Cisco SG-300 series

Hey guys,

I've been wondering why our solar panels are pulling so much juice while I'm not home and all I ever have on is the home network switch which is a HP Procurve 2910al-48-PoE. Never once did it phase me it's a energy hog, literally..... it uses 580+ watts!

I'm sure I'll find a use for the Procurve someplace, just seems pointless to have a 48 porter on all the time if I only have 6 ports needed now.

I've been looking at the Cisco SG300-10 since I've officially migrated all of the VMware lab to the 2960G's but I'm curious if anyone else here has used the SG300 series switches. Wondering if they support OSPF at all, if not I suppose I could set it up as a DMZ switch between the Sonicwall and the Cisco lab, but at only 17.1 watts for a 10 porter vs 580+ watts it's really a no brainier, I just don't want to sacrifice speed for torrents and online games.

Thoughts?

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gorebrush

I have a 28 port version of the SG300 and I think t's a wonderful switch. It is NOWHERE on the same level of feature parity as the Enterprise gear, but then, it's a fraction of the cost. This is to be expected.

As a cheap, VLAN, Layer 3 capable, Gbit, frame flinger, it's a brilliant switch and good enough for any home-labber.

As for OSPF - No, it's only good for static routing, but that is more than enough for me. It's also a silent switch. I am very pleased with it

HTH

Kore

I plan on getting one SG-300 for my home lap also. I want it mostly for the layer 3 features. I heard that the command line is not very stable though and configuring via GUI is a better option. Is that true?

jibbajabba

I love em ..

switch#show system
System Description:                       SG300-28 28-Port Gigabit Managed Switch
System Up Time (days,hour:min:sec):       01,08:22:23
System Contact:                           Mike
System Name:                              switch
System Location:                          Garage
System MAC Address:                       d0:d0:fd:4d:50:a0
System Object ID:                         1.3.6.1.4.1.9.6.1.83.28.1

Deathmage

Hmmm.... well I guess if it doesn't have OSPF and it does have static routing I could use it in-between the Sonicwall and the Cisco lab (like the Procurve is currently - just don't need to power 48 ports anymore now) and use it for the home network, once the Cisco lab is turn off when not in use it's purely the home-network switch.

jibbajabba wrote: »

I love em ..

switch#show system
System Description:                       SG300-28 28-Port Gigabit Managed Switch
System Up Time (days,hour:min:sec):       01,08:22:23
System Contact:                           Mike
System Name:                              switch
System Location:                          Garage
System MAC Address:                       d0:d0:fd:4d:50:a0
System Object ID:                         1.3.6.1.4.1.9.6.1.83.28.1

Does it work well with your VMware cluster?

gorebrush

The command line is a bit goofy if you are used to "full blown" Cisco, but it works well enough. The GUI is easy in *some* cases because trying to do it through the CLI is sometimes frustrating.

The GUI is also a bit of a pain because it constantly nags you every 5 minutes to write your config, but it's good enough.

For what your paying, I would buy with confidence.

--chris--

The switches are nice, but the firmware is very hit and miss. If you have trouble getting your trunks to function correctly between switches check your firmware and send me a PM with the revision number.

Essentially it would ignore the ports access vlan and just put everything into the switches native vlan. A real pain to troubleshoot.

TWX

Take a look at the Cisco Compact Catalyst switches. Models C2960CG, C2960CX, C3560CG, and C3560CX. There are also older models in the lineup. They have as many as twelve ports and don't even have fans, even the PoE models. I have a TON of C3560CGs in service at work and they're decent.

I just did a search on a Cisco list price site and the fewer ports you buy, the closer the small-business line and Catalyst line come together in price. There are also refurbs available that could make the pricing even better.

Deathmage

I did the math with the house and it's wiring, I need exactly 15 ports. Over the summer I wired the house and made it a smart house with two Amazon Echo's and two Smart House Hubs for all the wireless outlets and wireless light bulbs.

techfiend

Wow that's a hungry switch! What about a used 3750G? 100W max and full IOS but maybe a loud fan, could come in handy with studies too. Would a 3750G be a good replacement for a SOHO router? Lose firewall but wouldn't acl's work just about as well?

TWX

techfiend wrote: »

Wow that's a hungry switch! What about a used 3750G? 100W max and full IOS but maybe a loud fan, could come in handy with studies too. Would a 3750G be a good replacement for a SOHO router? Lose firewall but wouldn't acl's work just about as well?

No NAT...

A used 2800-series with an Etherswitch module could work. The 16-FE 1-GE model is compatible with the 2811, 2821, and 2851. The 23-FE 1-GE model is compatible with the 2821 and 2851, and the bigger ones are compatible with the 2851. Hell, the 16-port version is compatible with the 2691, 3700 series, 3800 series, and 2900 series, and 3900 series too, so there are lots of possible routers that would be compatible.

techfiend

Forgot about NAT. 2800+etherswitch would make a nice single unit but the gigabit es' are way outside of my budget. Maybe I'll go with 2800 router + cheapest gigabit IOS I can find, 3750G aren't very expensive and I could use it for upcoming CCNP studies. I need at least 12 ports so the compacts are out. Maybe I'll ping clarson and see what he has.

Are the 2800's pretty quiet? My 1800's are really quiet, can't be heard. What about 3750G?

TWX

The 2800s are not especially quiet I'm afraid. I have one of each model, they are more powerful and thus need more cooling.

The Fast Ethernet NME modules are between $50 and $100 each on ebay right now. It's not gig, but unless one has Google Fiber one isn't going to get gigabit to the Internet, and none of these routers can do gigabit across the switch anyway.

I've been doing some reading on it as I'm in a city that could possibly get Google Fiber, and unfortunately I'd have to go to a 6500 chassis in order to get full-line-speed switching and NAT. At least those have been around for a very long time so finding surplus parts should be possible, but it's not exactly a quiet device, and not exactly low power and I'd have to upgrade from CatOS to IOS anyway.

techfiend

I have 150 mbit internet, soon 200 mbit. My current SOHO router, a cisco branded linksys is advertised as a gigabit router. It does 300-400 mbps switching, which is a lot lower than it should be but tolerable. Routing is only 100 mbps and a neighbor with the same service gets 160 mbps with his tplink. I was thinking of going fancy like Deathmage but I don't know, maybe saving some money and buying a proven SOHO wireless router is the best route at this time.

Loud fans really get to me, with my lab I pulled the fans on the two 2950 switches and mounted a quiet 80mm fan to cool both. I had a huge selection of switches to find the quietest fans from a fellow TE'er but still too loud. Three 1800 fans on the other hand are pretty quiet, I think one was a little loud at one point but nothing a little oil couldn't fix.

TWX

I've seen 1900-series and 2900-series routers coming up for sale used for decent prices on craigslist. Haven't looked wider than that.

Deathmage

Well I have (6) 3750G's now in the rack, but those are wired for the Cisco lab and all nice and neatly wired up.

I suppose I could use one of them, just want to scale back the wattage while I'm not home but still have muscle so I can remotely log into the Raspberry Pi 2 (that has a usb dongle to a power management switch) thru the Sonicwall and turn on the rack. At this point the the 580+ watt HP Procurve 2910al-48-PoE has been swapped out with a HP Procurve 2910al-24 non PoE and it much quieter and uses just 65 watts but it would be nice to go completely Cisco.

As for the removal of the firewall, the Sonicwall is already the Edge device on the network and the LAN connection goes to whatever switch candidate is chosen.

I guess now it boils down to a 3750G 24 port slim or a SG300-20 port switch. I do need L3 functionality so hrm....

techfiend wrote: »

I have 150 mbit internet, soon 200 mbit. My current SOHO router, a cisco branded linksys is advertised as a gigabit router. It does 300-400 mbps switching, which is a lot lower than it should be but tolerable. Routing is only 100 mbps and a neighbor with the same service gets 160 mbps with his tplink. I was thinking of going fancy like Deathmage but I don't know, maybe saving some money and buying a proven SOHO wireless router is the best route at this time.

Loud fans really get to me, with my lab I pulled the fans on the two 2950 switches and mounted a quiet 80mm fan to cool both. I had a huge selection of switches to find the quietest fans from a fellow TE'er but still too loud. Three 1800 fans on the other hand are pretty quiet, I think one was a little loud at one point but nothing a little oil couldn't fix.

In this day and age, get a Sonicwall that has gigabit. You can find one on ebay for less than $150. Now if you want to get really fancy I don't use SOHO wireless router's my whole house has (6) Cisco Aironet AP's tied into 12 port Netgear PoE Smart Switch that has a bonded gigabit uplink into the home-network core.

.. The Sonicwall I use has 200 Mbit throughput but I'll never have a home connection that's faster than that so it's perfect.

I will admit I download a frack ton of torrents and play a few online MMORPG's so I need speed and I too have ultra high speed internet, while not as fast as yours, it's 100 Mbit's but with a 65 Mbit upload and a static IP of a /29. I do allot of streaming with PLEX and remote labbing while at work so a static IP was needed. The Sonicwall didn't really like dynamic addressing, I tried it but once that router learned a new IP... WHAMMM VPN tunnel smashed then PLEX server blows up!

as for my router, I use a Cisco 2811, has two gigabit connections (1 to Home vLAN on Sonicwall, 1 to PLEX Server vLAN), as the home router with a HWIC-CABLE-D-2 card. What's surprising is my ISP told me I would get 101 Mbit's but with their CSU I never got 101, maybe like 65 or 70, I swapped it out for the Cisco 2811 with the HWIC-CABLE-D-2 and I now get 101 mbit's. So I called them up on it a few months back and they were more astonished of the network I had in my house and they blatantly admitted they throttle the modem from the advertised speeds and I was like O.O! ... I pay for 101 and you throttle it da-boot on the CSU!!!! ... they apologized and gave me 3 months free. I don't think they ever thought a home-user would get a enterprise router in their home...

techfiend

I use Sonicwall's at work, they are powerful UTM's but two things really bug me about them. The interface is terrible, at least on v5 firmwares, honestly I've never seen a bigger CF of a gui in my life. I've read v6 is much better but I also don't like that a subscription is required to use most of the powerful features, considering the subscription they're expensive devices. I've considered watchguard but those also require subscriptions to do much of anything.

I'm not in a hurry to replace my current hardware, 100 vs 150 mbit doesn't mean much to me. I'd much rather have my 10 mbit upload increased, which is supposed to double soon, still low but I rarely use it. A lot of my focus is getting cisco gear that I can use to study CCNP and possibly CCIE and can be re-purposed later on.

Deathmage

I'm actually thinking of getting a Cisco 1921 off ebay for the HWIC-CABLE-D-2 card. I want a slimmer router that uses less electric.

TWX

You should check with your ISP to confirm that they'll allow the Cisco HWIC to connect. My ISP will not allow it.

Deathmage

TWX wrote: »

You should check with your ISP to confirm that they'll allow the Cisco HWIC to connect. My ISP will not allow it.

I got a static /29 block they better support it, it's a business-class addon to the account.

Deathmage

They said it's supported. Gotta love Optimum Online.

TWX

*nod*

I was surprised as hell to see that my ISP says no to Cablemodem modules in Cisco routers.

Deathmage

TWX wrote: »

*nod*

I was surprised as hell to see that my ISP says no to Cablemodem modules in Cisco routers.

Which is surprising cause the modules are completely controlled by the ISP. You can't manage the module at all, and the ip address has to be set to dhcp so it can suck the IP information from the ISP's servers.

What it boils down to feasibly is if they said 'yes' then their support staff would need to knowledgeable in Cisco for them to support it.

jibbajabba

Deathmage wrote: »

Hmmm.... well I guess if it doesn't have OSPF and it does have static routing I could use it in-between the Sonicwall and the Cisco lab (like the Procurve is currently - just don't need to power 48 ports anymore now) and use it for the home network, once the Cisco lab is turn off when not in use it's purely the home-network switch.

Does it work well with your VMware cluster?

I needed VLANs, it is managed - so yea