Reddit reviews TP-Link 24-Port Gigabit Ethernet Easy Smart Managed Switch | Unmanaged Plus | Plug and Play | Desktop/Rackmount | Metal | Fanless | Limited Lifetime (TL-SG1024DE),Black
We found 12 Reddit comments about TP-Link 24-Port Gigabit Ethernet Easy Smart Managed Switch | Unmanaged Plus | Plug and Play | Desktop/Rackmount | Metal | Fanless | Limited Lifetime (TL-SG1024DE),Black. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
24 Gigabit ports provide instant large file transfers9K Jumbo frame improves performance of large data transfersEffective network monitoring via Port Mirroring, Loop Prevention and Cable DiagnosticsAbundant VLAN features improve network security via traffic segmentationIGMP Snooping optimizes multicast applicationsPort and tag based QoS enable smooth latency sensitive trafficLIMITED LIFETIME WARRANTY and 24/7 Tech Support
You don't have to do top tier everything for a homelab.
Most people will never need managed switches, much less Cisco branded stuff. TP-Link makes competent and reasonably priced dumb switches.
For the router, I used to run pfSense on a custom PC build (~$300 about 6 years ago) but I'm already familiar with enterprise router settings and found all the features I could want in a consumer grade Asus router. At the end of the day, port forwarding, WiFi and OpenVPN are everything I'd ever want it to do. I can offload any heavy lifting or advanced features to my server.
If you're not looking to be super fancy, here's a simple homelab setup:
You can swap up or down based on needs but the router does all the basic stuff most people will need it to do. The 24 port switch should be more than enough as the primary switch for most people. The 8 port switch is great for secondary locations. The diskstation can handle your backups and cloud storage and is a nice balance of convenience and price. The R710 server can handle Plex, NAS duties and probably some light duty VMs.
The big add-on expense will be the hard drives, of course. You could probably get by shucking the 10TB easystore drives to save a bit.
I use a custom built server (Xeon E3-1231 v3 @ 3.4GHz, 16 GB RAM, built around 2012 and upgraded the CPU a few years ago) and have never owned a R710 myself, so I can't say much on the actual limits of what you can do with it. That said, I'm suddenly really tempted to grab a R710 to use as network storage because I've reached the limit of my current server. The biggest weakness I see in the R710 is the CPU isn't too beefy but its still decent given the sheer number of (8)cores/(16)threads. Plex and less demanding game servers are probably the limit of what it can handle but it should easily handle a number of less demanding VMs.
Anyways, as a starter setup, this should more than satisfy most people.
Sure. Here's what I could pull from my orders and searching around. This is most of my gear. Not really "homelab" stuff. Have a crap ton of ethernet running around the house.
Unless you're specifically looking to learn Cisco IOS, none of those switches are worth a damned thing since they're 100Mbps (discounting the uplinks)
I've seen this TP-Link model linked a few times - I've no personal experience with it, but it's got the right boxes ticked as far as having basic management and lots of GbE. I don't know about the throughput or packet volume it can handle but it should certainly be able to handle a starter homelab.
Esperti di networking, help.
In vista del prossimo upgrade alla fibra 1000 ho deciso di cambiare lo switch con uno gigabit, questo in particolare. Il problema è che adesso la stampante non va. Se la collego allo switch non riesce a prendere l'ip (prende un ip del tipo 192.254.ecc... che da quanto ho capito è segno che il dhcp non va) mentre se la collego direttamente al router funziona. Dato che questo switch può essere configurato, cosa posso fare? Ho provato a dare alla stampante un ip e gateway manualmente ma nada.
Would this be a good switch? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CUG8ESM/ref=crt_ewc_title_gw_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
Sorry, it's this one. Hyperlink was tossed when copy/pasting.
I've got an ERL, unifi APs and mostly TP-link managed switches and everything works fine.
I did buy a Unifi Switch 8 to see if going to Unifi switches would offer anything I care about, and found it didn't really. It does fill out the topology map and you can select the same vlan sets you configure for the APs, but the price premium wasn't worth it for me and didn't offer any more capability.
I have not used the EdgeSwitches, so can't comment there.
Personally, I'd go for the cheapest thing you can find that does what you want: 10Gb is real close to reaching the mainstream, and you'll probably want to upgrade in a couple years.
IMHO for 24 ports, that's this if you don't need LACP (has static LAG but not LACP which offers more speed but not really more reliability), this if you want LACP, and this is about the cheapest way to get 4 10Gb ports and is even passively cooled!
Well. Let’s see here. I first purchased this antenna and this mast holder once I made the decision this year to cut the cord. Reading this sub, I quickly realized that I could use this mast amplifier to obtain about 10 more channels and this distribution amplifier to run the signals into 7 rooms of my house.
I configured and tested my setup in the middle of the summer thunderstorm season so I installed this UPS to prevent the brownouts that were occurring all too often during this time. I still had two television sets that were analog/CRT, so I purchased this set top converter which gave me the added bonus of Broadcast DVR when I purchased this flash drive to plug into them.
I then purchased two Roku3 units to supplement my broadcast programming. I also discovered that even when using a dual band router , I was only able to obtain a reliable 18 Mbit wireless stream in my far bedrooms from my Laundry Room equipment location. While this was sufficient for managing two simultaneous streams of HD for now, I was concerned that we would need to have 3 or 4 simultaneous streams or need to upgrade for UltraHD in the next year or so. I then purchased some Cat5e cable and ran 3 separate cables to each of 7 rooms and centralized all the lines into this switch which acted as my Ethernet distribution network.
I had an idle desktop PC with an AMD FX-8350 processor which I upgraded with gigabit LAN, 8GB DDR3 RAM, and five 3TB Disk Drives. I installed Plex Media Server based on recommendations from this sub and I have been torrenting like a madman to fill a little more than half this disk space in the past 4 months. I connected the media server to my Ethernet switch via a Gigabit link and have had no issues with lag even while transcoding on the fly. I plan to purchase some more streaming devices which will probably be Roku3 or Chromecast units depending upon the price and suitability.
My next step is to look at high quality music streaming and how I might integrate some vintage (1980s) audio equipment into this setup.
I had the "blinking/slow interface" issue on port1 on prosafe.
As for switches:
You can tag packets on the individual systems.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/vlan
https://www.startech.com/faq/networking_VLAN_tagging
I don't know if this will work in your case but it's worth a shot.
edit: or you can get an inexpensive managed switch like this https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-24-Port-Gigabit-Ethernet-TL-SG1024DE/dp/B00CUG8ESM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1500405274&sr=8-2&keywords=24+port+managed+gigabit+switch
https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/84bv8d/lets_talk_about_switchesmuffins_switch_101/
lists some, And there are plenty more out there if you look around. Like this level 2 only switch with vlans:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CUG8ESM/
why would it slow down your network?
in the enterprise environment, the purpose of a separated network is security and usage of fiber/10gbe. by that, i mean say a nas is connected to compute servers via fiber, and the rest of the network uses 1gbe.
given you're not going to be 10GBe hardwar or 40Gbe fiber, plugging your NAS into your network through a router is never going to be faster than plugging your nas straight into your network. Each port on a switch can handle its own.
if you really want a dedicated route from your nas to your server, put an additional nic in each and run a 1ft patch cord directly between the two. or several, and bond them. no router, no switch, minimal crosstalk/interference, untouchable security.
if you're working with more than one nas, maybe look into a frontend like GusterFS. glusterfs mounts are like raid over the network, and you can do cool stuff like rebooting a nas during a file transfer, as well as getting more than 1GBps transfer.
OR, just get a single good switch that supports bonding, 9k frames, vlans. The TP-link smart 24 port switch is ~$125 and will do all the things.
edit: here is that switch
edit:you dont need vlan support to make separate networks. In the real world you do for security, butat home you can just use different subnets on the same switch