Easy to set up switch

[RTX 3090]

Hi, I am looking for an easy to set up network switch, budget is around £30

I found this one, but I want to know how to set it up, I am ideally looking for something plug and play

I found this : dell powerconnect 3448

Is this plug and play, Google pointed me towards some IP configuration guide

[Senzelian]

There are managed and unmanaged switches. If you don't want to configure anything and just let it do its thing, then you should get an unmanaged switch.

 

The Dell PowerConnect 3448 is a managed switch and not recommended for beginners, to say it kindly.

[RTX 3090]

1 minute ago, Senzelian said:

The Dell PowerConnect 3448 is a managed switch and not recommended for beginners, to say it kindly.

Ohh, OK, is there an unmanaged mode on it by any chance

[Master Disaster]

How many ports do you need? Is it for your home or a business environment?

[Senzelian]

2 minutes ago, RTX 3090 said:

Ohh, OK, is there an unmanaged mode on it by any chance

I don't think such a thing exists. They either are managed or they aren't.

 

It might be, that the switch works just fine for you. I have a 48-port Cisco managed switch (older model), which are extremely hard to set up correctly, but they do work as a plain old switch without the need of any configuration.

 

Personally I don't have any experience with Dell switches, so I couldn't tell you for sure what the behavior would be like out of the box.

[RTX 3090]

Just now, Master Disaster said:

How many ports do you need? Is it for your home or a business environment?

It's for a charity, I am helping setting up

We need minimum 24 ports and main requirement is being able to use Windows SMB share (the thing where you can share a network drive) and access the internet

[RTX 3090]

1 minute ago, Senzelian said:

I don't think such a thing exists. They either are managed or they aren't.

 

It might be, that the switch works just fine for you. I have a 48-port Cisco managed switch (older model), which are extremely hard to set up correctly, but they do work as a plain old switch without the need of any configuration.

 

Personally I don't have any experience with Dell switches, so I couldn't tell you for sure what the behavior would be like out of the box.

Hi, thanks for info

Would this one from Cisco work Cisco WS-C3548-XL-EN - Catalyst 3500

Could you share the model number of yours so I can see if I am able to buy the same one since you can confirm it works without config

[Senzelian]

2 minutes ago, RTX 3090 said:

Hi, thanks for info

Would this one from Cisco work Cisco WS-C3548-XL-EN - Catalyst 3500

Could you share the model number of yours so I can see if I am able to buy the same one since you can confirm it works without config

I have a Cisco 3850.

 

It is important to note that these switches are loud and consume quite a bit of power.

I hope you are sure that you actually need one of those with this many ports. There are relatively cheap, quiet consumer switches, that might fit your need much better.

[LAwLz]

All switches I have encountered, even enterprise Cisco switches, have been plug-n-play.

By default all switches that I know of, even managed ones, will work as a regular "dumb switch" out of the box. It's only when you start to actually want to use any of the more advanced functionality that things might become difficult to configure.

[Master Disaster]

5 minutes ago, RTX 3090 said:

It's for a charity, I am helping setting up

We need minimum 24 ports and main requirement is being able to use Windows SMB share (the thing where you can share a network drive) and access the internet

AFAIK you can use any managed switch out of the box and it will act like an unmanaged one. My understanding is that OOTB a managed switch will simply group all clients into a default VLAN.

 

To be clear, I'm not a networking expert so I'd seek clarification from someone who is before taking this advice.

[RTX 3090]

1 minute ago, Senzelian said:

It is important to note that these switches are loud and consume quite a bit of power.

Hi, noise shouldn't be an issue

1 minute ago, Senzelian said:

I hope you are sure that you actually need one of those with this many ports.

Yes, we have around 20 PC's and a server and AP's around the building

[RTX 3090]

1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

AFAIK you can use any managed switch out of the box and it will act like an unmanaged one

 

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

All switches I have encountered, even enterprise Cisco switches, have been plug-n-play.

By default all switches that I know of, even managed ones, will work as a regular "dumb switch" out of the box.

Thanks for info, would you know if Windows FIle share (SMB) would work in the "dumb mode"

[Master Disaster]

Just now, RTX 3090 said:

 

Thanks for info, would you know if Windows FIle share (SMB) would work in the "dumb mode"

Yeah it will.

[Sir Asvald]

48 minutes ago, RTX 3090 said:

It's for a charity, I am helping setting up

We need minimum 24 ports and main requirement is being able to use Windows SMB share (the thing where you can share a network drive) and access the internet

Unless you have a big network with multiple servers and PCs, you would not need a managed switch. It is very nice to have, helps with separating the other networks.

 

39 minutes ago, RTX 3090 said:

 

Thanks for info, would you know if Windows FIle share (SMB) would work in the "dumb mode"

A dumb switch works fine, in fact, I have one running at home on my network. I am using a 24 switch which is overkill because I don't need that many ports. I also have SMB share setup as well all my devices are connected to my NAS and they work all fine with no problem.

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

AFAIK you can use any managed switch out of the box and it will act like an unmanaged one. My understanding is that OOTB a managed switch will simply group all clients into a default VLAN.

 

To be clear, I'm not a networking expert so I'd seek clarification from someone who is before taking this advice.

I am a networking expert and you are correct.

Out of the box, a switch (even an enterprise one) will just act like, well, a switch. For example a switch from Cisco will just have all ports set to auto everything (auto speed, switchport mode dynamic desirable, access mode VLAN 1, native VLAN 1, etc). So if you just take the switch out of the box, power it up and connect one computer to port 1 and another computer to port let's say 12, the two computers will be able to talk to each other. No filtering or anything is being done.

The only difference might be that the managed switch runs Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) and because of that, it will be slower to allow traffic to pass through it. An unmanaged switch will start working as soon as you plug something in. A managed, unconfigured switch might take a couple of seconds before a newly connected device can pass traffic through it.

 

 

There are only two exceptions that I can think of to the whole "a managed switch will work as an unmanaged switch out of the box":

1) Meraki switches and some other "cloud switches" requires a valid license to work. So unless you have that configured, the switch won't work. The same goes for all their products.

2) Some layer 3 switches has their interfaces disabled by default. In that case you would need to enable them and possibly change them from router to switched interfaces. I doubt OP is looking into layer 3 switches though.

[RTX 3090]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

) Meraki switches and some other "cloud switches" requires a valid license to work. So unless you have that configured, the switch won't work. The same goes for all their products.

Yeah, I was looking into buying some used £15 meraki AP's and was disappointed to hear I needed a £300 lisence

[Sir Asvald]

29 minutes ago, RTX 3090 said:

Yeah, I was looking into buying some used £15 meraki AP's and was disappointed to hear I needed a £300 lisence

Too bad it is going to happen to their switches as well which is annoying. I remember at my previous place of work that the main switch for the APs stopped working because the license ran out.

[RTX 3090]

14 minutes ago, Sir Asvald said:

Too bad it is going to happen to their switches as well which is annoying. I remember at my previous place of work that the main switch for the APs stopped working because the license ran out.

There is an article on how to remove the licence fee. Would you know how easy it is to set up using this. I know how to flash custom firmware so long as I have instructions but the website is not working