Help choosing the correct switch replacement

[jordan69s]

Thank you for reading my post,

I have a client who has a Dental office, 17 Pcs, network printers, 3 servers set up with a 3com 10/100 base switch I think 3300 or something like it. Switch has work great without my help, but now the office changed to digital dental x-rays, so now larger files are going through the office network creating more traffic. My client said the software company recommended a new switch that is 1000 base since all the PCs are fairly new with 100/1000 NIC's, which would speed the traffic 10 fold. I never tried or work with a manageable switch so my question is this: My hardware provider offered me a Netgear GSM7248 48 Port Gigabit L2 Managed Switch or a DELL 48-PORT GIGABIT ETHERNET SWITCH-POWERCONNECT 2748 but he just sells used equipment without any knowledge to advice me. Any comments on which one would be a better one and how complicated would be to manage them? Which begs the question, How involved is the management of these units?

Your help is greatly appreciated

[johnwill]

You don't really need a managed switch to do the job here.

A pair of these would do the job fine, and there's no configuration required.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833122058

[jordan69s]

Great,

thank you so much for you reply! In researching for ever I have noticed that many so called 1GB switch's most of them are in reality only 2 ports with 1GB and the rest are 10/100... How come is that? Are the Netgear GSM7248 48 Port Gigabit L2 Managed Switch or a DELL 48-PORT GIGABIT ETHERNET SWITCH-POWERCONNECT 2748, 1GB in all their ports?

Any special consideration regarding wiring with the faster switch? All my wires are CAT5.

Thank you for you advice

[johnwill]

The one I suggested is gigabit for all ports.

You should have CAT5e or better for gigabit, though for shorter runs, CAT5 will normally work just fine. If you have any 100 foot or longer runs, I'd be thinking of upgrading them to CAT6.

[jordan69s]

Thank you for your reply Johnwill.

I will describe what I think and you guys tell me how much off I am.... Since the servers have a Gig Nic and all the PCs as well, I would imagine that by removing the bottleneck created by the current switch with the new one, which will be a gig for all ports, I will think that it will take stress away from the servers since the information is moving faster out of memory.... I am saying this because some one at Dell was trying to tell me that the servers will need more power because they are going to work harder sending the information faster..... (He's solution is of course to replace both servers which are not even a year old and have about 8GIG of memory (I think, it could even be more than that)

Any thoughts? Any suggestions?

Many thanks for your great responses. (I already ordered the switch)

[johnwill]

I think that Dell is just trying to sell you more equipment.