Managed Switch Recommendations

[italiansoda]

Hi all,

I am new to the forum. I have been an avid computer enthusiast for a while. I just ordered a used Dell c6100 for my home setup and am planing on virtualizing it when i get it.

I currently have a freeNAS box running my storage, 2 wireless APs in the house, some cat5e running under the house connecting a few rooms.

1) The basement
- incoming internet connection
- the freeNAS box
- outgoing cat5e line to office 1
- Dell c6100 (when it gets here)


2) Office 1
- desktop terminal
- unmanaged green gigabit switch, retail
- wifi router, dd-wrt setup as an access point
- switch here connects cat5e to office 2


3) Office 2
- desktop terminal


My dell c6100 is still in the mail, and I am expecting it sometime next week. Got a good deal on it from Servers, Dell Servers, Used Servers | The Server Store for $879.00 On ebay currently they are up around $1,000.00 I'll need a switch to connect all the nodes in this box together, and connect it with the rest of the house. I also plan to run on the c6100 vyatta to route my house, a firewall, snort and some other network border protections. I'll throw behind it some VLANS to setup some DMZs and other virtual networked environments.

My question is, what are some managed network switches that I can buy used? I am looking for link aggregation for faster throughput to VMs stored on my freeNAS box, separating out my wifi connection and ethernet connections with some VLANS. I am also looking to get familiar with managed switches, probably at some point going to get cisco certified and Network+ certified.

I might upgrade the cat5e line under my house with fiber. I work with a lot of VMs from office 1, and was looking into link aggregation from my desktop terminals. Instead of running 4 more ethernet cables I could just consolidate and run 1 fiber optic line. Ehhh??! Ehhh? what do you think? Under the house is about 100ft in length needed to connect the basement to the office. Keep that in mind for cable lengths and prices.

I know nothing about the types of managed switches, but I want to. I would like to run switches with gigabit ethernet ports and some fiber for uplink between the basement and office 1. I know that the Dell c6100 will have 2xGb ethernet ports per node requiring 8 ports total used on a switch, plus 2 ports used from my network storage box, and 1 incoming ethernet port from the outside. Then I would need any extra room for upgrades, possibly another Dell c6100 in the furture. 24 port switch for the basement?! What can you all suggest that is low end, used on ebay?

 

[Mike]

Layer2 switches for SMB usage are popular for this. Cisco sg200, HP 1810, 1910 even. Most of the bargains you may find on switches that big are noisy and use lots of powers. Quite a drawback for a bunch of features you won't use.

 

[italiansoda]

Thanks for the fast reply. Yea, I understand that there might be a lot of unused features on one of those switches. But I do like overkill. Also there is the mentality that once you build it, they will come.

 

[Mike]

Yeah. These are managed switches though, just not with ALL of the features you might expect on an enterprise managed switch.

 

[33_viper_33]

I have a dell powerconnect 5224 that works well. Its cheep but does everything I need it to. I replaced the fans to silance it as the ones it came with were loud and one was failing. Expect 60+ watts pending how many ports you have active for most of these switches including the 5224.