switch for home lab

I'm building up my home lab and need recommendations for what switch to buy.

I'll have two hosts with 3 NICs and a NAS with 2 more nics.

Anyone else out there with a home lab?

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MentholMoose

I've been using an HP 1810-8G v2. It's fanless, low power, web managed, supports VLANs, span ports, etc., has 8 gigabit ports and includes a lifetime warranty.

odysseyelite

I'm looking at the 1810 or Cisco SG300-20.

I'm considering a 16+ port switch as I plan on adding a couple more hosts down the road.

sratakhin

+1 for HP 1810. There are two models, one with 8 ports and one with 24.
It also supports Jumbo Frames.

odysseyelite

I've also seen HP v1910

QHalo

I had 24 port HP as well. I didn't like the way their interface works really so I ended up replacing it with a Cisco 3560G.

jibbajabba

For my sphere Lab I got a HP Pro curve. Got some old Cisco gear I could use too .. 2950s, 3750s and if I run really low, I got two 2980Gs lol ... 80 ports of 100M Goodness each haha.

sratakhin

QHalo wrote: »

I had 24 port HP as well. I didn't like the way their interface works really so I ended up replacing it with a Cisco 3560G.

Isn't it an overkill for a home lab?

I also don't like their interface, although it's much better than on old 2650s and 2800.

I can also recommend 2520G. It's fanless and has full CLI that is very similar to Cisco.

QHalo

I work on Cisco switches, so knowing their command line and configuration is essential and I like my home lab being as close to a production environment as possible. I only bought the HP because I wanted something quiet but after I saw how they did things, I pulled it. I'll probably sell it soon. I wouldn't call it overkill, if I could afford a NetApp array at my house I would have one as well.

Plus I needed something PoE for my work phone.

odysseyelite

I don't see 24 as overkill depending on your lab. My two hosts and NAS will take eight right off the back. If I ever add more hosts I'll be looking again.

jibbajabba

They go faster than you think.

My Setup
Management host (vCenter) : 2
Each host : 2-4 (I prefer four) - in my case three hosts : 12
Storage : 2
Uplink : 1

That's already 17 ...