Help for choosing a lan switch

[NemoTheClown]

Hello pros   

Me and my clan meet up now and they every 2-3 month for a lan party over 3-5 days, but the "problem" is that we are getting bigger and bigger. We are currently around 40 people on facebook and about 15-20 persons who actually attends to the lan parties  . As far as I know, when looking for a good switch, the power supply should be of the better end, and you should be able to manage the switch. What I stumbled upon is the good reviews of cisco's switches, so I've looked on ebay and other places for them. What I require of the switch is that it is reliable, meaning that you won't have to reboot it every hour in the middel of a game, that it actually can support the number of connections equal to its ports and that it is cheap. I've looked on some 48 port Cisco catalyst, but it is no secret that i know nothing more than this. So I just wanna ask if one of these two switches would meet my requirements:

 

Cisco Catalyst 2948G WS-2948G 48 Port Ethernet 10/100 Network LAN Switch
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cisco-Catalyst-2948G-WS-2948G-48-Port-Ethernet-10-100-Network-LAN-Switch-/281283003806?pt=UK_Computing_NetworkSwitches_RL&hash=item417dc6059e

 

Cisco Catalyst 3548 - WS-C3548-XL-EN Switch 48x 10/100 + 2 GBIC Port
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cisco-Catalyst-3548-WS-C3548-XL-EN-Switch-48x-10-100-2-GBIC-Port-/331207502236?pt=DE_Computing_Netzwerk_Switches&hash=item4d1d81699c
 

P.S. What is the 2 GBIC ports useful for  :huh:?

Kindest thanks,
Nemo  :lol:

[Shd0w2]

Welcome! Enjoy your stay.

 

(Adding my two cents in a second here)

[NemoTheClown]

For a moment I thought you were going on about Keyboard switches, and had no idea what you were on.

 

Oh yea, sorry about that Changed the title, I hope that helps

[mrconan]

For a lan party a mangageable switch probably isn't needed.... just make sure it is gigabit and has the number of ports needed

[Broseephus]

I would seriously consider getting a Gigabit switch. I know it's going to increase your cost a bit but the performance increase when you have up to 50 people on a switch will be worth it.

 

The GBICs are expansion ports that allow you to do a Gigabit link. Most people that have a 10/100 switch with a 1000 GBIC slot use the GBIC ports to connect other switches or gateways to.

 

Also for a lan party switch I would stay away from enterprise grade stuff unless you have someone that knows what they're doing.

[Scheer]

I don't think gigabit is really needed, no single computer is going to use that much data... The issue you will run into is the switching capacity, but it just so happens that gigabit switches will have a higher switching capacity.

 

I'd also recommend avoiding enterprise equipment, makes diagnosing issues much harder if you don't know how to use it. I don't see any reason to get a managed switch for what you are doing.

 

I still think something like this would do you fine and keep it nice and cheap, but someone chime in if I am wrong here: http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-SF1048-48-Port-Rackmount-Capacity/dp/B003CFATU6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1401312511&sr=8-2&keywords=48+port+switch

 

I've played online games in the woods with a generator and my phone running 3g (not rev.A, so 1.5mbps) tethered to my laptop and then bridged to a Xbox, so I doubt you will get anywhere close to hitting the 9.6gbps switching capacity.