Help choosing the correct switch replacement

[ccie2b2004]

Thank you for reading my post,

I have a client who has a Dental office, 17 Pcs, network printers, 3 servers set up with a 3com 10/100 base I think 3300 or something like it. Switch has work great without my help, but now the office changed to digital dental x-rays, so now larger files are going through the office network creating more traffic. My client said the software company recommended a new switch that is 1000 base since all the PCs are fairly new with 100/1000 NIC's, which would speed the traffic 10 fold. I never tried or work with a manageable switch so my question is this: My hardware provider offered me a Netgear GSM7248 48 Port Gigabit L2 Managed Switch or a DELL 48-PORT GIGABIT ETHERNET SWITCH-POWERCONNECT 2748 but he just sells used equipment without any knowledge to advice me. Any comments on which one would be a better one and how complicated would be to manage them? Which begs the question, How involved is the management of these units?

Your help is greatly appreciated

 

[Dinkytoy]

Unless you have a particular need to manage the switch to implement extra services then both will work out of the box in the same way as the existing 10/100 just faster. I wouldn't bother worry about the management and how to unless there is a specific need to do it.

That said the only conern I'd have is that if it is used used you would need to wipe the config before doing anything else, just in case.

 

[ccie2b2004]

Great,

thank you so much for you reply! In researching for ever I have noticed that many so called 1GB switch's most of them are in reality only 2 ports with 1GB and the rest are 10/100... How come is that? Are the Netgear GSM7248 48 Port Gigabit L2 Managed Switch or a DELL 48-PORT GIGABIT ETHERNET SWITCH-POWERCONNECT 2748 1GB in all their ports? A

Any special consideration regarding wiring with the faster switch? All my wires are CAT5.

Thank you for you advice

 

[MrNick0483]

A properly configured switch with the workstaions being 100 and the server being gig would more than do the job.

 

[ccie2b2004]

All workstations have 1Gig NIC's.... Why would I want the workstation to be configured to work at 100?

 

[Dinkytoy]

Both of those switches have 48 GB ports.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/pwcnt_2748

http://www.netgear.co.uk/managed_layer2_switch_gsm7224.php

 

[SYQUEST]

How old are the existing patch cords?

For optimum transmission you want patch cords rated as CAT5e for your installation! You mentioned above that your wiring is CAT5. After I think 2004, the testing standards changed for patch cords so that they could more easily be tested to make sure they met the TIA standard. Previously, there were a lot of claims that the cords did NOT meet. So there was a lot of junk out there because of faulty manufacturing and companies using the wrong plug assemblies that did not meet the standard, etc.

....JIM....

 

[ccie2b2004]

You are right.... my mistake. My wiring is only 2 years old, they are CAT5e.

Good point though. Any thoughts on which of the mentioned switch would be better for my configuration?

Many thanks for your comments

 

[SYQUEST]

I have been very happy with the 3COM layer 2 switches like the 3CBLGS24 series, which is 10/100/1000 on all ports and has 4 SFP ports shared with ports 21-24. For my applications and clients they perform very well and provide flexibility at a decent price. 3COM makes 48 port versions in this Baseline series also.

My 3¢ worth...

....JIM....

 

[cknipe]

stay away from netgear...thier vlan configuration is very confusing and I have seen a lot of these swiches that failed (in enterprise environments) on other customers of mine.

 

[MrNick0483]

The million dollar question would be is your 1 gig server capable of keeping up with 19 gig computers even running at 50% utilization? If this situation requires a high performace network you might want to start looking at a Cisco.

 

[ccie2b2004]

Thank you cknipe for you comment! I am going with Dell. Regarding MrNick0483... I never thought that higher speed would increase stress in the servers. I have two servers in this Dental office. I thought that increasing the switch speed would stop the bottle neck and in fact, releasing stress from the server.... Right? Wrong? Would adding an extra NIC's on the server help in any way? If I remember correctly that would create a "shadow" effect in the network. I am a Microsoft guy all the way, with my MCSE but never touch any CISCO stuff because so far I had no need to manage any of my client’s networks. This is a Dental office with a very straight forward dental database that keeps appointments, client history and now also digital X rays of clients. The internet is only used very seldom by one PC, network printers and that is all. So I am staying with Dell switch.

Your comments are very valuable to me, many thanks