What should I pay attention to when I'm buying a network switch?

Since I'm not a hardware expert, I don't know what features make a network switch a good network switch. What should I pay attention, when I'm comparing the different models from different vendors?

Solution 1:

It is all about features, and the quality of the device.

You can usually check the quality of the device by looking for reviews for that particular device.

Features you want to look at

Port count, and link speed for each port
Remote administration features. How will you configure the switch, http, https, ssh, telnet, proprietary tool.
The bandwidth of the backplane. A switch should be able allow for lots of simultaneous conversations. For a 1GB, you might expect to see a 10GB backplane.
VLAN support, this allows you to have multiple virtual networks.
Etherchannel/Bonding/Link Aggregation. It is possible to merge many ports into a single trunk.
Routing/Firewalling L3 features. These days, many advanced switches including routing functionality.
Quality of Service (QoS), if you will be using Voip, having QoS is pretty much required.
Stackability, Many switches can be stacked using a special cable which allows them to be managed as a single unit.
POE, some types of devices like phones can be powered by a switch.

If you have a small network, you probably don't really need most of the features, and a simple inexpensive switch will be fine. If you have high security demands, a VoiP system, a complex network, you'll need more features.

Solution 2:

Blocking vs. Non-Blocking Switches

Take a switch's specifications and add up all the ports at theoretical maximum speed, then you have the theoretical sum total of a switch's throughput. If the switching bus, or switching components cannot handle the theoretical total of all ports the switch is considered a "blocking switch". There is debate whether all switches should be designed non-blocking, but the added costs of doing so are only reasonable on switches designed to work in the largest network backbones. For almost all applications, a blocking switch that has an acceptable and reasonable throughput level will work just fine.

Consider an eight port 10/100 switch. Since each port can theoretically handle 200 Mbps (full duplex) there is a theoretical need for 1600 Mbps, or 1.6 Gbps. But in the real world each port will not exceed 50% utilization, so a 800 Mbps switching bus is adequate. Consideration of total throughput versus total ports demand in the real world loads provides validation that the switch can handle the loads of your network.<

Taken from: http://www.lantronix.com/resources/net-tutor-switching.html

They have some other good things on that page to look for too.

Solution 3:

Some other things to consider:

Size of the per-port buffer. Consumer switches have only a few kilobytes per port. That's enough to hold one or two regular-sized ethernet frames. But throw some larger frames at it and the buffer will overflow. The switch will either croak or revert to "hub mode." Enterprise switches (and even some high-end consumer ones) have 100K or more devoted to each port, allowing them to buffer more frames and increase throughput.
Warranty. Some switches (HP, off the top of my head) come with lifetime warranties. Nice.

Solution 4:

For a good switch I think there are only two options: Cisco and HP. (and I'm not talking about Linksys)

Objective differences:

Cisco are more expensive. Much more expensive.
HP have a lifetime warranty. Nice.
HP give you free firmware upgrades even without a service contract. Nice.
Cisco has a firmware jungle, with HP you simply get the latest release
HP has switches that can only be configured via web, Cisco does not (I think). (IMO the cli/menu switches are worth the little extra money)

Lots and lots of subjective differences.

Most importantly: NEVER buy the cheapest thing from the expensive (managed, rack-mounted) shelf. A managed Dlink will NOT be worth it. They are unstable, slow, and horrible to configure. Netgear will probably be the same. For managed switches, just go HP or Cisco.

... or possibly from the Juniper EX-series.

Features that you may want that can affect your choice:

Routing. Don't expect it to be line rate on a switch. It could be, but don't expect it.
Routing protocols (OSPF, BGP, ...). You probably know if you need it.
IPv6 (access lists, routing, telnet, radius, ...)

Solution 5:

Redundant power supplies