Having verified that my Virgin Media 'Super Hub' is not the best as a switch, I was thinking of getting a decent one which I may use for some years when/if my network expands. I like the idea of a managed switch, but which one? Also, I can find some models on the web which are not on Netgear's website anymore - discontinued? Like the GS108T-200UKS.
Anyway, any suggestions for a, say, decent 8-12 ports switch?
If you have a dual port NAS, get one that supports LACP (802.3ad). I've got a netgear GS724 I bought on ebay which is managed and it works great. I think only newer revs are fanless so be careful which one you pick up if you care about the noise. I had a cisco small office switch that worked well but didn't support LACP. Basically LACP is hardware support for using both ports at once. I've got a PRO 6. You may want to make sure Netgear has the LACP option in your network config, that may be a feature of the business models. If you are linux savvy you could probably get it set up manually via SSH regardless.
Thanks. I have a Pro6 and LACP on the options, that's also why I was looking for a managed switch. Definitely care about the noise, thanks for mentioning, lots of used on ebay but with fans.
LACP won't help unless all your devices are connected to the same switch. Also, LACP will not improve performance at all unless you have multiple users accessing the NAS at the same time.
GS716T has 16 ports and no fan - its a scaled down GS724.
Yes, I am aware of that, I read on one of your posts. If none of the GS716T (any revision, including older models, I may get a used one) have fans, I'll get one! Thanks!
Unfortunately I live in the UK and they do not ship here. That said, i can find something here as well, just need to make sure it's the fanless model first! Thanks for looking for me, appreciated!
Cisco definitely have bonding support, it's called Etherchannel (see http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/sw ... thchl.html) and can add up to 8 links. That said, I don't know if every switch/router they made has that or if this is just for pro devices with console access, I believe office switches are the cheapest one with web interface and stripped down OS.
I personally have a D-Link DGS-108 which works like a charm, it's as silent as it can get and has no problem giving me full gigabit speed. That's the important thing to check whether or not the switch can provide full speed (which requires (1Gbit/s up + 1Gbit/s down)*number of ports, so 16Gbit/s for a 8 ports switch). It's not manageable but I don't require it to be and unless you want VLAN I don't see why you would need it to be. My NAS has NIC bonding but : 1°) it isn't fast enough to get full Gbit speed 2°) I would have to get several gbit devices to get data from it at the same time 3°) I'm unsure if the switch needs to have a specific setup to make this work, I thought the OS had a trick for that.
After that you have to know which system you want to use, I was certified on Cisco devices, so I guess the simplest for me is to stick with Cisco rather than Netgear or Juniper. Although nowadays they have web interfaces for lower end devices.
The maximum managed speed is a good point. I did not know that.
The GS716T-200 has 32 Gbps, which is a good thing. I will definitely check this in the future, thanks!
Stephen, while searching, I've come across the below:
It (v2 and 200) has many more features and is more up to date than the v1 model and the nicest feature for me is that this model has only one fan which is a lot more quiet than the two fans I heard on the v1 model. The v1 sounded like a hair dryer set on low speed, this model puts out a whisper and is no louder than a whirring fan of a quiet desktop PC.
As I said, depends on what you want to do. Managed switch are use for 1°) creating VLans to break down the network 2°) provide monitoring capabilities via SNMP 3°) provide port authentication (802.3x) 4°) to get POE ports for phones 5°) to stack and provide redundancy (try that without spanning tree you will cry) 6°) on high end devices for QoS and filtering abilities and basic routing (those strange things called L3 switches) I think that covers at least 95% of usages. If you don't need those don't spend extra money IMO.
Is it really needed ? LACP is 802.3ad, I thought adaptive load balancing just got the same result with a mac address change to trick the switch. I may have misunderstood though : http://linux.cloudibee.com/2008/02/netw ... f-bonding/ And as you said having a machine with dual gigabit NIC sitting around or more than 3 wifi users leeching at the same time at full speed is quite rare at home, not mentioning that the NAS ro the destination machine wouldn't be able to keep up (RN104 doesn't and most single disk (non-SSD) machine won't be able to).
I was thinking of a managed switch for "future use", if/when I have my own place and a proper network in it. But considering the costs and the revisions, I'd better go for a unmanaged one, brand new.
I'll go for the GS108 or GS116 if you approve! But thanks for guiding me, much appreciated.
FWIW ALB didn't work for me with VirtualBox. LACP, no problem. I have so many plex, subsonic, and LMS clients that I do see LACP working. That is, both ports get a share of the traffic. nasmon or vnstat will show you what is going on. I have everything wired to that switch and then the switch goes to my router to leave the house.
considering the costs and the revisions, I'd better go for a unmanaged one, brand new. I'll go for the GS108 or GS116
You might also want to take a look at the "unmanaged plus" GS108E and GS116E. They don't have all the features of fully managed switches, but they have a few configurable options that you might feel are worth the small incremental cost over the unmanaged switches.
It looks lovely! as you say, a small incremental cost for lots of features. It also mention port trunking, but I can't find anything on the specifications. Is it something I can use with the NAS, is that the same protocol?
As far as I can tell (I don't use it), their "port trunking" is 802.3ad Link Aggregation; I think that's supported by the ReadyNAS Pro. Port trunking is not available on the GS108E, but the GS116Ev2 (part number GS116E-200xxx) does support it.
As far as I can tell (I don't use it), their "port trunking" is 802.3ad Link Aggregation; I think that's supported by the ReadyNAS Pro. Port trunking is not available on the GS108E, but the GS116Ev2 (part number GS116E-200xxx) does support it.
Well the smart switches' datasheet mentions port trunking. There must be something but I can't find an exact reference. 802.3ad is supported by all the smart switches, does that say anything?
As far as I can tell (I don't use it), their "port trunking" is 802.3ad Link Aggregation; I think that's supported by the ReadyNAS Pro. Port trunking is not available on the GS108E, but the GS116Ev2 (part number GS116E-200xxx) does support it.
Well the smart switches' datasheet mentions port trunking. There must be something but I can't find an exact reference. 802.3ad is supported by all the smart switches, does that say anything?
The GS724T datasheet specifically calls out 802.3ad. I don't see either 802.3ad or 802.1ax in your newer datasheet either.
Port trunking implies link aggregation, but it doesn't necessarily mean LACP - it could be proprietary.
Port trunking implies link aggregation, but it doesn't necessarily mean LACP - it could be proprietary.
Yes. As I said, I don't use port trunking, so I can't say for sure. I do remember reading somewhere that it was 802.3ad... But I can't find that web page now, so I can't confirm it.
