TP-LINK Smart Switches anyone?
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Thanks for the write up. :)
The VLAN config looks almost identical to that of most other small managed switches (in my very limited experience). All except Cisco perhaps. ::)Steve
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Looks pretty good to me. Has most of the features that you would want and the back plane is fast enough to support all the ports transmitting a full bandwidth. Has support of VLAN tagging and LAG as well as rapid spanning tree. I think you will be good. The only thing I didn't see which is a shop stopper is radius support. If I could offer some suggestions.
When you connect to switches together via a tagged port (Cisco call it trunk port, but more proper to call it a tagged port) you should not put untagged traffic on the same port. If you have untagged traffic on a tagged port then make sure that both switches have the same pvid on both sides otherwise you will have traffic from one vlan getting onto another.
P.S.
Modern Cisco switches will automatically cross over the connection just make sure you have the command: mdix auto under the interface
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I agree that my view may be distorted, as my (not so wide) experience on VLANs was almost exclusively based on Cisco Catalyst series. That's still what they teach nowdays on CCNA training… And, to be honest, Cisco's implementation is indeed very confortable and easy to maintain.
What I'm missing from this TP-Link VLAN implementation, is something like Cisco's VTP (VLAN Trunking Protocol), where you can set master/slave relationship between switches, and if you add a VLAN to the master switches, it will automatically created on the slaves too. This makes it easy and fast to maintain if you have dozens of switches connected to each other, plus minimizes mistakes.
I can of course live without VTP in my lab, but I think it's trivial to have it in a corporate environment.
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When you connect to switches together via a tagged port (Cisco call it trunk port, but more proper to call it a tagged port) you should not put untagged traffic on the same port. If you have untagged traffic on a tagged port then make sure that both switches have the same pvid on both sides otherwise you will have traffic from one vlan getting onto another.
I didn't find a way to avoid that. As I wrote, it seems you can't have a port with tagged-only traffic, a PVID must be set. That means you'd have to sacrifice a (dummy) VLAN number to catch the untagged traffic. Not a big problem as you can have up to 512 VLANs simultaneously (on the Smart series).
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They can't use VTP since that's a proprietary Cisco protocol. Wikipedia suggests the standards based equivalent is GVRP or MVRP. Neither appear to be supported. :(
Steve
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They can't use VTP since that's a proprietary Cisco protocol. Wikipedia suggests the standards based equivalent is GVRP or MVRP. Neither appear to be supported. :(
Steve
Then next model up, ie, full layer 2 managed switch like TL-3216, do appear to support GVRP. Haven't read deep enough to see what else you get with those over their 'smart switch' line. Seems like the TL-SG2216 is pretty capable.
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Just my experience with GVRP and MVRP, they don't compare to VTP. With that being said VTP can get you in big trouble so it might be a good thing not to have it. Sounds a little crazy that you can't have a port without a pvid but a way to get around that would be not to assign that vlan to that port. On most every switch except Cisco there are a couple of things that you need to know about vlans.
1. When you add a vlan to a port it can be tagged or untagged.
a. Tagged is like a trunk port in cisco using the command switchport trunk allowed vlan x only the vlans specified by x will be on the trunk
b. untagged is like a access port in cisco
2. You then need to assign a pvid to a port which tells the switch what vlan to put the traffic on when untagged traffic enter that port. The similar command in Cisco would be switchport trunk native vlan xHope this helps :)
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I didn't find a way to avoid that. As I wrote, it seems you can't have a port with tagged-only traffic, a PVID must be set. That means you'd have to sacrifice a (dummy) VLAN number to catch the untagged traffic. Not a big problem as you can have up to 512 VLANs simultaneously (on the Smart series).
Can't you just set the PVID to 4095 (the "discard" VLAN)?
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No because the PVID appears as a dropdown box in the GUI, and it contains only the defined VLANs. Could work in CLI though, but I guess that may cause unpredictable results when looking at the GUI…
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Here purchased two of the TP-Link Easy switches (24 ports each).
That said one is mounted inside of a Leviton can which replaced a small 24 port generic switch.
I haven't had much time to play other than I am over port capacity on the two switches and had to add my old non managed Gb switches back into play (also 24 port).
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I was looking for a 16port smart switch aswell and ended up getting a Cisco SG300 20 port and have not looked back, I was initially looking at the 200 series but then decided to get the best i could afford. most cisco equipment costs an arm and a leg but surprisingly the SG-200 18 port was cheaper here than most of the 16port competitors(TPlink did not have a gigabit smart switch with the same features available here at the time). Now with the 300 series i got 2 more ports (having 4 uplink ports ontop of the 16 ports i was looking for has been very helpful and gives me more room to grow) and more features than i needed at the time and firmware upgrades keep adding more. The one feature the hp pro-curve had cisco did not was that you could turn off the link LEDs to save power, upgraded the firmware on my cisco before i started using it and the feature was now added.
Ive had mixed experences with TP-Link equipment, i find that in basic operation it works well but start doing anything complex and performance goes down. You will not get full gigabit thoughput on every port at once but then in a home enviroment do you really need to. if it works for you then great but price up all the options, you might be surprised as i was.
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I was looking for a 16port smart switch aswell and ended up getting a Cisco SG300 20 port and have not looked back
I've been looking at it too, but unfortunately the price for it in my area is almost 4x the price of the TL-SG2216. And I needed 2 of them.
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I was looking for a 16port smart switch aswell and ended up getting a Cisco SG300 20 port and have not looked back
I've been looking at it too, but unfortunately the price for it in my area is almost 4x the price of the TL-SG2216. And I needed 2 of them.
The price is way more because the SG300 series is L3. The best comparable would be the SG200 series, which is the L2 series. I guess the one that comes closest is the SG200-18; It will be still more expensive than a TP-Link, but that is what I would consider normal.
As most of the time; you get what you pay for, and there's rarely such a thing as free lunch.
FWIW: I'm using a couple SG200 series @home instead of the TL-SG2216 I had previously, and am also very satisfied. But that's not because the TP-link had issues, I just needed other kind of setup over time.my €0.02 -> YMMV. ;)
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I was looking for a 16port smart switch aswell and ended up getting a Cisco SG300 20 port and have not looked back
I've been looking at it too, but unfortunately the price for it in my area is almost 4x the price of the TL-SG2216. And I needed 2 of them.
The price is way more because the SG300 series is L3. The best comparable would be the SG200 series, which is the L2 series. I guess the one that comes closest is the SG200-18; It will be still more expensive than a TP-Link, but that is what I would consider normal.
As most of the time; you get what you pay for, and there's rarely such a thing as free lunch.
FWIW: I'm using a couple SG200 series @home instead of the TL-SG2216 I had previously, and am also very satisfied. But that's not because the TP-link had issues, I just needed other kind of setup over time.my €0.02 -> YMMV. ;)
layer 2/3 modes are actually switchable to get MAC based vlans I run mine in layer 2 mode and do the routing in pfsense. However I agree that the 200 series is more comparable to the tl-SG2216. I had budgeted for the SG200-18 but after selling my netgear 8 port for about the difference i could afford the SG300-20, I didn't really need the extra features at the end of the day i like having things to be able to play with but my going upto the best i could afford it also provided a future proof solution. While no one has a crystal ball i advise you to look beyond what you need right now and try and look into what you may need in the future or else the cheaper solution may end up being more expensive when you have to augment it or replace it. Im going through this with my TPlink access point at the moment, i thought it would be ok for what i needed at home but now im finding I just have to bite the bullet and spend the money, doing this twice has costed me more in the long run.
I certainly know that in the right situation tplink gear can be dead on for price/performance/features, however that use case is small so know what your getting into. same thing goes for any brad/manufacturer.
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Cisco SG200-18 also costs more than twice of the price of TL-SG2216.
I've done some further testing with my TL-SG2216 pair, and I must say I'm perfectly satisfied of the results. Soon they will be installed to their final location. I admit that Cisco as a brand is much more respected one than the others - but for my needs, I'll be perfectly fine with my TP-Links. I really don't see the reason to just pay for the brand name, while in my setup they would perform equally well.
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Yup here I come from using Cisco in a "work" environment; work was an airline for many many years.
Cisco is embedded/ingrained in my head; it is a good product.
My PFSense firewall is at home.
I did initially use Cisco stuff at home; then went to downsizing the stuff to smaller footprint non managed switches, then to unmanaged "el cheapo" Gb switches; then to the TP-Link Managed switches which have worked fine for me.
I was just looking for a reasonably priced product for my home and that would work with my automation stuff.
I push the two 24 port switches and they are at port capacity such that I have more switches in place today (well and POE stuff). I have little Aopen DE's connected to the GB network running XBMC. (well in every room that has an LCD TV). I have tested all of the streaming HD stuff and they do fine. I also have some 20 touchscreens connected via Gb connectivity; they have multiple CCTV streaming video streams plus TV streaming and an assortment of other stuff to manage my automation. I have not broken the two switches yet. My home is sort of a sandbox and I have filled up about 1/2 of a class c subnet with a variety of connected do whats; well need to go to a full class c as I am running of of IPs.
I do side stuff stuff related to my hobbies. Helping (well forum moderation) a new company in Taiwan called Securifi which has a neato product that I am playing with called the Almond +.
This is a plug for the Almond plus as it is a combo router, firewall, Wireless Gb (well AC) and automation touch screen about 4" square and maybe 1.5" thick that talks Zigbee and Z-Wave and wireless automation protocols.
That said Securifi just installed a few of the TP-Link managed switches in their offices in Taiwan and they are really happy with them.
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I've got a TL-SG2216 at home, it works fine with pfSense using VLAN's setup with a Trunk to pfSense and my Hyper-V Server, also you can check out a copy of the web interface here http://www.tp-link.com/en/support/emulators/?pcid=204
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My experience with TP-Link products, not only switches, is that you get what you pay for. Generally it works, but biggest downside is firmware. It tends to be very buggy. I wouldn't use it in any mission critical or business environment, but for home use it's fine and excellent value. Honestly, I don't have much better experience with Cisco small business line of products.
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Honestly, I don't have much better experience with Cisco small business line of products.
Agree with this statement.
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Yup; here installed one TP-Link 24 port Easy Smart switch inside of a Leviton 42" media cabinet.
Its quiet, cool and fits nicely inside of my media cabinet.
The second TP-Link 24 port Easy Smart switch is sitting on a rack and just dedicated to servers and to date has not caused me any issues.
Personally I see TP-Link pushing on the commercial side and honestly now providing some quality stuff at reasonable prices.
The above noted I would recommend the TP-Link line of commercial stuff for that typical SOHO office with some 20 or so desktop clients and one server type of environment running on a tight IT budget.
