Building my lan: do I need a managed switch for my VLANs?
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@johnpoz said in Building my lan: do I need a managed switch for my VLANs?:
If you think 5 ports is enough, get an 8 port model or higher. If you think 8 is enough, get 16 min
Absolutely! Take this advice.
A good switch will last a long time. Get one with decent thermal properties (heat kills switches) and it will, for all intents and purposes, last forever.
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@johnpoz said in Building my lan: do I need a managed switch for my VLANs?:
Can never have too many switch ports ;)
Something like this might be adequate for a home user.
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haha - that might be a bit of overkill.. For starters they LOUD as F!! And suck juice like you have a nuc reactor in your back yard ;)
And lets just say its a bit expensive for your typical home budget ;) hehehehe
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@johnpoz well, it should manage VLAN and help to speed up my lan traffic. Actually the main switch (unmanaged ) has 8 ports so I would go for a 16 ports one. As for the price, I prefer to no go over 200ā¬ (I'm in the EU piece of the world :) )
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@johnpoz well, I have (but never used) a Nortel 5650td-48-pwr but I prefer one less power hungry
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Not sure what you mean by help you speed up your lan traffic? If the switch is rated gig - it should pass traffic at wire speed, be it 40$ smart switch or a $200 model ;)
Unless your talking about routing the vlans at the switch, and not your pfsense? In that case you would want a L3 capable switch.
For 200, I would think you should be able to find something great.. Its a touch over your 200 budget.. And not sure how that might change for the EU market.. But for example this cisco sg350-28 would be a killer switch for home use... I have the sg300 (previous model)
https://www.amazon.com/Cisco-Sg350-28-28-Port-Gigabit-Managed/dp/B01HYA38CA
And they are easy on the juice as well!
My sg300-28 has a couple more years of support on it.. But lets say I spilled some beer on it or something, and it took a dump.. I would go with the sg350 line..
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@johnpoz I like my Cisco Small Business SG220-50P. Yeah, it's a bit noisy and not the most power efficient but it lives in the basement and just works. Get one like it not POE and replace the fans. I don't often recommend eBay, but in this case a used switch might be the thing to do.
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I'm using D-Link DGS1210-24
Uses around 20W (Max)
Nice switch and the 1210 series can do MAC filtering and 802.1xhttps://www.amazon.de/D-Link-DGS-1210-24-Glasfaser-l%C3%BCfterlos-energiesparend/dp/B0036DRHHC/
I don't know if the 1210-28 is "the future" , seems like 1210-24 is not available on ie. Amazon.com
https://www.amazon.de/D-Link-DGS-1210-28-1000Mbit-SFP-Slots-l%C3%BCfterlos/dp/B008R7114W/Both should be around 50% if your budget.
Watch out for the models ending with P - Those are PoE and have FAN's
Edit:
Seems like the 28port uses less power 17w compared to the 24port (Amazon info , not from the DS).
The extra 7ā¬ would earn them self in power savings.Wonder why D-Link is so expensive on Amazon.com (close to 50% more)
Thought everything was cheaper "Over there"
That's why Cisco 2xx/3xx are so popular there/Bingo
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While used enterprise gear can be had for cheap on ebay.. And hey if your going for come cert or something and want to play with that - that is for sure an option.
But to be honest - enterprise gear is normally not very friendly on the electric use, and sure they can be freaking LOUD.. For a lab you turn on when playing might be fine. But some good deal you got on some enterprise gear might be reasonable upfront... What is the difference in electric use 3 years down the road while its sucking 150W idle 24/7 vs that small business line only using 20W full juice..
You might eat up any cost savings in the 1st year, depending on what you pay in electric..
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I spend 2 days behind a dual set of C9300's (Nexus), routing fiber conns.
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/nexus-9000-series-switches/datasheet-c78-742283.htmlI LOVED my Boose QC25's
But compared to a C7500 the 9300 is "quiet"
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@bingo600 said in Building my lan: do I need a managed switch for my VLANs?:
C9300's
Don't those things have like 1100W power supplie(s).. Prob sound like little jet engines, can work as a space heater while you at it ;)
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@johnpoz said in Building my lan: do I need a managed switch for my VLANs?:
@bingo600 said in Building my lan: do I need a managed switch for my VLANs?:
C9300's
Don't those things have like 1100W power supplie(s).. Prob sound like little jet engines, can work as a space heater while you at it ;)
The 45xx has 1100W , the 65xx up to 3000W
The 6509 ie. has a FAN "Blade" just consisting of fans for cooling the horizontal blades. And then the PSU's has FAN's ....
But i still think my 4 days besides an old 7500 was the worst ... Didn't have any ear protection back in those days.
The 6509-V-E is a strange beast , cards are vertical.
@johnpoz
This is a fast little bugger:
Cisco Nexus 93180YC-EX switch architectureThe Cisco Nexus 93180YC-EX Switch (Figure 2) is a 1-Rack-Unit (1RU) switch with latency of less than 1 microsecond that supports 3.6 terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth and more than 2.6 billion packets per second (bpps).
The 48 downlink ports on the 93180YC-EX can be configured to work as 1-, 10-, or 25-Gbps ports, offering deployment flexibility and investment protection. The uplink can support up to six 40- and 100-Gbps ports, or a combination of 10-, 25-, 40-, 50-, and 100-Gbps connectivity, offering flexible migration options. All ports are connected to the Cloud Scale LSE ASIC.
@valepe69
Sorry for hijacking
/Bingo
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Just in case anyone is interested.
Cisco SG-350 series data sheet:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/small-business-smart-switches/data-sheet-c78-737359.pdf -
I searched for the specs of the suggested switches and I split them in two families:
- L3 switches like Cisco SG 350-xx
- L2+ switches like D-Link DGS 1210-xx
With L3 switches I could offload to the switch the inter-VLAN traffic, inter-VLAN communication access but with a more complicated handling of the lan (I have to manage two devices for rules, etc).
With L2+ switches all rounting and firewalling is handled by pfSense so a easier handling but with the risk to saturate the physical link from the switch to the router (but I can aggregate two ports to partially solve it).Am I right? And what do you suggest between them?
Thank you again
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@valepe69 You always have to coordinate the configuration between pfsense, Switch and AP's. The VLAN assignments on the switch, AP and your interface and VLAN configuration in pfsense must agree. No avoiding multi-point configuration. Doing some inter-VLAN routing on the switch shouldn't complicate things too much.
I am impressed by your thoughtful approach to this! I look forward to hearing what the best practice recommendation is from those more experienced than I. Even though my Cisco SG-220 is L2 only I'll note the recommendations for the future.
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IMHO L2 switches are adequate for most "Normal usage".
The L3 switches will offload the "router" , but usually their ACL set is limited and if it is not statefull , you are in for a mess.I'd go for L2 , and if more routing capacity is needed , spend the $$ on a larger router (pfSense).
If you have heavy server intercommunication or backup or ... Just put them in the same Vlan .. No router needed.
/Bingo
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Keep in mind that just because your switch supports L3, doesn't mean you have to use it.. Or you can use both L3 and L2 at the same time.
The only thing L3 capable switch gets you is options.. While an L3 switch can route, and L2 can not.. What will you be doing 6 months from now, or a year.. If you get L2 I can tell you for sure you won't be doing any sort of routing on your switch - unless you buy a new one ;)
My sg300 is in L3 mode, and capable of routing. I'm just currently doing L2 on it only.. But its there is I want to test something, or wanted to do that.
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What JP said id correct , you would have the possibility to route if you get a L3 switch. And don't need to enable that at the beginning.
I'm purely L2 , and everything has to pass my pfSense.
I have not missed L3 yet .... -
The reason you would get an L2 over an L3 is cost savings, and no plans of ever routing on it. I have no idea what I might want to do different on my home network, or what to test out..
If a more feature rich switch is in your budget - I would say get it.. Like I said you can never have too many features or options..
Like buying a car, not getting fully loaded. And then winter comes and gawd daggit, wish my seats were heated ;) Damn it what do you mean have to roll down these windows by hand.. What no SiriusXM? The radio only gets AM? WTF!!! ;)
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@johnpoz said in Building my lan: do I need a managed switch for my VLANs?:
The reason you would get an L2 over an L3 is cost savings, and no plans of ever routing on it.
Totally agree - It was cost & 24/7 power usage , that made me chose the 1210's , i also have a few HP-1820. But like the D-Link's better , featurewise.
My home net is so small , that i don't have to think (worry) about segmenting due to # of clients.
I purely segment for security reasons , hence i would not want to do any L3 on the switch.
But you'll never know ...
When you might just wished you had ...
