Inexpensive L3/Managed VLAN capable switch

[Biscuit]

Hi All,

I current work for a company that sells a control system platform for broadcast hardware and protocols. Globally we are probably the most popular independent control system and we are trying to get things off the floor in the UK.
I'm putting together a demonstration flight case to cart around and show customers our hardware, but to also use as a proof of concept type rig for testing.

Networks is something that I have an ok understanding of, but ever since the day of leaving my old job, I have given up my studies in the topic somewhat.

In an ideal world, I would be looking for a switch that is at the lower end of the price spectrum, not too complicated to configure (although im willing to learn), fairly shallow with regards to depth, fairly quiet and supports management of VLANS and SNMP. 16-24 ports would probably be suitable. Perhaps this is all a little bit much to ask, but like I said, this is the ideal.

Is there brands and models people can recommend looking at in my search. Obviously there are the usual contenders in networks like HP and Cisco, Netgear is usually avoided, what about other brands with a consumer wing like TP link?

[shaithis]

The HP ProCurve 1800 I use was cheap, small, draws very little power, is silent and handles VLANs and SNMP.

The one thing is isn't great for is iSCSI due to the amount of port cache it has, although my iSCSI speeds are still fairly good....and for a home switch it's pretty much ideal. It replaced a Dell5224 which was hellishly noisey and consumed loads of power. Picked it up second hand for very little.

[Biscuit]

It handles VLANS... but im not sure it can manage them on it in quite the way I want.

An example of a typical usage of VLANs for me would be to separate our devices, and the third party hardware that we would interface too. So port 1-12 would be VLAN 1 for the video routers, mixers, processing devices etc and port 13-24 would be VLAN 2 for our hardware, then we have a further VLAN to bridge the two and manage the transfer of traffic.... does this make sense?

[shaithis]

Yeah, it does port-based VLANs. It's not VLAN-pass-thru like the cheap switches, its a fully managed layer-3 switch.

[Biscuit]

Quite a few on Ebay for £80-120, does that sound about right?

[shaithis]

Yup, paid 85quid for mine from a hexite IIRC

[Biscuit]

[jimborae]

Paid £32.99 for my 24 port HP Pro curve 1800. There are bargains to be had out there.

[Jay]

Yup, paid 85quid for mine from a hexite IIRC

I think that was me!

It doesn't do.proper intervlan routing I don't think.

[Biscuit]

I think that was me!

It doesn't do.proper intervlan routing I don't think.

Ok conflicting information here >_<

Is there anyone a bit more experienced that can help? I certainly couldn't see how you would do it when I looked at the manual

[Biscuit]

bump...

[b0redom]

Inter-VLAN routing is usually done by a router/firewall no?

[Biscuit]

Correct me if im wrong but.... Depends on the scale of things I suppose. In a huge enterprise environment with lots of segregated VLANS and access to a WAN perhaps you would have a separate box (or boxes). In smaller environments (especially this one as its got to be carted around in flight cases) that are never connected to a WAN and the features are just used to ensure QOS between devices, the functionality would be expected to be on the switch.

I had a conversation with my boss and he is considering picking up one of the newer (and easier to configure) Cisco switches as they have dropped in price recently... but Im still open to suggestions.

[Splash]

Yeah, the SG300 series aren't terrible - I use one in my home lab and they definitely do inter-vlan routing (once configured as L3).

[Biscuit]

If thats the case, the SG300-20 might be the one for us! Less than £300 as well, I didn't realise they were THAT cheap!

[Jay]

for cheap vlan routing why not get a cisco 1841 off ebay.