Cisco WS-C2950-24

jamarchitect

Hi, I'm thinking of purchasing a switch to practice for my ICND1, and I was wondering if the WS-C2950-24 would be a good choice.

Thanks.
PS. I'm on a very tight budget, and can't afford to buy a while lab.

helios

I have 3x2950's for my lab...

They're good switches, and you can do most things with them, but they do have some limitations.

Some models don't have uplink ports, so make sure you have some crossover cables to connect them together.

The other thing, is that you can create multiple VLAN's on the switches, but you can't have more than one active at a time.

If you created 2 VLAN's and one is down, as soon as you bring it up, the active VLAN will go down...

dellpe

Cisco 2950 and 2960 are 2-layer switch,you cannot do router experiment with them.
But as with switch expeiment,almost of them can be done.
You can buy them or just huawei in amazon or the other internet shop:WS-C2950-24 or S2700-18TP-SI-AC

Matro

C2950 is a Layer 2 switch, so you can't route packets from a VLAN to another; I think that to pass ICND1 is a good router!
I've bought 3 c2950, so I can do also STP experiments

jamarchitect

OK. So if I were to buy one router and two switches, which ones would you recommend for a very tight budget? There are lots of people selling different models, but I'm totally new to Cisco hardware and have no idea which models to buy.

theodoxa

The 2950-24 is fine if your budget is extremely limited. I have 3 of them that I bought when I first started my CCNA studies. I later replaced them with 2 x 2960-24TT-L and added some Layer 3 switches (2 x 3550-48-SMI, 3550-24PWR, and 3560-48PS-S). If you can swing it, I would definitely get a 3550. They aren't too expensive and they're Layer 3 switches.

Good: 3 x 2950
Better: 2 x 2950, 1 x 3550
Best: 2 x 2960, 2 x 3560 or 3750

networker050184

If you are going to spend the money on one router and two switches you might as well do yourself a favor and get a couple more of each so you can actually do some labs. One router isn't going to get you routing to anything and while you can get into some STP scenarios with two switches three will really get you the feel for the classic STP triangle example almost always used to teach the subject.

jamarchitect

OK, thanks. I'll look into this scenario: 2 x 2950, 1 x 3550

theodoxa

jamarchitect wrote: »

OK, thanks. I'll look into this scenario: 2 x 2950, 1 x 3550

The nice thing about this one is that the 3550 can pull some double duty (Static Routing, EIGRP, etc...) as both a router and a switch.

JeanM

helios wrote: »

I have 3x2950's for my lab...

They're good switches, and you can do most things with them, but they do have some limitations.

Some models don't have uplink ports, so make sure you have some crossover cables to connect them together.

The other thing, is that you can create multiple VLAN's on the switches, but you can't have more than one active at a time.

If you created 2 VLAN's and one is down, as soon as you bring it up, the active VLAN will go down...

Can you clarify your scenario?

networker050184

helios wrote: »

I have 3x2950's for my lab...

They're good switches, and you can do most things with them, but they do have some limitations.

Some models don't have uplink ports, so make sure you have some crossover cables to connect them together.

The other thing, is that you can create multiple VLAN's on the switches, but you can't have more than one active at a time.

If you created 2 VLAN's and one is down, as soon as you bring it up, the active VLAN will go down...

That is not true. I think you are confusing VLANs and SVIs.

Matro

That's right, networker050184.
You can create and use all the VLAN you want, but only one SVI is active at a time.

networker050184

Well not all the VLANs you want, but 4096 (minus the reserved values) is usually enough!