[nycbug-talk] switch advice?

[Isaac Levy]

Hi all,

Before, Pete gave me some great advice about gigabit soho swtiches, but 
I've got a new question below,

On May 19, 2004, at 7:54 AM, pete wright wrote:

>> Was just wondering- am looking again at gigabit switches, and wanted 
>> to ask you again via email what you and Jesse were talking about, re. 
>> the 1mb packet thingie to look for in higher-end switches...
>
> yea no problem.  there are basicly two types of gig-e switches out 
> there.  the cheaper versions use a MTU of 1500, which is the same MTU 
> as normal 100/10 BaseT via cat5.  more expensive switches can use a 
> 1500 MTU or what are called "Fat Packets."  This is an MTU of 9600.  
> the benefit of larger MTU's is that you can send much more data in a 
> single packet when compared to normal 1500 MTU packets.  this will 
> speed up communication, while also reducing the overhead on the NIC 
> and CPU.  an MTU is the Maximum Transfer Unit, i think...i forget what 
> the acronym stands for.  but you get the idea.  last time i checked, 
> 3Com was making these switches at a pretty reasonable price.  I use 
> the el-cheapo linksys gig-e switches at work, and it's not too bad...


So I'm looking to buy some network switches, and am totally stumped by 
what's available out there.  (this totally isn't my forte').

Basically, I've been looking at 12 and 24 port gigabit rackmount 
switches, but am really not going to be taking serious advantage of 
managed switches, and am pretty darned confused by the price scales-  
Some of them are in the $500 range on the low end, but what seems to me 
to be the same specs, can go over $3k, (some 12/16 port unmanaged 
gigabit swtiches going for 3 times other 24 port switches?)  Where's 
the line for quality really at?

Gah!  Does anyone have any good experiences with either end of the 
spectrum?  I'd be looking to buy 4 of them, and would really rather 
they be cheap to replace due to past experiences, though of course 
everyone wants something solid for nothing... :)

Thanks for any info or even just urls!

Rocket-
.ike