I've run out of ports on my SG-300 POE switch (swore 10 ports would be more than enough for my needs 
) and am looking to upgrade to a better L3 switch with >=24 ports. The tentative plan is to keep the SG-300 and convert to L2 mode to run the 3 APs in my house.
So I've looked around for alternatives and I'm about as confused as when I was first shopping around for an L3 switch. This is the only L3 switch I've owned and everything I know about L3 concepts, VLANs, ACLs, etc. I learned on this switch (which isn't much, I probably understand about 5% of what it does). I also recently learned that this isn't a true Cisco switch (i.e. Catalyst/IOS) and basically a rebranded Linksys, so everything I hate about the buggy web UI is supposedly not an issue with the nicer non-SMB switches. So I'm open to getting another Cisco.
What I'm currently using it for:
- POE
- VLAN trunking
- DHCP server with network pools
- IPv4 ACLs for guest network, home network, protected home network and DMZ bound to VLANs
- Some minor security features, DOS prevention, DHCP snooping, etc.
What I hate:
- Creating DHCP reservations is surprisingly a huge PITA, you basically have to create a whole set of settings for default gateway, DNS servers, etc. for every host reservation (and you can't clone existing ones!). On even the cheapest consumer routers I've always been able to just click a check box or a link to designate a host with a DHCP reservation, I hope most L3 switches are this simple.
- The ACL/ACE UI is really buggy, especially when editing existing rules, and sometimes requires a reboot of the switch to clear out errors. I run enough VMs, DB servers, services, etc. in my homelab that rebooting this switch can be really annoying. Also editing any ACL requires unbinding (disabling) it from the VLAN, making any edits, then rebinding.
What I'm looking for:
- Don't need POE
- >=24 1G ports
- 2-4 10G ports would be nice, but I don't currently have any 10G hardware and it seems to jack up the price a lot
- New or used, would like to keep the price under $300
- Good web UI; I can handle an SSH console for some things
- Can do all the things I have the SG-300 doing but with a better UI and easier DHCP reservations.
Currently I'm running pfSense for my firewall, but I'd rather not trunk my VLANs on it and set up ACLs there as I like the segregation of an L3 switch always up and running my internal network and my firewall handling external traffic. I've borked my pfSense installation a few times (2.4.4 update was painful) and it's always nice having my internal network routing/DHCP/etc. still up and running so my wife can be appeased by Plex while I fix Netflix/HBO Go/Amazon/the internets
Anyway so far I've looked at some used Catalysts on Ebay and new/used Ubiquiti Edgeswitch Lites but don't have much of a reference for price and features. It also seems like a lot of switches aren't clearly advertised as being full L3 VLAN capable, and only support VLAN tagging (which was a major point of confusion before I bought the SG300). Open to any suggestions, thanks for the help!
) and am looking to upgrade to a better L3 switch with >=24 ports. The tentative plan is to keep the SG-300 and convert to L2 mode to run the 3 APs in my house.So I've looked around for alternatives and I'm about as confused as when I was first shopping around for an L3 switch. This is the only L3 switch I've owned and everything I know about L3 concepts, VLANs, ACLs, etc. I learned on this switch (which isn't much, I probably understand about 5% of what it does). I also recently learned that this isn't a true Cisco switch (i.e. Catalyst/IOS) and basically a rebranded Linksys, so everything I hate about the buggy web UI is supposedly not an issue with the nicer non-SMB switches. So I'm open to getting another Cisco.
What I'm currently using it for:
- POE
- VLAN trunking
- DHCP server with network pools
- IPv4 ACLs for guest network, home network, protected home network and DMZ bound to VLANs
- Some minor security features, DOS prevention, DHCP snooping, etc.
What I hate:
- Creating DHCP reservations is surprisingly a huge PITA, you basically have to create a whole set of settings for default gateway, DNS servers, etc. for every host reservation (and you can't clone existing ones!). On even the cheapest consumer routers I've always been able to just click a check box or a link to designate a host with a DHCP reservation, I hope most L3 switches are this simple.
- The ACL/ACE UI is really buggy, especially when editing existing rules, and sometimes requires a reboot of the switch to clear out errors. I run enough VMs, DB servers, services, etc. in my homelab that rebooting this switch can be really annoying. Also editing any ACL requires unbinding (disabling) it from the VLAN, making any edits, then rebinding.
What I'm looking for:
- Don't need POE
- >=24 1G ports
- 2-4 10G ports would be nice, but I don't currently have any 10G hardware and it seems to jack up the price a lot
- New or used, would like to keep the price under $300
- Good web UI; I can handle an SSH console for some things
- Can do all the things I have the SG-300 doing but with a better UI and easier DHCP reservations.
Currently I'm running pfSense for my firewall, but I'd rather not trunk my VLANs on it and set up ACLs there as I like the segregation of an L3 switch always up and running my internal network and my firewall handling external traffic. I've borked my pfSense installation a few times (2.4.4 update was painful) and it's always nice having my internal network routing/DHCP/etc. still up and running so my wife can be appeased by Plex while I fix Netflix/HBO Go/Amazon/the internets
Anyway so far I've looked at some used Catalysts on Ebay and new/used Ubiquiti Edgeswitch Lites but don't have much of a reference for price and features. It also seems like a lot of switches aren't clearly advertised as being full L3 VLAN capable, and only support VLAN tagging (which was a major point of confusion before I bought the SG300). Open to any suggestions, thanks for the help!