What features do I want from a switch?

[doop]

I need a small gigabit switch with at least 8 ports (16+ would be nice for expansion). I know I need VLANs, but what other features do I need? Is jumboframes good? I didn't understand if I can use jumboframes and still connect to the internet thru the switch (since the internet would need "normal frames"?) I tried searching the eBay but it was very difficult

 

[RTM]

It is difficult to get a recent managed layer 2 gigabit switch that doesn't support jumbo frames.
So I would suggest getting one that does, as you probably don't want to use something really old.

Jumbo frames should be fine by the way, your router should fragment the packets.
I found this article, that you might find interesting: jumboframes

 

[doop]

Okay, thank you! The only other feature I've found that I might want is link aggregation. Are really old switches bad? I've found several made in 2005! My budget is max $50

 

[RTM]

Sure you can probably get old switches that work just fine, but as with everything there are no guarantees

Although I don't want to be TOO pessimistic, here are some reason why old can be bad:
- No support (especially firmware)
- Fans that are not needed on newer models
- Cable support can be more finicky (an example could be only gigabit over cat 6, not 5e cables)

Lack of common features is also relevant, like jumbo frames, IPv6, a smaller amount of available VLANs etc.
However, some newer switches are gimped by default, so it can also work the other way.

I have no idea how much you can get with 50$, but I suggest you do your research and stick with well known brands.

 

[doop]

Thank you! The fan/power consumption was a good point. In what way does a switch use IPv6? I thought the switch is Layer2 and IPv6 is Layer3?

 

[RTM]

Thank you! The fan/power consumption was a good point. In what way does a switch use IPv6? I thought the switch is Layer2 and IPv6 is Layer3?

What I am talking about is the networked interface of the switch, so it probably does not matter much unless you use IPv6 locally.

 

[neo]

Here is a plug, but I have a switch that would fit your needs: https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...-balancer-router-mikrotik-router-switch.5700/

 

[doop]

What I am talking about is the networked interface of the switch, so it probably does not matter much unless you use IPv6 locally.

Ah, I barely know what it is so I don't think I need it. And my ISP is too lazy to support it

Here is a plug, but I have a switch that would fit your needs: https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...-balancer-router-mikrotik-router-switch.5700/

Thank you, but it's a bit outside my budget

 

[Darkytoo]

Be careful when picking older switches, many of them don't support VLAN trunking over port channel groups, also I've had issues with older switch's java interfaces working with the latest java updates, for example my LB4M java app will load, but will not actually render any interface, so it's useless.

 

[smccloud]

Although they aren't the easiest to configure, a Dell PowerConnect 2716 (or 2724 if you can find one for a good deal like I did) would fit your needs. You can now manage them with Chrome again, so that removes the need of an old Ubuntu VM so you have an old enough version of Firefox too. Mine is humming along great at home.

 

[EffrafaxOfWug]

Minor derail, but is there anywhere one can get a definitive list of what sort of stuff (such as java) might be required to operate the GUI on a particular switch? I'm also at the point of wondering what features I'll need on my network switch but one of the things I would avoid at all costs would be a GUI that depended on a browser plugin.

 

[Scott Laird]

If you want link aggregation, make sure your switch supports 802.3ad (LACP). A lot of older (even a couple years ago) cheap switches supported manual aggregation, but that's a horrible solution to any problem other than "how do I make my network fail more while being hard to debug."

Jumbo frames are useful if you're building a storage network, but they're probably overrated with modern NICs, and they also cause a lot of weird problems that are hard to debug. Example: a while back I had one port on a switch that was set to 9000 bytes instead of 9216 (the max for my switch). With a 9000-byte NIC MTU, you really need to allow ~9018 byte frames through the switch. 95% of the time, everything worked fine. SSH worked. Practically anything over UDP worked, because nothing uses really big packets. TCP worked if you sent data slowly enough to stay under ~8920 bytes of data per packet (so SSH was mostly fine, and most protocols' session setup conversations were too). But once you went over that, it all ground to a halt. Entertainingly, setting the host MTU to 1500 actually mostly works; TCP negotiates MSS, so it'll be mostly fine, but other protos may have issues. If you don't really need it, then I'd pass on Jumbo frames.