48 port 10/100 Switch

MunsterCycling

Looking for a 48 port 10/100 passive cooled or very quiet active cooled switch?

Advise on where to purchase and or models etc

TIA

MC

Static M.e.

Why 48 port?

I would (nearly always) get two 24 ports and link them. It also depends on what you need the switches for.

If its for an iSCSI network for VMware them I would stick with Cisco.
If its for a home/small office lan then I would stick with HP Procurves or anything cheap/cheerful and possibly buy a third..just in case.

It depends on what you want it for

MunsterCycling

Cheers this equipment is for a primary school btw.

I have considered using two 24 port switch's and linking but the cabinet they have isn't the biggest and I'm budget restricted so was trying to get the biggest bang for the buck.

What would people think of these: Enterasys V2H124-24P I like the PoE ability as I have three APs to add to the premises and onboard PoE would be really handy.

MC

Static M.e.

I would still go with 2x 24 ports at least if one breaks then whole network isn't down.

I haven't used one of those before, but it should be fine. As long as your not doing anything too fancy anything should do really.

Can I ask are you doing the work pro bono or are you a paid contractor?
(I was wondering how Primary Schools do IT, I'm not selling anything, just curious)

MunsterCycling

Well my daughters go to the school so its a mix of both.

I was approached by the principal before the holidays to complete their network as some classrooms had access and others not as well as to go through all their PCs and physically and logically clean them.
The school is going to be building on in the next few months (three classrooms and ancillary service rooms) so in part that was why I was looking at a 48 port as it gives me wiggle room to expand but I take your point about a switch going down, its just that trying to cram three 24 port switches (there is one in place already), a 24 port patch and a 48 port patch into the cabinet they have would be almost impossible.

The internet access side of things is handled through the NCTE and all machines in the school have public IPs which I find a strange use of such a resource but it works well.

Any other info on school IT side of things just PM me.

Static M.e.

Yeah I understand what you mean you don't want to overcrowd that cabinet. It just makes working in or around it difficult and problematic.

If its any help I could provide a 24 port 10/100 HP Procurve. It might save you a few bob should you have to get a bigger cabinet.

Drop me a pm if interested, you would have to collect in Dublin most likely

axer

Get yourself a unmanaged cisco switch (these used to be Linksys switches) with gigabit uplinks. I have installed these in schools before (24p versions) and never had any problems.
http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=ECE1429866

Just one or two other things, look at the MS licensing (contact micromail.ie) as there is huge discounts for schools (especially disadvantaged schools). You can get MS licensing for €5 (plus VAT) per computer per year which entitles you to any version of Windows XP/7 etc and any version of MS Office at any time. Also for A/V I recommend ESET nod32 - I think they work out at like 10 euro per computer for 2 years or something when it is for a school. You might be better off getting some sort of cheap firewall or something and put it in the cabinet so you do not have to firewall each client - use the firewall for NAT then so you can start using private IPs inside the LAN.

MunsterCycling

Thanks axer, yup we already have the school signed up through Micromail and enjoy as many licences as we need for our PCs, for AV I have just kept them on MS Security Essentials and its working well so far.

As regards the firewall/NAT the NCTE control that side of things as they like to be able to track each machine centrally so NAT is not an option for me as that would defeat their monitoring logs. DHCP is done in Dublin via VPN as is the external internet access BTW, all through the VPN, thankfully the latency isn't noticeable.

I have yet to enquire but I think I can request static leases from them for Servers/Printers

Thanks for all the ideas, keep 'em coming.

MC