Cisco SG300-10 (SRW2008-K9-NA) 10-port Gigabit Managed Switch

Pros: Works flawlessly

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Need to have a serial port or a USB to serial to change it to L3. Use it in my home lab with great results.

Pros: Inexpensive, layer 3, IOS (mostly), gigabit, etc.

It has all the features of a "big boy" switch, at an affordable price.

Cons: The IOS version on this switch is a bit strange. Some configuration options aren't there that seem like they should be. Nothing major, just strange.

Other Thoughts: For the price, I'm very impressed. I'm probably going to buy another one in a month or so, as I'll need more ports soon enough.

Pros: * Layer 2 or Layer 3 -- your choice (but see cons).
* Great VLAN support
-- trunk ports for VLAN tag capable machines (e.g., some hypervisors)
-- simple assignment of VLAN to ports
-- more complex configs too...
* "Protected port" support
* CISCO 1 year free telephone support

Cons: Switching between layer 2 and layer 3 configurations requires use of telnet over the COM port, and total loss of all configuration. This can cause lost time, if partially configured in one mode but need the other, which is too bad because so many settings apply to both equally.

Pros: This is truely the little switch that could. I received mine today from another vendor (procurement contracts and all). I spent the afternoon playing, and it is performing better than expected.

Trunking 4 VLANs over fiber (100base-BX), 1 for internet, 3 for remote sites. Basic bandwidth controls work great.

Cons: The web interface is SLOW and annoying.

The CLI interface feels like it was written by a below-average high school student, but it's usable.

The configuration script is a nasty mess to read through.

Other Thoughts: Cisco, get the CLI up to speed with the rest of your product line... at least its not as bad as the old 800 series routers.

It's sad that a $250 switch has more features than a $2500 ME 3400 or a $6000 3560G. Sad sad sad.

Pros: Great features, functionality. Running with CAT6+ cable and this switch screams. You want a stable switch to simply work 100% of the time, this is IT. You will not be disappointed. Price is reasonable for the features.

Cons: cli could be more on par with higher-end equipment, but at this price it is the only compliant.

Other Thoughts: Be sure to update firmware and change default password.

Pros: Great Layer 3 switch ( 10 Port) for the price - Web interface better than CLI or telnet mode - Easy to save Config's.
In Layer 3 Mode - I Set up 3 VLans and static routes thru a Fios Router/Bridge - all Vlans are doing well and running - All have total access to internet - being Nat(ed) on the Actiontec .
Many other features ( which I have not yet enabled - yet).

Cons: Not for the Novice- Have to use telnet or CLI to put in layer 3 mode.

Other Thoughts: Not for the Novice- but great switch to learn layer 2 and 3 concepts along with managed switch technology.

Pros: A *ridiculous* number of features for such a small inexpensive switch. The web interface is pretty nice, especially for a Cisco product. My favorite features: two extra copper gigabit ports, wire-speed IP routing, fanless, rack-mount brackets.

Cons: There are things you can't do in the web interface.

For example, I spent quite a while looking for the web interface to the routing functionality. Turns out that the routing functionality isn't there by default - you need to enter the CLI menu system and enable it, which will apparently nuke your configuration back to factory default. I haven't done this yet because I had already configured my switch for my environment and didn't want to redo everything.

Another gotcha for the routing functionality - if you enable it, you will lose some of the advanced functionality of the switch. You either get advanced QoS and no routing, or basic QoS and static routing.

Other Thoughts: I plan to use this switch in the server room as an iSCSI switch for my servers. The link aggregation feature is great for this.

I'd like to see the good old-fashioned Cisco CLI instead of the text-based menu system you get when you use the console port or TELNET.

Pros: I purchased this to expand on my home lab and all I can say is I haven't encountered any issues with it. I have it setup to allow me to leverage jumbo frames, port channel and RSTP for all my VMware needs. If you plan on doing anything with VMware@home, trust me and get this switch. You won't regret it.

Cons: Even though I rarely use the web GUI, I wish it was faster.

Pros: I needed a switch to trunk my 3550 in the basement upstairs for testing etc... Does that and more. GUI is a little confusing if you're only used to regular IOS CLI, but if you're a seasoned professional you'll figure it out quickly (I'm not, I just got my CCNA). It's quiet, no fan. Does port-channel, LACP etc... works fine on a VMWare/*nix environment. I really do love this switch, it gives you all the features of a full cisco switch that anyone up to CCNP level could make use of. i.e. I'm a CCNA, and there's stuff over my head in there, don't think this is a regular linksys small business switch like we were used to seeing before which were hit or miss IMO. This is a whole new class of switch, and I can't reccomend it enough. My friend bought one, and reccomended it to me, and now I'm reccomending it to you!

Cons: The IOS CLI is NOT regular IOS, it's a simplified one. Don't buy this if you're trying for your CCNA, you will get confused. CLI is a bit slow, but I imagine the processing power is much less than a regular cisco switch. First revision of the firmware didn't give CLI access, so just to HAVE CLI access is a plus. GUI is terrible for "allowed vlans" on trunk ports, very confusing, I resorted to clearing all "allowed vlans" through the CLI. The skill set needed to really use this switch is CCNA and above.

Other Thoughts: I want another one for the other ethernet run upstairs! If you want/need a quiet, fast gig switch with all the bells and whistles of a real cisco switch, this is your switch. If you're not using the advanced features like trunking, vlans, RSTP, just save your money and buy an unmanaged switch. On the other hand, drive mappings through windows to my CentOS samba server "show up" always, as in they don't get the "cannot connect to network share" because the nic is brought up before the Spanning Tree starts forwarding on the port. So that is good if you're like me and have 3 or 4 switches in the house and it can take a while for regular STP to bring up the link to the workstation.

If you want a Cisco lab environment, buy a used old 3550 or 2560, this switch is not for learning, it's for functionality because it's not "real" cisco. You NEED to already know the concepts, because you can't "click" your way through it, it just doesn't work.

Pros: Great price for what you get, full management features, QoS, VLAN, port mirroring and bonding, as friendly and complete a web management interface as you are likely to get.

Cons: Can't change port for management services.

Web UI does not display user-assigned port descriptions anywhere when you have to pick a port, so you'll need to keep flipping back to the port info page to see what "g7" really is.

Could use better metrics and reporting -- specifically I want a showing port traffic over time.

Other Thoughts: Really minor cons in the grand scheme of things, mirroring feature has already helped me figure out some LAN issues.