, all things being equal, I'd jump on the 2824 in a heatbeat, but in this case, the HP would mean an approx 100 dollar US price premium.
Asking Mr. Google and checking with some of my cow-orkers, I'm not finding much that paints the Dell in a bad light. I know that I get what I pay for, but still, 100 dollars is a 100 dollars.
What say you? Is it worth the extra 100? Or am I just being too bleeding cheap?
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All hardware sucks, all software sucks, some just suck more than others |
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| I don't consider anything with a Linksys, Netgear, DLink, or Belkin label to be "Enterprise grade".
That said, I've only ever seen one Dell Powerconnect switch fail, and we have a lot of them in the field. I think they all have a lifetime warranty now, too. |
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 Wily_OnePremium
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA | said by lorennerol:I don't consider anything with a Linksys, Netgear, DLink, or Belkin label to be "Enterprise grade". Same here.
JTC, what is the purpose of this rack/lab? Just to provide networking for your house, or are you using this for self-study? If the latter, I'd say get some used Cisco gear. (I'm saying used only to save some money - if you have lots of money get NEW Cisco gear.  ) |
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mikefxu
join:2004-10-05
Titusville, FL
1 edit | reply to JTC
Have a Netgear Prosafe GS748TS 48-Port Gigabit Switch that has been in service for 2 years now, no problems at all. Bought it for $500 new on ebay. Prosafe series has lifetime warranty, what ever that is worth. Formerly had some 3Com switches that were in service since 1999, only got rid of because of Gigabit needs. Have four of the 24 port 3Coms sitting on the shelf in case the Netgear takes a shit.
»www.netgear.com/business/product···8ts.aspx
»www.netgear.com/warranty
I have limited exposure to various products but I contributed my two cents. |
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 PToN
join:2001-10-04
Houston, TX | reply to JTC
A switch is not just a switch. You need to establish what you want. Yes, you can get that switch and connect all you clients, then you realize you dont have any port security, or much more important, you find out that it doesnt support DHCP relay.
But i guess you know your environment better than we do so you may have thought of all this. |
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| reply to JTC
Agree with previous posters -- what do you want / expect from an "enterprise" class switch?
Short version is in this day and age the switch hardware itself is commodity, it's both the features
and support that make a switch "enterprise" IMHO. Some features I'd consider "enterprise" include
(P)VLANs, SPANs, POE, trunking, stacking, etherchannel, CoS, GBIC / SFP / fiber connectivity, 10Gbe
uplinks, etc. Support-wise, what did you want, (limited) lifetime warranty with 24 x 7 x 4 SLA?
Just my 00000010bits
Regards |
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 DarkLogixPremium
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX
kudos:3 | reply to lorennerol
said by lorennerol:I don't consider anything with a Linksys, Netgear, DLink, or Belkin label to be "Enterprise grade".
That said, I've only ever seen one Dell Powerconnect switch fail, and we have a lot of them in the field. I think they all have a lifetime warranty now, too.
Agreed, if its Linksys, D-link, Netgear, Dell, or belkin then its automaticly not Enterprise grade, its at best nice consumer grade |
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gudelSystem LordPremium
join:2004-06-03
USA | reply to JTC
don't be cheap!
we like our procurve 2800's.  |
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 techjoePremium
join:2004-02-20
Warrenville, IL
kudos:1
 ·MegaPath
 ·Sprint Mobile Br..
 ·Comcast
| reply to lorennerol
said by lorennerol:I don't consider anything with a Linksys, Netgear, DLink, or Belkin label to be "Enterprise grade".
That said, I've only ever seen one Dell Powerconnect switch fail, and we have a lot of them in the field. I think they all have a lifetime warranty now, too.
IIRC the old Dell PowerConnect were NetGear, rebadged (garbage). The newer stuff (last 2-3 years?) is now Juniper.
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Baka wa shinanakya naoranai |
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JTCAlways Mount A Scratch Monkey
join:2002-01-09
USA | reply to Wily_One
said by Wily_One:said by lorennerol:I don't consider anything with a Linksys, Netgear, DLink, or Belkin label to be "Enterprise grade". Same here. JTC, what is the purpose of this rack/lab? Just to provide networking for your house, or are you using this for self-study? If the latter, I'd say get some used Cisco gear. (I'm saying used only to save some money - if you have lots of money get NEW Cisco gear. ) A little bit of both actually. Between running my own mail server and such, I host some svn repos for some community mod projects, as well as work on and with various things that may be useful for my day job.
As much as I would like to be able to get my hands on cisco kit, 24 port gige full managed from cisco is a bit out of my price range. The procurve I found for around 250 is pushing the upper limit of my small budget for this, which makes the dell at around 150 (with similar, if not somewhat better, specs on paper) look like a good alternative.
The few reviews and forums that I have found mentioning the dell seem to be mixed, which matches what I have found asking the guys here with more network experience than I have.
I'm not expecting to be saturating the links (well, not for a while anyway, the NAS isn't big enough for that yet), but I also don't want to drop the money on something and find out it's another FPOS, which is a chance with the PE. But some of the older ones ones are reported to be pretty good as well, hence my post looking for anyone else with experience dealing with these things. 
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All hardware sucks, all software sucks, some just suck more than others |
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JTCAlways Mount A Scratch Monkey
join:2002-01-09
USA | reply to PToN
said by PToN:A switch is not just a switch. You need to establish what you want. Yes, you can get that switch and connect all you clients, then you realize you dont have any port security, or much more important, you find out that it doesnt support DHCP relay.
But i guess you know your environment better than we do so you may have thought of all this. I have, which is why I'm wanting to add another managed switch to the rack. Otherwise, I'd just pick up a desktop switch (or a pair if I couldn't find anything more than eight ports) and duct tape them to the rack and call it done.
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All hardware sucks, all software sucks, some just suck more than others |
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JTCAlways Mount A Scratch Monkey
join:2002-01-09
USA | reply to techjoe
said by techjoe:said by lorennerol:I don't consider anything with a Linksys, Netgear, DLink, or Belkin label to be "Enterprise grade".
That said, I've only ever seen one Dell Powerconnect switch fail, and we have a lot of them in the field. I think they all have a lifetime warranty now, too.
IIRC the old Dell PowerConnect were NetGear, rebadged (garbage). The newer stuff (last 2-3 years?) is now Juniper. I've seen SMC bandied about as the ODM as well.
Basically, I'm just trying to get some opinions on if the dell powerconnect line lives up to it's rep of being a glorified desktop switch that is going to eat packets if put under load or not.
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All hardware sucks, all software sucks, some just suck more than others |
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techjoePremium
join:2004-02-20
Warrenville, IL
kudos:1 Reviews:
·MegaPath
·Sprint Mobile Br..
·Comcast
| The newer stuff isn't bad. I wouldn't bother with the older Dell switches though, IMHO.
Have you tried posting in the For Sale/Trade forum? I scored a 48 port gig Cisco Catalyst for like $150 a while back that's still going strong.
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Baka wa shinanakya naoranai |
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 joakoPremium
join:2000-09-07
/dev/null
kudos:5 | reply to JTC
HP is backed by their awesome lifetime warranty.
Dell warranty is junk. Had a PC that was failing, with a "NBD" onsite warranty. Took over a week and I ended up installing the parts myself.
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PRescott7-2097 |
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JTCAlways Mount A Scratch Monkey
join:2002-01-09
USA | said by joako:HP is backed by their awesome lifetime warranty.
Dell warranty is junk. Had a PC that was failing, with a "NBD" onsite warranty. Took over a week and I ended up installing the parts myself. Dell 'support' has often produced amazingly accurate examples of the term 'field circus' from what I have seen.
From what I have been able to gather, it seems to me that 'older' Dell switches are more-or-less junk with the newer ones being OK.
Newer Dell switches apparently use Broadcom silicon, older ones use Marvel. Procurve have used and still use Broadcom.
I think that my question is answered: yes, I'm being too cheap by considering the Dell.  Thanks for the input everyone, it's appreciated.
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All hardware sucks, all software sucks, some just suck more than others |
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| Is there a list someplace regarding which Dell models are considered to be "newer" and "older"? |
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JTCAlways Mount A Scratch Monkey
join:2002-01-09
USA | said by daveinpoway:Is there a list someplace regarding which Dell models are considered to be "newer" and "older"?
I just searched for dell powerconnect chipset and found a list of what switching fabric was used for the models.
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All hardware sucks, all software sucks, some just suck more than others |
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| Thanks. |
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