This time we received a managed and unmanaged HP ProCurve switch. These are
both meant to be used at the edge of the LAN in an organization.
HP 1700 24G
This is a 22-ports managed Fast Ethernet switch with 2 dual-personality
ports. It supports IEEE 802.3ab Link Aggregation Control protocol and 802.3x
Flow Control protocol to enable transmission and reception of data in an orderly
manner. It also comes with some QoS features, such as IEEE 802.1p port
prioritization that delivers data to devices by honoring preset priorities. Its
MAC address table supports up to 8000 entries, which help the switch in
supporting a large network. Broadcast Control is another QoS feature that cuts
down unwanted broadcast traffic on the network. The switch also features a
fan-less design for silent operation.
It is easy to configure through a Web-based interface. The VLAN configuration
with this browser-based interface was easy and also the feature of supporting
Jumbo frames can be enabled through this interface.
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Jumbo packet support means frame size can be up to 9216 bytes to improve
performance for large data transfers. The interface not only gives configuration
and monitoring functionalities but also has the option for setting security and
doing diagnostic tests. Coming to performance, we stressed the switch with NetIQ
Qcheck. It gave a throughput of 94.118 Mbps on an isolated network for
transferring 1000 Kbytes of payload from one end to another and in a response
time of 1 ms, which is pretty similar to the performance of Netgear ProSafe
FS728TS switch (reviewed August '06). Further, when we flooded the switch with
excessive traffic, the switch still managed an average throughput of 56 Mbps.
Key Highlights HP 1700 24G: Web-based mgmt; 8000 MAC address table entries; Support for Jumbo frames; Link aggregation; QoS; VLANs
HP 1400 24G: 8000 MAC address table |
HP 1400 24G
This is a 22-ports unmanaged Gigabit Ethernet switch, which also has 2 dual
personality ports. It supports auto-sensing of link speed and auto-negotiation
of half or full-duplex modes on each port, so that the network devices work the
moment they're connected to it. Just like its cousin, it also supports 8000
entries in its MAC address table, supports Jumbo frames, and has a fan-less
design. This switch gave an average throughput of 615.4 Mbps for transferring
1000 Kbytes of payload from one end to another and in a response time of 1 ms.
These results are lower as compared to D-Link's DGS-1024D switch that gave 728
Mbps (reviewed July '06). Its throughput dropped to 470 Mbps when we flooded it
with excessive traffic.
Bottomline: Given the prices, these
switches are a good buy for organizations looking for cost effective products to
put on their LAN-edge.