Vlan Switch Advice

[Cert77]

Hello all,
I'm a n00b to this forum. The last 2 nights i been doing a lot of reading before I wanted to post and ask for advice. After a couple hours i started all over again, and got lost. I was wondering if some of you would kind of help me out.

Let me get started. I have a home network with a couple different devices. Ipad, tv's phone, xbox and other stuff. At the moment i'm in the process of getting MS cert and have a lab. The lab part i have it down in vm on my laptop. i just bought me a nice hp minserver. My plan is to break down the network down by traffic.

vlan 1 - private
vlan 2 - media
vlan3- MS lab


At the moment I have a linksys srw2008p switch that is 8 ports. I bought the switch because of vlans. I was able to configure everything correct. now here's the problem. The fan on this switch is way to load now and I can't really study with being it way load. I tried to move it to the other side but still sounds like i'm in a server room. I notice it's acting up too.. I need to replace it with a new one.

I need something that is not to expensive since I'm on a tight budget at the moment. I need one that I could manage from a browser like the current one i have. It doesn't have to be 8 port switch it could be less port but i need something quiet i could always leave on, and be easy to configure. The current one i have to turn it off all the time because it's load and family is alway telling me what's that noise. Since it's in my home office i notice if I do leave it on for 1 hr the room gets hot. I believe it's time to get a new one more quiet..

One other thing I need a fast one since I have FIOS with a 50gig speed. I guess all ports would have to be 1 gig port

Any kind of help would be awesome.

Thank you in advance .

 

[System Error Message]

You can buy passively cooled smart switches. Theres many to choose from such TP-Link, zyxel and even netgear too that are inexpensive aside from linksys.

I use a mikrotik CRS switch that has 24 gigabit ethernet ports, 2 SFP+ ports and is passively cooled but it is a fully managed switch and im not sure if it is within your price range.

Instead of buying a new switch you can clean your linksys fan and maybe apply some new thermal paste for the switch assuming it isnt glued.

you have 50Gb/s of internet :O?

 

[Cert77]

thank you for the replying back. I tried cleaning it out and replacing it myself too. Still it's really load, a lot of users have tried to make the fan more silent but that didn't work.

I really don't need that many ports i just need something small for my home office. After looking around some more i came across these 2.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AKRTLXA/?tag=snbforums-20

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003KP8VSK/?tag=snbforums-20


I played around with vlans so anything easy to configure and manage is plus.


what do you think about these two plus if you don't mind me asking would you mind posting a link to those other switches you are talking about.

thanks.

 

[funhouse69]

If you only need 8 ports check out the Netgear GS108T Switches, they have a few versions but they are all managed and all passively cooled. They will support VLANs and pretty much everything else that you would want / need a managed switch to do. I've installed a bunch of them over the years and never had one fail on me.

You can probably pick up a used one for cheap and keep in mind that they have a lifetime warranty.

 

[System Error Message]

Unfortunately i dont have any specifics for recommendations as there are many to choose from. usually i recommend the usual brands.
Zyxel have good hardware and firmware,
TP-link have ok hardware and basic firmware (Craps out for advanced stuff)
Netgear have good hardware but at times flaky firmware that crap out at a random function (I have a netgear gs724T and it craps out if i use jumbo frames)
Linksys, averagely good firmware and hardware

Avoid dlink as their hardware and firmware arent good. I really hope netgear do back up their claims with that switch you showed. There are just many to choose from though but here are the basics to look for.
- Must say smart/semi managed
- Must have VLANs (your requirement)
- green ethernet and power saving features are good for home users on a switch with good firmware and hardware (tp-links are problematic with this)
- web based management or software based management
- any other requirements you have or may have in the future

QoS on layer 2 isnt like QoS in a router. All you do is either set a priority (such as with ports) or change the priorities of QoS values. Theres no bandwidth control in layer 2 QoS.

Also go for 8 ports even if you think you dont need it as it helps in the future. There are differences in how to set up your network. 1 Big central switch is more efficient in switching (or basically a switched network with no bottlenecks). Many smaller switches make cabling much more efficient (less cables in total).

 

[Cert77]

Thank you for the advice. I looked at the Zyxel one but man those are expensive to get on my budget. I'm pushing more toward the
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003KP8VSK/?tag=snbforums-20

netgear one. Look at the features it had, plus you're right 8 port just in case... I'm might order this one tonight just need to look around a little more before i pull the trigger. I just hope if I do purchase this switch that it's easy to configure the vlans.

 

[coxhaus]

You do not state how you handle the routing for the VLANs. I have a Cisco SG200-08 switch I bought off eBay for $50. It is very quiet and handles VLANs great. If you need a layer 3 switch you need to look at the SG300 switches. I think they make an 8 port. Check eBay.

 

[chadster766]

The Linksys LGS308 switch has gotten good reviews:
http://www.linksys.com/us/p/P-LGS308/

 

[Cloud200]

IDK what you guys are complaining about.
I have an HP 2824 sitting below my desk and my desktop has two 80mm deltas.
The white noise of the fans are soothing.
Kind of like putting a baby to sleep with the noise of a vacuum cleaner . . .

 

[coxhaus]

I know all the old Cisco big boy switches were noisy as hell so I would assume the current ones are too. You would not want them in your room. The Cisco small business switches, the lower lines are quiet without fans.

 

[wbond]

>I need something that is not to expensive since I'm on a tight budget at the moment. I need one that I could manage from a browser like the current one i have. It doesn't have to be 8 port switch it could >be less port but i need something quiet i could always leave on, and be easy to configure. The current one i have to turn it off all the time because it's load and family is alway telling me what's that noise. >Since it's in my home office i notice if I do leave it on for 1 hr the room gets hot. I believe it's time to get a new one more quiet..

If you're looking for a cheap gigabit switch it would be worth a look at the D-Link DGS-1100-05, fanless so they're silent, 5 ports, supports VLANs, and a few other "smart" switch features. Newegg price is $33.99 with a $10.00 rebate card (offer expires 9/30/15), assuming you're in the US. I have a few of the 8 port version and some have been in use 24/7 for over a year with no problems. I bought them mainly for VLAN use and they've worked fine for this purpose.

 

[System Error Message]

If you've been following my advice and need a layer 2 smart or managed switch, cisco, HP and juniper offer great switches and you can get them at an affordable price if you buy 2nd hand.

The main reason to go with these sort of switches is for security. If they have snooping, ARP and all those stuff you can set it up to protect you against the pineapple like hacks which are basically MiTM that use a combination of spoofing, ARP poisoning and so on.

 

[Cert77]

Thank you both for the advice. All i want is to secure my private traffic from my lab traffic. Same goes with the media traffic. I know that with my SRW2008P i was able to do that by assign certain ports with vlans.

Some people say that vlans are hard to configure so if I do buy the DGS-1100-05 switch is there some kind of tutorial you might know of that offers how to configure the vlans?

Check out this link. I have the same switch they are talking about and configured it the same way. It was some easy to understand what they did and how to configure it. That's the kind of switch i'm looking for something to configure like the image on the page.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/lanwan-howto/30071-vlan-how-to-segmenting-a-small-lan?start=2

Thanks for helping me.

 

[System Error Message]

It is untrue that VLANs are hard to configure because many people are still stuck to structuring things as they see it. Think of VLANs as wiring a network virtually instead of physically. That means that a VLAN is basically an interface.

On linux when you apply a configuration you do not use the ethernet port in the configs but you use the vlan interface in the configs. That means if eth0 has 3 vlans of 100,200,300 on it than in each seperate config will address the vlan instead.
For example you could be running 3 dhcp servers with server one set on interface vlan100, dhcp2 set on interface vlan200 and dhcp3 set on interface vlan300. If the switch uses an untagged vlan than you would apply the config onto the physical ethernet port such as eth1 for instant on linux.

 

[Cert77]

I think i'm going to try out the D-Link 5-Port EasySmart Gigabit Ethernet Switch (DGS-1100-05) and see how that goes. I may need help configuring the vlans. it sounds simple but I know it's not. All i want is to keep my private network and lab network separated from each other. I don't need any infect machine that I have on my lab infecting my private network. That's the only thing i'm scared since I do a lot of trouble shooting infected machines and stuff.

 

[System Error Message]

I would suggest against it because from my experience dlink routers and switches do poorly in general. If you have to choose dlink than go for tp-link instead.

 

[Cert77]

I would suggest against it because from my experience dlink routers and switches do poorly in general. If you have to choose dlink than go for tp-link instead.

Which of the tp-link would you suggest that has a manage GUI interface ? I think at this point I need to get me a okay router since the one i have is out now. Need something that has a GUI interface, and easy to create vlans to separate my private traffic and my lab traffic.

 

[System Error Message]

have you read the security thread where i was explaining that dlink routers have serious backdoors in them and poor hardware and firmware design?
TP-Link semi managed switch has a GUI. All smart switches that are consumer orientated have GUI. You can go for netgear or zyxel semi managed switches too.

 

[Cert77]

have you read the security thread where i was explaining that dlink routers have serious backdoors in them and poor hardware and firmware design?
TP-Link semi managed switch has a GUI. All smart switches that are consumer orientated have GUI. You can go for netgear or zyxel semi managed switches too.

Ya i read it a while back when i was looking around for a switch. My thing is that zyxel are expensive and netgear i didn't know which one to pick. I did see a linksys http://www.linksys.com/us/p/P-LGS308/ that i was looking at.

it's just hard to decided which one to buy and that is not to expensive.

 

[System Error Message]

Linksys is good too as they're owned by cisco. You can also go for 2nd hand enterprise.