[geeks] Recommendations on an Ethernet Switch?

[Dan Sikorski]

Micah R Ledbetter wrote:

>Looks awesome... but after my experience with bargain switches, hubs, and routers, I'm sort of afraid to buy them anymore. Does anyone have an opinion of Netgear stuff? I've heard even "big" companies like Dell make crappy networking equipment. I know that in my personal experience, no-name networking equipment and SOHO equipment from name brands seem to have some stupid issue (needs to be powercycled all the time, won't remember settings, crappy throughput, whatever). 
>  
>
I have the same experience with "bargain" switches.  Ya know, it's funny 
that you would mention both netgear and dell switches in the same 
message, They're the two that i've had the most problems with.

I have several netgears that were taken out of service because they had 
a a problem where suddenly, the bridge between 10 megabit devices and 
100 megabit devices would stop.  10 megabit devices could talk to other 
10 megabit devices, and 100 megabit devices could talk to other 100 
megabit devices, but they couldn't talk 10 to 100 or vice versa.  This 
was happening with several (6-10) of these switches, even replacements 
that were sent from netgear when we got a few replaced under warranty.  
It was special.  Those switches now have a special place in the junk pile.

As for Dell, we stopped using a pair of powerconnect 3024's because for 
some reason, our Windows XP clients did not like them.  When the 
machines would come up, the network interface wouldn't be working until 
sometime after the login prompt came up, so the users would not be able 
to log in the first 4-5 times they tried, but then it would work.  The 
machines running 98 didn't have the problem.  Didn't spend a great deal 
of time troubleshooting it, we just replaced the switches and the 
problem went away with them.

Currently at work, we buy HP Procurve gear, and the only ones that we've 
had problems with are the little 8 port ones which would randomly drop 
connections.  All of the bigger ones (various models from the low end 
rack mount unmanaged switches up to the 4108gl) run perfectly.

    -Dan Sikorski