Term Server prices

MrBrian

I'm piecing out my home lab and it's looking like the term server will be my most expensive piece!! Sheeesh lol. I mean, sure I'll hook it up to the FR cloud in addition to its access uses, but wowzas. I was looking at 2509's, but probably going for the 2511 for future lab growth.

On ebay I'm seeing the 2509's go in the 150-200$ range, while the 2511's go anywhere from 190-260$. Granted, some of those are fully loaded, but even the ones that aren't are at the bottoms of those ranges..

Heck, I can pick up an emi 3550 for cheaper. Can't be constantly movin around the console cable though, so I'll bite the bullet. Oh well, fun times, fun times

esswok

I picked up a 2509-rj for $60.00 with free shipping from ebay.

notice the -rj 2509, 2511, need an OctoCable also; "extra $30.00 Octo"

2509-rj, 2511-rj uses a rollover cable with rj-45 on each end.

I bought a box of 5 genuine baby blue cisco console cables for $5.00 inc ship, I cut and made my own custom length console connectors for my 2509-rj.

MrBrian

esswok wrote: »

I picked up a 2509-rj for $60.00 with free shipping from ebay.

notice the -rj 2509, 2511, need an OctoCable also; "extra $30.00 Octo"

Wow $60 is a great find. Yea those price ranges for the 2509's and 2511's usually included the octal cables, so that's good. The 2509-rj's price ranges seem to be all across the board, many starting in the $140+ range. As for the 2511-rj's, those seem to be around $230+... I'm going to need a 2511 or 2511-rj so I'll go with the standard 2511 since they seem to be cheaper.

QHalo

If you're going further than CCNA in your Cisco studies, the cost of a 2511 will pay for itself. Out of all the money you'll spend on a lab, its the more worthwhile investment you can make IHMO.

Netwurk

Got my 2511 for around $150 last year or so. Well worth it.

If you can make rollover cables, go for the RJ model. You get a lot more flexibility. Rollovers are easy to make as you just reverse 1-8 and make it 8-1 on the other end.

Forsaken_GA

Yup, the cost of the terminal server is, unfortunately, a necessary evil, but if you're going to spend any significant amount of time labbing, it beats the crap out of moving the cable around all the time.

nerdydad

I went over the top and bought an Opengear CM4148, it was 400 on ebay, but i figured I could always make that back. The big advantage to me is terminal access through a regular web browser, so I don't have to worry about firewalls and such. It also means I will never worry about the amount of ports, which helps considering my lab is multi vendor.

MrBrian

Thanks for the input guys! I appreciate it.

Yea I've been researching trying to figure out all the possibilities. I figured I could get a NM-16A or even a NM-32A to throw into a 3620 or something, but then saw the prices for those lol.. those modules cost dough!! I guess the async ports aren't cheap. So I see the benefit of the 2509 and 11.. in having these async ports hard coded in.. I'm slowly learning lol

Ryco

I found my RJ-2511 for $100 on ebay, the thing has a tiny paint chip and the rest is flawless, not a mark on it. Making the 13 rollover cables was very painless and it allowed me to make them the right length to avoid excess cable.

Well worth the money, swapping the console cable was very annoying.