Using HP Procurve 2530 switches at home overkill?

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leonroy

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Oct 6, 2015
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Looking to quieten down the home office which currently has a HP 2810-48G switch in it. I really want to make the room as quiet as possible which means swapping out the HP.

I currently have four VLANs separated by Voice, CCTV, Management and Guest Wifi access. I don't need 48 ports, a quick count suggests 16-20 is all I need. I also handle all my routing, DHCP, etc. using pfSense so don't have a need for a L3 switch.

In the past I've been prone to over engineer (hence the 2810-48G!) and I'm trying not to buy more than I need this time around.

The HP Aruba 2530-24G seems nice but apparently still has a fan which isn't quite whisper quiet. Also the HP 1920 24G is half the price and is fanless.

My question is how much of a step down are the HP 'prosumer' line of switches like the 1920?

I understand that I give up the CLI interface, which is a pity since it's a lot quicker to setup but if the Web UI is any good on the 1920 series I could live with that.

Also do I sacrifice anything in the way of stability or reliability?
 

Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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Overall 1Gb switch AFR is extremely low. I would not worry too much about that part.

I do L3 via pfSense and use 3 Mikrotik CRS226 at home. Not as nice as the HP units but so low power that you can power them via PoE.

If you are going to swap switches, think about how many 10Gb ports you want. 10Gb is going to be a big storyline this year.
 
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cheezehead

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Sep 23, 2012
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I opted for the old 1810-24G, smart switch, all gig + a pair of sfp ports, fanless, vlans, and uses 10-15w. They can be picked up for cheap on EBay (usually $50-65ish), just search for J9450A.

The web interfaces on the 18xx and 19xx switches are what they are, pretty basic but get the job done...definitely not something i'd like playing in on a daily/weekly basis.

With regards to stability/reliability, I've actual found the 1810 to be better than the higher end switches. because it doesn't have as many features as the higher end switches there's less for someone to mess up in the code and because it's fanless I don't need to deal with failing bearings.
 
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leonroy

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Overall 1Gb switch AFR is extremely low. I would not worry too much about that part.
AFR? (heh the quote block shows you're member number 1 - assume you're the main founder of the site, really great content!)

If you are going to swap switches, think about how many 10Gb ports you want. 10Gb is going to be a big storyline this year.
100% agree. With 1000Mb/s flash storage across most high quality notebooks and servers I think the time is ripe for 10Gb to go mainstream since 1Gb is increasingly a bottleneck.

That said, I'd have to buy 10Gb cards and Thunderbolt devices for all my file servers and Macbooks so not for me just yet (but soon!). Guess makes sense to go for the cheaper 1Gb switch then and purchase a 10Gb switch when I'm ready for it.

I opted for the old 1810-24G, smart switch, all gig + a pair of sfp ports, fanless, vlans, and uses 10-15w. They can be picked up for cheap on EBay (usually $50-65ish), just search for J9450A.
Yeah, love ebay for buying used IT hardware (sucks if you're selling though!). Just bought a 2530 8G POE+ for cheap, what a lovely, high quality switch. Using the CLI I had it all configured in minutes.

The web interfaces on the 18xx and 19xx switches are what they are, pretty basic but get the job done...definitely not something i'd like playing in on a daily/weekly basis.

With regards to stability/reliability, I've actual found the 1810 to be better than the higher end switches. because it doesn't have as many features as the higher end switches there's less for someone to mess up in the code and because it's fanless I don't need to deal with failing bearings.
Sounds reasonable. Do you have any experience with enabling the undocumented CLI commands on the prosumer Procurve switches? All work ok?

It seems easy enough to do but comes with the usual warnings of 'Unsupported mode, blah, blah'. Wondering though if it's something which makes the switch more prone to issues - if so I'd rather avoid it.
 

cheezehead

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Sep 23, 2012
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Sounds reasonable. Do you have any experience with enabling the undocumented CLI commands on the prosumer Procurve switches? All work ok?
HP v1910-24G CLI Goody - The IT Hollow

Haven't had a need for it at home. At home my reqs were pretty basic all gig, fanless, and vlan support.
While 10GB is on my radar, I'm planning on doing direct connect 10GB for the three devices needing it and bypass the need for a switch until we get to the point I can find a 24port gig + 4 combo SFP+ ports that's fanless and under $100 (i'll be waiting a few years).
 

leonroy

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Thanks for the link to that cheezehead, they've actually added a password to that command on the 1920. Grrr.

Anyways, after a few hours of messing finally configured the switch.

Compared to the 2530 you definitely get what you pay for as far as management goes.

Compared to the tried and tested HP CLI this thing is pretty painful to configure via just the web pages.

Issues:
  • Web pages are a bit slow and buggy sometimes - 2530 ones are smooth and pretty polished comparatively
  • Updating firmware complains device is out of space - apparently you have to manually delete the backup ROM first to make space - on the 2530 updates were a cinch
  • Default CLI is awfully limited - and enabling the advanced mode requires a password every time you re-login to the switch - CLI commands are also different to standard HP
Regarding stability, time will tell. In my experience with our 1810 switches at work vs our 2810 switches we found the 1810 would need to be rebooted about once a year due to odd problems like VLANs not appearing on newly configured ports.

2810 wasn't flawless though, but that only required rebooting twice over the 8 years or so we've had it and not at all of late since the last few firmware updates.
 

marv

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Apr 2, 2015
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18xx and 19xx series are different development branches. 18 is old HP (I noticed that HP is rebranding its provision based switches to Aruba) and 19 is comware based series, from 3com aquisition. I have bunch of 1910 switches running perfectly stable for years, with 1920 same experience so far.

To deal with password on every login, I use kitty with configured after login command \n\n_cmdline-mode on\nY\nJinhua1920unauthorized

Also, it takes basically any SFP module, you just have to manually set port speed and duplex and get occassional log message about unknown sfp module.
 
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leonroy

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Excellent info marv, I was actually planning on seeing how to push those commands via SSH to the switch for every login.

WebUI isn't so bad on the 1920 after updating to the latest firmware. Captcha sucks though, why oh why did HP put that on a network switch?!

I had a play with the 2530-8G POE+ and the 1920-8G POE+. Both excellent switches, nice build quality (2530 has the edge). That said the 2530 has the BIGGEST external power brick known to man, seriously - it's huge.

The 1920 has its power supply integrated inside the chassis which makes it a great option if space is a premium or if you want something compact to hide behind a desk.
 
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