I am looking for some information from real-world experiences with the GS724TS switches.
1) How well does the HDMI "stacking" work on these? Any tips/experiences with this? 2) With HDMI stacking, and 2 switches, would I only use one HDMI cable to connect one set of the up/down ports or would I use 2 cables and go up-down and down-up? 3) With the GS724TS in a stacked configuration are you able to do cross-switch LACP groups? I.e. Switch 1 Port 1 and Switch 2 Port 1 are in the same LAG/LACP trunk?
Any input on this would be greatly appreciated, looking to do some low-level testing and these switches seem to be in the sweet spot for affordability while offering a pro-sumer level of features.
Thanks!
(I think I mis-posted this in the L3 switches forum, posting here for conciseness)
1) Stacking is fairly simple concept so it should be used only when you are looking for port density of single IP management. From experience, there are no issue if you use them a closet edge switches which is purpose of this switch. 2) You do use a loop for HDMI stacking. They have UP and DOWN port. UP goes to DOWN and vice version. You get 1 cable per switches and they can't be long cable. 3M max. You can loop them for sure no issues here. 3) Not recommend on these model because lower processing power. You could try it, but based on experience, it will cause heavy CPU load and you will start to see issues. Possible on Managed switches. One way to do LACP LAG across the smart switch would to increase port density on 1 switch only. So a 4 port LAG should have 3 of its member ports on 1 switch and 1 port on another switch in the stack. Overall, I would advise against this on smart switch will limited resources.
I am wondering now would it make sense to create a trunk of say 4 copper ports of each switch and go between the two switches as a "backup" for the stacking cable having an issue, or is that not possible/recommended?
Trying to simulate or replicate an HA solution and am trying to make it as resilient as possible.
1. You can't have switch that are member of the same stack have uplinks between them, No LAG linked the member switches as you looping the same switch then. Remember stacking results in global management of the single unit with member porviding port density. Stacking handles all communication between members for everything through the HDMI links on that model of switch. You can have multiple port LAG trunk between 2 separate stacked setups.
2. There is limit on number of port per group. I think it is 6 ports per group on Smart switches and 8 port for managed switches. Beyond those density, you should start looking at 10G link since they do make 10G stacking smart switches GS728TXS and GS752TXS.
That was more or less what I was thinking, that I wouldn't be able to trunk between the switches if they were stacked.
I am setting up two vmware hosts with these two switches and two firewall devices. Just need to figure out now if it makes more sense to stack them or leave them separate. Given the way vmware can handle load balancing internally, I am thinking it may make more sense to leave them unstacked.
Will have to do some playing around and testing with it.
2) You do use a loop for HDMI stacking. .... You get 1 cable per switches and they can't be long cable. 3M max.
Where did you get 3Meters?
We wanted to stack together two racks which were within the 16foot HDMI limit. But NetGear said HDMI stacking cables should be no longer than what comes in the box - 3feet or so, which is ~1Meter.
3) Not recommend on these model because lower processing power. You could try it, but based on experience, it will cause heavy CPU load and you will start to see issues. Possible on Managed switches. One way to do LACP LAG across the smart switch would to increase port density on 1 switch only. So a 4 port LAG should have 3 of its member ports on 1 switch and 1 port on another switch in the stack. Overall, I would advise against this on smart switch will limited resources.
Did you measure CPU load via SNMP? If not, how did you do it? Or did you notice the slow web interface slow down even more?
