are these switches fit for purpose?

[The_KiD]

Ok I have masterminded a plan in our head office to

1) Clean up our comms cabinet
2) Remove the health and safety nightmare of cables under the desks
3) Free up network points on the wall

Here's what I plan on doing;

There are 8 rows of 10 desks (5 desks back to back). I plan on putting a 16 port Netgear (GB116) switch at the end of each row of desks and plugging the PC's in to this rather than the sockets on the wall.

Then connecting each of the netgear switches to a 24 port HP Pro-Curve 1400-24G gigabit switch in the comms cabinet, via the network points on the wall.

My question is are these switches up to the job? or have I missed something when choosing these switches?

Here is a basic diagram of what I mean:

 

[swinnie]

In my opinion the switches should be fine.

If you want to clean up the switch cabinet in the comms room, only patch in the cables that you are using, so you will have 8 switchs, so patch in the numbers on the plates that correspond to those on the walls. Where I am we cant even shut the cabinet door because some idiot patched the main computer that is always in use with a 3 meter cable....and there wasn't even a meters gap!!

The plan is good, I had to do something similar temporarly. We had two rows, two switches and two ports spare on the patch cab. We did the same thing, and they are now installing network data cable at all desks for laptops and that very purpose.

Hope that helps

 

[The_KiD]

Thanks Swinnie, I am not a networking guru as many know on here, but I have to make do with what I got.

Where I am we cant even shut the cabinet door because some idiot patched the main computer that is always in use with a 3 meter cable....and there wasn't even a meters gap!!

lol I know how that feels:

(this is our actual cabinet by the way)

 

[Andyt_uk]

To be honest i'd avoid the Netgears in a work environment, you'd be better off sticking with HP. I can't remember the model num of their smaller switches as its been a couple years since i dealt with them. Something along the lines of a 2626 would be ideal with its 24 x 100mb ports and 2 gig uplinks. Should allow you some room for expansion.

 

[The_KiD]

The 2626 aint the cheapest of switches though and we have 8 get on a very tight budget.

The 2626's would more than triple the current price.

I know they would be better, but what problems am I likely to have with the Netgear kit?

 

[Uhtred]

We use loads of netgear switches at work and never have any problems with them (the older blue ones). The one belkin we have is anohter matter though

It gets a thumbs up from me and i think our coms cabinet is very nearly as bad as yours, i'll try and remember to take a pic tomorrow

 

[swinnie]

I've used Netgears for a number of years now and had only one trouble and that was a faulty power cable.

lol I know how that feels:

Yes that is very similar to what ours looks like! The whole lot is due for maintenance soon, so it might get sorted then!