Spec me a router in a small office

for a small business I sorted out


2 x 24 port patch panels (one for ground floor, one to first floor)

2 x 24 port switches (I opted for unmanaged at this point)

they have recently only been running on a BT hub which I have advised against, I have suggested bridging that and sticking a wireless firewall behind, model I have suggested is SonicWall TZ210, I dont really like going sonicwall as I am more of a Cisco ASA, Checkpoint, Juniper person but I have dealt with SonicWall in the past in previous jobs and they are good for small businesses with single site.


I am not looking to support it going forward, it was a set-up job, their includes a small server running RAID with file storage only and backups,
 
If your users are transferring files to the NAS they'd really appreciate a gigabit switch. With a decent(ish) NAS you should be able to max out gigabit (125MB/s) Whilst a 100Mb switch will only give a tenth of that.

That said 2nd hand 100Mb switches are very cheap on an auction site if you wanted to really reign in costs. I bought a Netgear FSM726s form the MM here for messing about with for £5.
 
DJMK4 said:
for a small business I sorted out


2 x 24 port patch panels (one for ground floor, one to first floor)

2 x 24 port switches (I opted for unmanaged at this point)

they have recently only been running on a BT hub which I have advised against, I have suggested bridging that and sticking a wireless firewall behind, model I have suggested is SonicWall TZ210, I dont really like going sonicwall as I am more of a Cisco ASA, Checkpoint, Juniper person but I have dealt with SonicWall in the past in previous jobs and they are good for small businesses with single site.


I am not looking to support it going forward, it was a set-up job, their includes a small server running RAID with file storage only and backups,
Click to expand...

The entire white plastic / silver metal TZ range is end of life, spiritual replacement to the 210 (which is ancient) is the TZ300, which has optional AC Wi-Fi.

I'd always recommend not using Wi-Fi built into a device that you're putting into a cabinet though, always have a standalone AP that you can position appropriately.
 
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From experience avoid Netgear, was using them for clients but they don't seem to cope well with many connections, some of the ports seems to go dead as well after a while.

A 16 port switch will be enough (12 PCs + router + NAS = 14) so you can get away with that but a 24 port will will be handy if you do expand in the future (a network printer is very handy).

I highly recommend labelling each cable as well on the switch end, makes it a lot easier to find a fault if a computer is having troubles connecting to the network.
 
Caged said:
The entire white plastic / silver metal TZ range is end of life, spiritual replacement to the 210 (which is ancient) is the TZ300, which has optional AC Wi-Fi.

I'd always recommend not using Wi-Fi built into a device that you're putting into a cabinet though, always have a standalone AP that you can position appropriately.
Click to expand...


Yep I know, but still will be perfectly functional for their needs.

Anyway may not be going for that now, I would have had a good deal on an ebay bid but lost out on it
 
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