mini-switches bad idea on LAN?

[docmeyer]

For one reason or another (read, laziness and to expedite service) we have around (3) 10/100 mini-switches on the network. We have (3) 24 port 10/100 switches that services the entire LAN. Overall would the 10/100 mini-switches effect performance for those servers that are on them? Actually, I haven't really seen a difference, but I hate seeing them and want to tell my supervisor we need to get rid of them.

TIA

Doc The DI from PI

http://95south.150m.com

Virginia Beach, VA U.S.A.

 

[johnny99]

If the hardware you have is not too bad and it's running 100Mbit/s full-duplex you should not have any problems.
It could happen that 3 servers on a mini-switch want to load more then 100Mbit/s over the downlink at the same time, but since your network is 100Mbit/s max on any downlink you would normaly not have that load.

In some cases it could event be better to have the mini-switches eg if you pull some large files from on server to another that are on the same mini-switch.

On our lan we sometimes use small mini-switches (Cisco with 8 ports on no fan) it's mostly in IT where some of the support people have 5 user PC's they have to fix on their desk. It works fine and we have not had any problems with that.

But limit the numbers of mini-switches, and monitoring them is not very easy.

But if you personal goal is to get them out of your network I could find a lot of reasons to help you with that
/johnny

 

[docmeyer]

I guess I'm going overboard. Actually the servers are independent of each other. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Thanks for the scoop.

~d The DI from PI

http://95south.150m.com

Virginia Beach, VA U.S.A.

 

[jimbopalmer]

Downsides to cheap switches:

usually cannot force an odd NIC requirement, ie 10 full or 100 half

all users share the 100 meg upload

cannot disable one port at a time, auto partition will segment the whole switch offline

usually impossible to set 802.1p priority, although some will honor it if it is set.

Usually do not to "tagging' for 802.1Q VLANs

usually unable to graph usage or errors

less of a problem for new ones, but they used to have tiny MAC tables
I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[docmeyer]

Good points John, I'll discuss it with the Sup' The DI from PI

http://95south.150m.com

Virginia Beach, VA U.S.A.