Cisco 851W

Hi, I am a little confused on some of the recommendations on the Cisco lab. Since money is involved, I just don't want to go ahead buying equipment I might not use. On the CBT Nuggets video's, the instructor recommended a Cisco 851W or if the budget is tight, a Cisco 2514. However in looking in many of your recommendations it seems that most are recommending two routers, and two switches. Why is that? If I get the 851W, is that going to be good enough, with maybe a 2950 switch?

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Comments

kalebksp

Don't buy an 851W, that is a very poor recommendation. Most people here use 1721s, 2600XMs, or 3640s. Due to the cost I usually recommend starting out with a couple 1721s and a couple WIC-1Ts for serial connections (WIC-2Ts would be even better).

Additionally I recommend reading through some of the many threads on this forum about building a lab and check out these articles: Spring 2009 CCNA/CCNP Lab Series Index Page | NetworkWorld.com Community.

jmc012

katakatak wrote: »

Hi, I am a little confused on some of the recommendations on the Cisco lab. Since money is involved, I just don't want to go ahead buying equipment I might not use. On the CBT Nuggets video's, the instructor recommended a Cisco 851W or if the budget is tight, a Cisco 2514. However in looking in many of your recommendations it seems that most are recommending two routers, and two switches. Why is that? If I get the 851W, is that going to be good enough, with maybe a 2950 switch?

I bought a 851w when I first started my studies, It's a great little internet router to practice on. But it's pretty pricey and limited, if I had it to do over again I wouldn't have bought it and just bought 2600 routers, which I did anyway. You can learn a lot more from the 2600 routers for the CCNA than you would from a 851w, plus you can buy a lot more routers for the same price.