2501 8/8 or 16/16? which one should I get?

Hi,

I am trying to build my small lab.
Can anyone tell me which one of the follow 2501s I should get?
1st: 2501 with 8/8 RAN and flash. $30 (includes shipping)
2nd: 2501 with 16/16 RAM and flash. $50 (includes shipping)

Both are tested and come with power cord, console cable.

I only know that the bigger RAN/flash, the newer IOS I can run on it, but I really don't know how different 8M and 16M are.

Can someone please help me to decide? Thank you very much!
Andy

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Comments

mikej412

Neither -- both are overpriced. 2501 routers, even with 16/16 are only worth about $10 (before shipping). If a transceiver is included, that may kick that up about $5 more.

If you don't get the 16/16 router then you won't be getting the last of the good IOS versions for the 2500s. You want either the last 12.2 Enterprise Plus or 12.3 IP Plus -- both which need 16 Meg flash.

At $50 you may as well look for a desk mount 1721 with power supply (and a nice chunk of DRAM/FLASH) & free shipping -- there were a bunch of those a few months back on eBay.

beef1218

Thank you mike.
I have been looking at ebay for a week, but didn't see any 2501 16/16 under $30 includes shipping, excluding those untested.

The cheapest transceiver I found was $12.99 including shipping. I already ordered one.

For the 1721, I will need to buy a WIC-1T card, which is about $25, so I still wanna stick to the 2501.

I guess only those who are very patient can get good deals. I will wait several more days and see if I can get any luck.

BadBoy House

I totally agree with Mike. I almost did the same thing as you and nearly bought some 2501's but I'm glad I didn't.

They're too old now and if you look hard enough on eBay you'll find some good deals on newer routers.

Personally I went for a couple of 1721's and a 2610.

The 2500's are just a bit too dated now. Plus you'll need to buy transceivers like mike said.

kryolla

I have some 2500s for my CCIE lab but like Mike said if you are going to get a 2500 series router then get the max memory and the most recent IOS 16/16 and 12.3 IP Plus.

beef1218

Thank you guys!
I just pulled my trigger to a 2610 w/ WIC-1T and a 2950.

My plan is to get another 26xx XM and a 2501 16/16.

jonny72

kryolla wrote: »

I have some 2500s for my CCIE lab.

Why do people use 2500s for CCIE labs? Is it just down to them being dirt cheap and so an easy way to add a bunch of extra routers at a low cost?

tiersten

jonny72 wrote: »

Why do people use 2500s for CCIE labs? Is it just down to them being dirt cheap and so an easy way to add a bunch of extra routers at a low cost?

Pretty much. You need a few routers to just inject some routes and a 2500 is good enough for that.

kryolla

I got them back in 05 or before when I was studying for CCNA and now that I am studying for CCIE it does almost everything so far. Just today while studying BGP I noticed it doesn't have replace-as and dual-as which you will only come across at CCIE level but I have other routers that run 12.4 that has this command. Not a lot changes for layer 2 & 3 so a 2500 will suffice.