Procurve 5300 performance

[Chris Bullock_1]

We have been quite happy with our 4100, 2600, and 2800 switch lines. However, we need to get a little more granular with our switching. We need to implement routing and ACL's at lan speeds. What is the opinion of the group as it pertains to the 5300 line of switches?
Regards,
Chris

[Sietze Reitsma]

If you need to start now with a new deplyment I would advice the 5400zl series.

[Chris Bullock_1]

Without looking at all the specs what does the 5400 give me over the 5300 model.
regards,
Chris

[Paulen]

It will give you a decent switch.. I have 90+ 5300-switches. It has really been a lot of issues with them. They lock up, the fan-modules go haywire and can't be replaced (must replace whole chassis), they have poor performance compared with more recent models and there tends to be a lot of basic bugs. The only good thing I'd say about it is if you have a lot of 100FX connections - you can't connect that to 5400.

Haven't used ACLs on these units. Think that's OK.

Good luck

[Matt Hobbs]

Actually now with the 100-FX SFP-LC Transceiver (J9054B) you can connect this to the 24 port Mini-GBIC module (J8706A). So with the 5400 you can have a higher 100-FX density than any other switch!

The 5400 gives you a lot of things over the 5300. Remote port mirroring, PoE, Jumbo frames, loopback interfaces, more granular ACL's, the list goes on.

You can also expect more features to come throughout the lifetime of the 5400, whereas the 5300 will probably only have minor updates.

Still though, the 5300 is a capable switch and I believe the failure rate is well within what would be expected for a product with a lifetime warranty (does it make sense to offer lifetime warranty on switches with bad hardware?)

The 5300 also gives you OSPF, XRRP and PIM-DM for free, whereas you need to purchase the Premium License if you need these on the 5400.

The choice comes down to your budget, I would try and stretch it to the 5400 though if possible.