serial cards vs t1 cards

chappys4life

I see on here for everyones home lab they tend to use serial ports on their routers to connect them but why do that over the t1 cards? Seems like they are both close in price but cat 5e cables are cheaper so I was curious as I am setting up a home lab now.

mikej412

It's usually easier and cheaper to get the port density for frame relay switches using the serial ports with the DB60 connectors. The old 2500 series came with built-in serial ports that used the DB60s and the 252x routers still make good lab frame relay clouds (if the price is right). The NM-4A/S and NM-8A/S modules are also pretty cheap now a days. And if you get a couple (or more) free (or $10) 2501 routers, you can build a compound frame cloud using multiple routers.

If you get a good deal on T1 cards and have the slots to support the port density you want/need, then they are fine.

chappys4life

Thats why I was asking I scored 10 t1 cards through work for free so I was debating just going that way. I would just need crossover cables right?

I was planning on using a 2620 as a frame relay switch could I still do that with t1 cards?

aordal

you need to make yourself T1 crossover cables yes

networker050184

chappys4life wrote: »

Thats why I was asking I scored 10 t1 cards through work for free so I was debating just going that way. I would just need crossover cables right?

I was planning on using a 2620 as a frame relay switch could I still do that with t1 cards?

The issue with the T-1 as Mike pointed out is port density. With a 2620 I believe you have two wan slots for your T-1s. You can get a NM-4a/s (four serial ports on one card) to go in the one network module slot and already have more ports than you would filling it with T-1s.