[geeks] Seems like low-cost Cisco 10/100 switches are available

[Joshua D. Boyd]

On Mon, 2008-04-28 at 10:32 -0400, Dan Sikorski wrote:

> The biggest deal to me is that i do not tolerate the crap that the 
> cheapo soho switches give me.  With netgear and the like, i've had to 
> reset (power cycle) a switch because it stopped working completely, or 
> the switch between the 10 and 100mbit segments stopped working, allowing 
> each to operate seperately.  No thank you, i'll deal with some extra 
> noise instead of dealing with that kind of crap.  This is the same 
> reason why we buy procurve and cisco networking hardware for small 
> offices.  We don't need any of the management features, we just want 
> stuff that works.  I find that most home users don't care if they have 
> to power cycle their networking equipment regularly.  I do.

I try to stick with NetGear switches in the blue metal cases, and I so
far have never had trouble with them doing the sorts of things you
mention.  I am  thinking of trying a trendnet device next though.

At work I'm only seen trouble with one blue metal netgear switch, but it
has been hard to pin down.  This one is a GigE switch.  It didn't want
to work with a FastE device we made for some reason, but then we dug out
some other software and hardware problems on the device, and we haven't
gotten around to retesting. I don't know what the story is here yet.
Otherwise, work's blue metal netgear switches have all been reliable.
The ciscos have also been reliable.  The plastic netgear switches, the
linksys switchs, the brand X switches and hubs, and especially the
CentreCOM hubs have all been unreliable.