I have to choose a 19" rack 24-port switch for a small office combining a couple of desktops (running 11.3) and printers into a LAN with common internet access through a firewall. The choice of available products is quite large and I am confused. My questions are:
Go with a simple unmanaged switch, or choose smart-managed or full-managed type? What is the scenario where I would need a managed switch?
Any brand/manufacturer to prefer, having a choice of Cisco, Netgear, LevelOne, ZyXEL, TP-Link.
Switch with integrated fan or fan-less? The rack is within an office where noise is a factor.
These links point to the choice I have from my HW provider:
1: If you simply need to allow all of the devices to talk to each other and share an internet connection through a firewall/gateway device unmanaged switches should work fine. If you need some sort of special monitoring, switching or any complex port management then a managed switch would be necessary. Managed switches also allow you to selectively configure and turn on/off specific physical ports which can be good for security.
Of the brands on your list I only have experience with Cisco and Netgear switches and both are pretty good. Cisco would would be a good choice for both managed and unmanaged, especially for managed switches (their management interface and commands have widely available training and reference books and courses if you need them) but I have had good experience with NetGear’s unmanaged switches in small office environments.
Cooling is very important since these things rarely get switched off and even when there are only a couple of devises attached and on the switch is working all the time. Fan-less is nice from the perspective of a user who is sharing the room with it as some rackmount switches can get loud. However, unless the room is cooled to server-room/data-center temperatures and care is taken to keep it dust free and in a well ventilated area the switch is going to overheat and potentially take down the network. Integrated fan units are preferable for reliability but they will still require cool temperatures in the room around it and periodic fan maintainence and dusting would be advisable; switches with fans will also make annoying officemates for users (users also like to stick these sorts of things in places with no ventilation and lots of dust and debris). If you go with a fan model I would suggest trying to find someone in the office who doesn’t mind the noise (IT support staff are usually good for this, especially since with some experience you can start getting status, failure notices and troubleshooting information from changes in the fan noise and quick glances at the indicator lights.)