Is this a good deal on a 3550 switch?

phoeneous

Cisco 3550 24 Port PoE Switch, WS-C3550-24PWR-SMI

Condition: Pre-owned in great condition

jason_lunde

Honestly its a bit pricey. I picked up the same switch for 180 on ebay. Just got to find the right seller.

human151

maybe, because it is POE. Do you plan to use phones?

wastedtime

That seems decent for that model. There is also this place https://shop.horizondatacom.com/oasiscrm/Shopping.asp?Directive=InvDetails&Parent=&Category=&Selection=64048. While it doesn't say that they send the cables and rack mount kit, whenever I bought from them they have. (Would email/phone them about it) They also do a 1 year warranty on cisco equipment.

kriscamaro68

thats not really that great of price. Check ebay they usually run from 175 to 250. 275 non emi is expensive even though its just an ios upgrade. for that price you can get the emi image on one of those on ebay maybe even less:

Cisco Catalyst 3550 WS-C3550-24-SMI 24 Port Switch - eBay (item 250498616187 end time Sep-21-09 07:42:35 PDT)

you could also find it cheaper on a bid.

phoeneous

Just found this, seems like a much better deal. By the way, its for work, not a lab.


CISCO CATALYST WS-C3550-48-SMI 48-PORT SWITCH 3550 EMI - eBay (item 250498829753 end time Sep-24-09 14:58:54 PDT)

tiersten

phoeneous wrote: »

Just found this, seems like a much better deal. By the way, its for work, not a lab.

You're buying a production switch off eBay with no warranty? o.O

hodgey87

tiersten wrote: »

You're buying a production switch off eBay with no warranty? o.O

+1

I really wouldnt recommend that

veritas_libertas

phoeneous wrote: »

Cisco 3550 24 Port PoE Switch, WS-C3550-24PWR-SMI

Condition: Pre-owned in great condition

That seems a bit steep, I got mine on eBay for $50.

phoeneous

tiersten wrote: »

You're buying a production switch off eBay with no warranty? o.O

And thats why I posted the first link since it has a 1-year warranty. They dont want to spend the money on a brand new switch.

tiersten

phoeneous wrote: »

And thats why I posted the first link since it has a 1-year warranty. They dont want to spend the money on a brand new switch.

I personally would push to get a new switch if it is going into a business critical network.

Cisco are awkward regarding getting a SMARTnet contract with second hand equipment. Before they'll let you get a SMARTnet contract, you'll have to relicense IOS since the IOS license is non-transferrable.

What level of service does this cableandkits warranty give you anyway? Do you need to ship the switch back? Will they ship you a switch first? How long can the business cope without this switch if it does fail?

veritas_libertas

phoeneous wrote: »

And thats why I posted the first link since it has a 1-year warranty. They dont want to spend the money on a brand new switch.

Yikes, I must not have read closely enough. I would also push for a new one.

phoeneous

Trust me, Im pushing for a new one. They have 5 of these right now...

captobvious

phoeneous wrote: »

Trust me, Im pushing for a new one. They have 5 of these right now...

Yikes! Push away.

veritas_libertas

phoeneous wrote: »

Trust me, Im pushing for a new one. They have 5 of these right now...

WOW!

Morty3

That means you need 5 new cisco-ones?

Kaminsky

Whenever a company tries to do something on the cheap, it always comes back and bites em in the a$$. 3550's are end of life and end of support as well.

If you buy used off some ebay type company, what does the guarentee actually mean ?
Is there support or is it send back ?
Will they replace it ? (once youve spent a couple of weeks proving it's their fault)
How soon will they fix it ? (today, tomorrow, next week, next month ?)

Part of the reason new kit is highly priced is that you are also paying for the support on it for x number of years. Really have to ask how damaging to the day to day business would it be if one, two or more of these swiches died. If losing network connectivity for a large portion of time would be a business risk, it is better to dig deep in the pockets at the start rather than try and gamble with buying cheap and regretting it later.

Also need to bear in mind that Cisco are having massive worldwide supply problems right now so if you buy new, expect a delay.

trackit

Kaminsky wrote: »

Whenever a company tries to do something on the cheap, it always comes back and bites em in the a$$. 3550's are end of life and end of support as well.

If you buy used off some ebay type company, what does the guarentee actually mean ?
Is there support or is it send back ?
Will they replace it ? (once youve spent a couple of weeks proving it's their fault)
How soon will they fix it ? (today, tomorrow, next week, next month ?)

Part of the reason new kit is highly priced is that you are also paying for the support on it for x number of years. Really have to ask how damaging to the day to day business would it be if one, two or more of these swiches died. If losing network connectivity for a large portion of time would be a business risk, it is better to dig deep in the pockets at the start rather than try and gamble with buying cheap and regretting it later.

Also need to bear in mind that Cisco are having massive worldwide supply problems right now so if you buy new, expect a delay.

All good points here, but what would you choose, if your employer says: either we buy some new unmanaged netgrear (or something similar) or a used cisco, we are NOT buying new cisco... what would you choose? i mean, with used cisco you will at least get to play around with cisco gear and then, if **** hits the fan say "i told you we should buy new cisco but you didnt listen "

captobvious

trackit wrote: »

All good points here, but what would you choose, if your employer says: either we buy some new unmanaged netgrear (or something similar) or a used cisco, we are NOT buying new cisco... what would you choose? i mean, with used cisco you will at least get to play around with cisco gear and then, if **** hits the fan say "i told you we should buy new cisco but you didnt listen "

Before you say that to you boss let me know where you work. That way I'll be ahead of the game in getting my application for your job.

ncsugrad2002

phoeneous wrote: »

Trust me, Im pushing for a new one. They have 5 of these right now...

The sad part is where I work is even worse than that

ONLY HUBS

The ENTIRE NETWORK is hubs. 100Mbit link between buildings, 100 ppl in the building. They thin kbecause it's fiber that it's fast. they don't seem to get that fiber doesn't mean **** if it isn't utilized..

tiersten

ncsugrad2002 wrote: »

The sad part is where I work is even worse than that

ONLY HUBS

The ENTIRE NETWORK is hubs. 100Mbit link between buildings, 100 ppl in the building. They thin kbecause it's fiber that it's fast. they don't seem to get that fiber doesn't mean **** if it isn't utilized..

Mmm. The broadcast traffic alone is going to be eating up quite a big portion of that link.

Can't they even replace them with dirt cheap random brand 10/100 switches? Anything would be an improvement!

ncsugrad2002

tiersten wrote: »

Mmm. The broadcast traffic alone is going to be eating up quite a big portion of that link.

Can't they even replace them with dirt cheap random brand 10/100 switches? Anything would be an improvement!

I've told them and they won't listen. They'll spend million on robots for the plant but not $500 for some decent switches. Hell, I bought two 3550-24-PWR w/EMI images for less than $400 for my lab so it's not like it'd cost that much. And those have two gigabit ports that I could use between buildings w/Etherchannel. Oh well.

And yea, the people in the far away building open some big files pretty regularly so it's sooooooo slow.

msteinhilber

If they are not going to foot the bill for new Cisco gear and you are replacing old 3com gear, then I would consider looking into HP switches. That's the compromise we had to make for the majority of our switches (although we did purchase some higher end HP switches as well) and they have served us well.

HP has a fairly solid warranty on their switches and they perform relatively well. As much as I would prefer Cisco gear - I would take new HP switches over used Cisco for production use.

EDIT:

We use ProCurve 2510's in our branch offices, they come in a 24 or 48 port variety. We purchase through CDW, but you might find them cheaper elsewhere:

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1340713
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1390765

ncsugrad2002

veritas_libertas wrote: »

That seems a bit steep, I got mine on eBay for $50.

lol, how'd you pull that one off? Even BROKE ones are selling for more than that right now.

veritas_libertas

ncsugrad2002 wrote: »

lol, how'd you pull that one off? Even BROKE ones are selling for more than that right now.

Obsessive eBay watching I am very careful to watch the ratings of the seller as well. It is in great shape and though I am very unfamiliar with IOS I have a friend who said it seems working fine. Once I start on CCNA we will know for sure.

ncsugrad2002

veritas_libertas wrote: »

Obsessive eBay watching I am very careful to watch the ratings of the seller as well. It is in great shape and though I am very unfamiliar with IOS I have a friend who said it seems working fine. Once I start on CCNA we will know for sure.

People must have search alerts or something set to email them when new 3550's get listed. I say that because my 3550-12G sold in literally 5 minutes. It was just under the price of other buy it now 3550-12G's so I guess someone jumped on it.

And you can of course get SMI's and upgrade them to EMI images..so, you should be fine no matter what IOS is on there.