RECOMMENDATIONS New switch in small office

[AndyInNYC]

I'm looking for a 16 port switch for a friend's office. I think I'd like QOS in case their office grows to the point where it saturates their network/internet line (not anytime soon)

The phone system is connecting via OpenVPN, so I don't know how the traffic can be managed. They are a start up and a little cost sensitive, so I don't want to suggest a Rolls Royce if an Audi will suffice.

Is this Cisco switch a decent choice:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...gabit_unmanaged_switch-_-33-150-154-_-Product

Or this Netgear:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ..._port_unmanaged_switch-_-33-122-057-_-Product

Thanks for the help.
Andrew

 

[atsak]

No unmanaged switches will offer proper QoS - you'll need to come up with one that is managed for that. However, if you buy an unmanaged gigabit switch, you'll likely have no issues with saturation on anything up to a couple hundred users, at least in my experience. This will probably be cheaper and give lots of overhead.

I do not like the small business series Cisco's I have had trouble with the ARP table on them. The Netgear's are OK in my experience but I have had high failure rates on those myself over the years.

The ones that have treated me well are HP V series (for cheap) and also Adtran, oddly enough. But that's just my take.

 

[rossiv]

I'm a fan of HP ProCurve 2610s. I have five of them in service right now (the 12-port PoE model) and have had zero problems. Haven't used QoS though since everything is local and on VLANs.

 

[MacNix]

No unmanaged switches will offer proper QoS - you'll need to come up with one that is managed for that. However, if you buy an unmanaged gigabit switch, you'll likely have no issues with saturation on anything up to a couple hundred users, at least in my experience. This will probably be cheaper and give lots of overhead.

I do not like the small business series Cisco's I have had trouble with the ARP table on them. The Netgear's are OK in my experience but I have had high failure rates on those myself over the years.

The ones that have treated me well are HP V series (for cheap) and also Adtran, oddly enough. But that's just my take.

I'm kinda with you on cisco - - it's been hit & miss.. I've put in dozens of the SF & SG 300 series in small biz places... SOMETIMES they're perfect.. other times a nightmare.

was on-site a few weeks ago, to set one up i'd just bought in from amazon brand new, and tried to call cisco about a problem. they claimed the serial# was a unit that'd been installed 18 months ago! couldn't get thru that one.....

but my experience with netgear for managed switches is even worse - over 75% fail rate inside of 4yrs... I don't use 'em at all anymore..

 

[snarpatroid]

I use a Netgear Prosafe FS726 POE switch, it's not gigabit but has two gigabit uplinks and 100mb over each port. 12 ports support POE. I paid £50 for a used one on ebay which was reasonable but it turned out to be dead on arrival so instead of returning it I called Netgear who offer a lifetime warranty and gave me a replacement on this, I then contacted the ebay seller who gave me a partial refund to say sorry for the inconvenience, I ended up paying about £40 and had a brand new switch for this. It is a bit noisy though that's the only thing, fine for a server room but it would annoy you in a small office, this is a massive consideration if it's in a small room.

 

[BeerCan]

If you can stomach using used equipment I find Nortel 5500 series POE switches all the time for 2-300 dollars. They are great units that are loaded with features.

 

[TwigsUSAN]

Yes, if you don't mind a used switch, than I would go that way. I would pick up a Cisco 2960 switch.