2900 Catalyst Switches

rakem

I have the opportunity to get a couple of Catalyst 2900 XL switches for free.

i know they are pretty old, but would they be worth it for my BCMSN studies?? not sure what IOS they are running but perhaps i could upgrade..

thanks

mikej412

Well, the price is right

But to be useful, they'd have to be the 2924-XL-EN or one of the other model with 8 meg of memory that can run the last enterprise version software that was available. And even then, they're only good as a 3rd or 4th switch (with your first 2 being a 3550/3560/3750 & 2950/2960 or 2 2950s if money is tight).

If you don't mind paying for the electricity -- they could be better than no switches.

Netwurk

The switch portion of my lab consists of a 3550, a 2950, and 2 2900's. The usefulness of the 2900's lies in the fact that you can set up various spanning-tree scenarios when you have multiple switches. There are some drawbacks, since they use an older style IOS and don't support RSTP and MST.

At one time, they were a lot cheaper than 2950's. But nowadays 2900's go for $25-60 on ebay and 2950's go for $75-100. So it's probably worth paying the extra for 2950's.

But if you can get 'em for free, the price is certainly right.