HP ProCurve LAN-Edge Switches

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.

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.

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.