Comments on: Cheap network hardware

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Feb 2002 04:59:51 +0000

Yeah, but the 24-port 3COMs were "managed" hubs which cost over $1500 each. They have a lifetime warranty, so in theory we can get them fixed, but who wants a 10MBit hub even if it does have 24 ports?

The 24-port Netgears were a disappointment, losing at least one port on each of the two we bought after a month or so. We are working on a plan to rebuild using 24 port 10/100 switches (probably HP) and will send the Netgears out to be fixed at that time. I had to go fish out an ancient 10MBit 3COM unmanaged hub to get the hub cabinet back up to enough ports.

And my racks have some really odd shelves - 3COM Superstack II hubs work well for that .

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Feb 2002 00:31:19 +0000

I’ve got a 4 port 100Mbps Netgear hub that has worked flawlessly for over a year and a half for me. Plus three netgear 310 cards that have worked like a champ.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Feb 2002 21:18:14 +0000

I just had a port on my 3Com 4-port 10Mbps hub bite the dust on me the other day. Granted, it’s just an OfficeConnect hub. But for $40, I have no problem buying a 5-port Netgear switch that *may* die after three years. By then, I’ll probably want more network bandwidth anyway.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Feb 2002 18:10:14 +0000

I used to like Netgear equipment; I own a couple of their 4-port 10/100 hubs at home that work fine.

However...

Over Christmas break we had some 3COM 10Mbit 24-port hubs die (after 7 years), and we picked up a couple of Netgear 24-port 10/100 hubs (it was what we could find locally). After a month, each of them has 1 or 2 dead ports! Not just one has failed, but both.

So we have resolved to not buy more Netgear equipment for the current time.

BTW, we think we've found end-of-life on the 3COM Superstack II's - 7 years. We had to replace 4 of these in the last 3 months.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Feb 2002 17:29:16 +0000

Oh. Duh. I forgot about Wal-Mart selling PCs without operating systems online. A 1-GHz Duron or Celeron with 128 MB RAM and a 40-gig 5400 RPM hard drive will set you back $399. A 1.4 GHz Athlon with 256 megs runs $499. The line goes on up to a 2 GHz P4 with 256 megs for $868.

One of those would make a nice low-end Linux box and saves you the Windows tax.

As for quality, I can tell from the picture they aren't using 100% Tier-1 components. You won't get the price point that low without some compromises.

If you just want a cheap Windows box, you can search PriceWatch for a Windows license. You can get Win95 for under $30 if you're careful.

Here's the link.