Fast Ethernet vLAN (802.1Q) switches

[tho3hite]

I need to segment my office building into a bunch of vLANs. Right now I need about 20 vLANs for the office this could grow to as many as 35 in the future. These switches will only carry traffic to and from our router/gateway with a 22Mbps connection. There shouldn't be any local device to device traffic running over these switches.

I've been looking at 10/100 24 port switches from Netgear. They have four different product lines that I might choose from and it's a bit hard to determine which switch will give us enough features without paying for extras I don't need.

Netgear product lines/models:
Managed switches: FSM726-300 $270
Stackable Smart Switches: FS728TS $220
Smart Switches: FS726T $180
ProSafe Plus Smart Switches: JFS524E $100 (New "green" line w/o web management)

I'd prefer to only buy 24-ports now and add a second switch later--it may never be needed or I may need the extra ports in the future to be gigabit.

 

[thiggins]

I think the regular "smart" switch will be fine. Although you should check the specs to see how many VLANs is will support.

If you don't mind using a Windows app to manage the switch, you might try the ProSafe Plus switches. But, again, check that the # of VLANs supported is sufficient.

 

[tho3hite]

ProSafe Plus

I spent a couple of hours online and talking to Netgear pre-sales tech support. They couldn't tell me how many VLAN the new switches support. I'm a Mac user but I could run emulation software to configure the switch.

My bigger concern is that I have seen reports online of very inconsistent behavior from this switch. It seems that some switches in this line have firmware that can't be upgraded when a bug is found. Ouch!

I'm concerned because it's a new product line and I need to put the switch into service right away and depend on it.

I decided to order a FS726T online from eSecurityToGo for about $170. I'll post back after I've installed and configured the switch about my experiences with it.