Oh, oracles of the empeg community-

I'm upgrading the office's network from a series of unmanaged, stacked 10/100bT hubs to real switches. I've got almost 48 ports worth of devices, 22 employees, two main servers (file sharing, ERP & CRM, W2k AD etc...) and two itty bitty servers (virus scanning software admin & fax serving). I'm pretty sure simply moving up to switches will help throughput, but I'd like to add 6 ports 1000Base-T, two for the main servers and 4 for the power users (myself, 2 accounting people & 1 CRM person).

I'm taking a look at chassis models from 3COM, Cisco & HP. I've got a Sonicwall NAT F/W box w/VPN for out connection to the outside world (384 kb/sec). The heaviest net traffic is during database queries/reports and network backups. The gear attached is mostly 800-1.2 Ghz PIII's & IV's. I'm planning on upgrading the desktops some time soon (late this year or early next) or as soon as increased hardware failures start to crop up.

Low maintenance is a plus for me as I do the IT on the side from my main job. I don't particularly want to do anything tricky like QOS or VLANs, as there's not much need.

What are your thoughts about Chassis vs. Stackable? Are there any units in particular that I should look at or avoid? I'm assuming the price for what I want is going to be $2-3k US, am I low/high? So far I'm looking at the HP4148 and 3Com 4005 (both with 6 ports add'l 1000b-T via modules). The entire office was wired in 1997 with Cat.5 cabling.

Thanks guys (and ladies)!

-Zeke

I'm a little out of the networking scene these days, but I'd imagine that chassis systems are still much more expensive than port-equivalent stackable systems, and for that reason, I'd tell you to go with stackable, especially since you're not too interested in high-level stuff.

Other manufacturers you might want to look at include Extreme Networks (Summit i- and e-series) and Foundry Networks (FastIron Workgroup).