Home lab question

ElGato127

Just saw some used 2950T switches - 24 port offered for $35 each. They come from a company that resells equipment, ports tested.

Does this price sound reasonable?

ElGato127

Just thought of another question along the same lines:

Are there any precautions I need to keep in mind when powering my home lab? My home lab will likely involve about a half dozen appliances +/- a server. Don't want to draw so much juice I end up burning the house down or anything. Any suggestions?

NOC-Ninja

ElGato127 wrote: »

Just saw some used 2950T switches - 24 port offered for $35 each. They come from a company that resells equipment, ports tested.

Does this price sound reasonable?

Go to ebay and check the prices. Thats what I would do to compare.

rob42

ElGato127 wrote: »

Just saw some used 2950T switches - 24 port offered for $35 each. They come from a company that resells equipment, ports tested.

Does this price sound reasonable?

I have two 2950, 24 port switches. I got them both for £35 total ($43.45), so I'd say that $35 for one is a little expensive. But, a different country, a different market place.

They're a little old and as such the IOS is probably going to be no better than v12 and could be even be v11 or older. The cooling fans are also a little on the noisy side. Also, make sure you get some warranty. One of mine failed after a couple of weeks, but I had 2 month warranty, so it was replaced.

It would give you experience of older equipment and no experience is ever wasted.

NOC-Ninja

ElGato127 wrote: »

Just thought of another question along the same lines:

Are there any precautions I need to keep in mind when powering my home lab? My home lab will likely involve about a half dozen appliances +/- a server. Don't want to draw so much juice I end up burning the house down or anything. Any suggestions?

The way I did mind when I was building my CCIE lab was... I got a map of the breaker in my house. YOu should have a copy of that.
Now go google the watts of your devices and compare it to your breaker/capacity of your house.

ElGato127

rob42 wrote: »

I have two 2950, 24 port switches. I got them both for £35 total ($43.45), so I'd say that $35 for one is a little expensive. But, a different country, a different market place.

They're a little old and as such the IOS is probably going to be no better than v12 and could be even be v11 or older. The cooling fans are also a little on the noisy side. Also, make sure you get some warranty. One of mine failed after a couple of weeks, but I had 2 month warranty, so it was replaced.

It would give you experience of older equipment and no experience is ever wasted.

You say 2950 is a bit old? What would you suggest instead?

rob42

ElGato127 wrote: »

You say 2950 is a bit old? What would you suggest instead?

The 2950 was replaced by the 2960. Possibly a better option, but you'll have to pay more for the 2960.

clarson

the 2950's work just fine for the ccna exam. But, you do want to get the latest ios though (cisco has quit supporting them so there aren't going to be any newer releases of the ios). I'd say paying $20 each +shipping is a fair price. I measured the current on 8 pieces of equipment, 4 routers and 4 switches, and they were only drawing 3 amps steady state. So, unless your going to racking and stacking them high, you are not going to have a problem even on a 15 amp circuit.

wseyller

I would go 2960 instead of 2950. I got both and their are some differences that irritate​ me sometimes. ACLs are one of them. Just isn't the same. Price isn't much different if you look around on eBay. Also if you are patient enough you can get a decent layer 3 switch with Poe for under $40.

I got a Cisco Catalyst C3750-48PS Switch on eBay for under $35 shipped on eBay. It's​ my favorite.

dontstop

$35 is a bit pricy for the 2950T if you wait long enough you could score a 2960 for around the same price. Even if you have to spend 10-15 more it's worth it purely for the fact that the 2960 will support MDI-X and IOS 15

If you're on eBay make sure to use the search filter "Sold Listings" and sort by lowest Price + Postage to determine what the going price is in your area.

ElGato127

Thanks for the heads-up wseyller.

I took your suggestion and placed some bids on some surplus 2960s.

By the way, since my goal is to gain as much hands-on experience as possible, would it be a good or bad idea to use a variety of switches and routers in my home lab or is it better to stick with a small number of models that can handle a lot of protocols?

tunerX

I would sooner get a pair of 3560G or 3750G. The older ones that can use the 15 IOS. They add features that will be useful for more advanced learning and certification.

After lots of time and thousands of dollars building home labs you learn the hard way...

I will never be sitting there studying tech and say, I could really use less features, less memory, less cpu, less storage, less ports, etc.

ElGato127

I was just thinking there may be an advantage to being able to say in an interview "Oh yeah, I've used all those types of routers and switches. Actual hardware."

Not that much of an advantage?

tunerX

If you are older it would go to experience.

If you are young it would show that you worked at companies with old as dirt equipment or had a home lab.

ElGato127

Thanks TonerX, just found a 3560 and a 3560G on ebay. They should be arriving soon. Now onto router selection.

dontstop

I went with 1841's for routers. Cheap, modular and fairly quiet and lower power usage. Just make sure if you can, score ones with >=64 FLASH/>=192 DRAM so you can run IOS 15.x code.