[Kristoff]

Anyone use a good (and cheap) gigabit switch?

I was looking at the FriendlyNET GX5-500 but can't find any good user reviews.

So, who uses copper gigabit, what do you use, and what do you like?

[ghporter]

Before I recommended anything, I'd have to ask what you plan to use such a switch for. If you just want to connect a couple of gigabit-capable Macs together, I'd recommend looking in one direction. If you need to connect a bunch of computers, I'd look in a different direction.

I can't imagine a lot of applications that would really use the capacity of a gigabit switch in any small or home office setting, since there are few available (US) broadband connections that can come close to taxing 10BaseT switches (most broadband connections max out at anything between 1.5 and 3Mbps). Going with gigabit in this setting is sort of like using a Formula 1 race car to go to the corner store; fun, but a waste of capacity.

In business there are a LOT of applications for really fast switches, but these are usually in specialized settings, such as data centers.

I'm not saying that there won't be more basic applications in the future, like high quality streaming, full screen video, but they aren't here for most of us. Not yet anyway. That means that the products needed to support such applications aren't built for or priced for consumer-level users.

[Kristoff]

It would be for a small lan, like 4 nodes, and it would be for transferring large files between them (several GB files).

[ghporter]

That's a perfect application for gigabit. You can find the Linksys EF3508, 8-port gigabit switch for around $400, the D-Link DGS-1004T, 4-port gigabit switch (I don't think this one has a separate uplink port) for around $150, and the Netgear GS105 five-port siwtch for less than $100!

Obviously, you should decide whether or not you're going to eventually expand your network before you decide what size switch to buy, but an entry price of less than $100 makes the Netgear box very tempting-and it should get you along the way to speeding up your network and finding out how you like it that way.

Cheers!

[C.J. Moof]

Originally posted by Kristoff:
Anyone use a good (and cheap) gigabit switch?

I was looking at the FriendlyNET GX5-500 but can't find any good user reviews.

So, who uses copper gigabit, what do you use, and what do you like?

A few months ago I installed a GX-5 1600 for my office. It just simply works, and I haven't had to think about it for a moment since it went in. I can get a good 35 Megs/sec moving between a G5 and the Xserve.

The only bad I can think of saying about it is that it's unmanaged, but I've found that to be overrrated anyway. The rest of the network is 4 3Com SuperStacks, and I've never used their management interface to solve a problem.

If only I could get the 3Com gigabit uplink expansion port to work as well as the rest of the stuff... weird issues with that thing. So I have all the design and production people on the gig switch, and everyone else hits the 3Coms ->100B ->Asante switch -> gigabit -> Xserve. It really doesn't matter if they're sharing a 100B or gig connection to the switch to move their .xls and .doc files around....