2Gb Trunk Uplinks vs. 1Gb Core Switch Approach

[SoCalJake]

I have a four switch stack consisting of 1 x 2610-24-PWR and 3 x 2520-24-PWR (I know... should have used 48 ports... Sales people don't get it...) The 2610 is in for IP routing.

All 4 of these will be in the same rack. 2 VLANS (native + tagged VoIP).

The question is, since the 2520's have 4 x 1Gb ports I could use one 2520 as a core switch with 1Gb links to each of the other 3 switches OR I could trunk Gb 25+26 ports in 2520 #1 as trk1, Gb 25+26 as trk1 and Gb 27+28 as trk2 in 2520 #'s 2 & 3 and then Gb 25+26 in the 2610 as trk1. This would give me 2Gb trunks between all four switches BUT be daisy chained.

In other words:

2520 #1
port 25 <--1Gb--> port 25 on 2520 #2
port 26 <--1Gb--> port 25 on 2520 #3
port 27 <--1Gb--> port 25 on 2610

OR

2520 #1 <==2Gb==> 2520 #2 <==2Gb==> 2520 #3 <==2gb==> 2610


Make sense? I keep going around and around on the BETTER way to do this. Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[VinceWhirlwind]

I may be wrong as I don't have a 2610 myself, but I am pretty sure that switch has 4x 1Gb: 2x copper, and 2x SFP ports.

Personally, I would always use my routing switch as my "core".

For redundancy, configure your "core" with a high priority for spanning-tree, then inter-link your other switches with each other. (Make sure spanning-tree is enabled on them first!).

 

[SoCalJake]

I don't have the GBIC's so I can't use those interfaces, and since that leaves me with 2 copper interfaces on the 2610 I thought a 2520 *might* be the better approach.

Agreed on the STP.

 

[VinceWhirlwind]

I would still go with the 2610 as my "core" then, but with only a partial mesh, ie

[2610] <----> [2520]
| _______/ |
| / |
[2520] <----> [2520]