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Makosuke

macrumors 604
Original poster
Aug 15, 2001
6,661
1,242
The Cool Part of CA, USA
This is a rather ignorant question, and perhaps belongs in Product Recommendations, but it seemed general enough for here:

I'm going to be buying a brand new XServe for my office network (part of a big campus network), but I've also been charged with buying a network hub to replace an aging 10Base-T hub, and I'm a bit in the dark as to what buzzwords (or brands) I should be looking at. Pertinent info:

Currently using an old 3Com LinkBuilder FMS II dumb hub, with all 24 ports occupied. The internet feed and all network "seed" info (not sure what the term is--DHCP, Windows domain, Appletalk Zones, etc) comes from a straight outside 10Base-T link, everything internal is hooked up via 4-pair Cat5 cable.

I'm looking for something that'll replace the old hub, has at least 32 ports (probably involve stacking 2 hubs/switches, I assume), be able to accomodate both 100Base-T and a few 10Base-T devices without degrading everything to 10Base-T, and hopefully have at least one gigabit port for the server. I'm looking to go as cheap as possible, since this'll all be replaced in a couple years anyway.

What happy words should I be looking for here? Is there much involved in "stacking" two hubs for extra ports, or do I need to buy hubs specially designed for that? For that matter, can I operate a switch as a dumb hub for this purpose?

I've been spending time with Google, but if anybody has the time to chip in a few things look for, I'd be very apprecitiave.
 
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