good, cheap switches?

[Matt Brittain]

Hi, lately we have been using SMC TigerStack II 10/100 - 24 port stackable 
switches. They have 2 additional ports for stacking  or Gig modules also. 
They do have all the vlan type features you probably don't need but they 
are pretty inexpensive and managed switches are always a plus. They are 
less than $1000 with the stacking modules (2), probably around 700 bucks 
without them. I don't know how much the Gig modules are off-hand. Even 
better they can use HP firmware; they are probably just rebadged HPs 
anyway. In fact I'm sure they are, we purchased an HP Procurve 5300 and we 
got a bonus 24 port Procurve 2124 with it that is the exact same as the 
SMCs. They are are wirespeed, and they expand nicely too, our standard 
deployment is a stack of 4, and we have only had minor issues with one of 
the 25 or so switches being flaky so we RMAed it. If your interested try 
http://www.precisiongroup.com/, not much on the site but if you call them 
up they have good prices on the SMCs. Good luck with your clustering.



> for a 24-port 100Mbit switch, and they're pushing a Cisco 3350-24 switch
> (around $1900) apparently for the simple reason that that's the switch