So I am rapidly running out of ethernet ports and I was talking with someone about repurposing one of my old routers as a splitter. They said “I’ve got a splitter you can have”. Nice!
I was expecting a small router sized box. I was little intimidated by what he gave me:
Its a HP ProCurve J9019. I know I said that I wished I understood a little more about networking. I guess I have just found my project. Does anyone have any experience with one of these?
Thought 1. Have you plugged it in yet?
Thought 2. I’d google the model number. Managed? Unmanaged? If its managed, then there will be an IP address you need to log into to configure it. If its unmanaged, then all ya do is plug junk into it and voila.
Thought 3. Free networking appliances are the marijuana of home networking.
Thought 3. - Seems like a good idea at the time but they make you sluggish?
Gateway drug.
I’m converting our whole studio over to Ubiquiti gear. It is incredibly easy to manage and reasonably priced. I’ve tried using old enterprise gear before, and it non-optimal. Also, old enterprise gear is usually very loud.
I love my Ubiquiti gear.
I’ll give it a crack but I don’t want to have to spend any money on it. I saw a console port and felt a little nervous.
Thought 1. Funnily enough I am also running low on power ports.
At least I know what to do with one of these:
Thought 2. Yeah it has an IP address
Those J9019s are $20 on eBay, so if you end up e-wasting it, you don’t have to feel too bad about it…
The main thing to watch out for is that if it was previously deployed in an enterprise network, it may be configured with VLANs, 802.1x access control… which would make it tricky to use as a “dumb switch” where every port can talk to every port.
Typically on these Procurve switches, if you use paperclips to hold down the “Reset” and “Clear” recessed buttons at the same time, this will reset the switch to factory defaults, after which it should just default to working as a “dumb switch” where every port can talk to every other port, which is likely what you want for a home network.
Beware of the siren song of “free” rack mount gear, next thing you know you’ll be shopping for short racks, rack mounted PDUs, rack mount shelves to stack up existing gear, maybe a rackmount UPS…
and here begins the slippery (gateway drug @randy ) slope of having a small garage operation 
Come on in! The water is warm!
(umm…yeah…cuz…ya know…piss.)
IT warfare requires only a paperclip.
I have a procurve 2910 and I cant login via a web browser anymore as it requires flash. Lucky for me it’s just a dumb switch.
@ALan I’ve been looking at the Ubiquity switches too. Can you recommend a small 10gig switch to cater for about 3-5 appliances
I have this one. It works great for a couple of NAS and a couple of Flames and various other boxes. My only complaint is that it doesnt have the cool LCD like my Dreammachine Pro and X16POE switch has. But I’m vain af like that.
If this is overkill, then:
Yeah there are cheaper dumb switches but the Unifi ecosystem is pretty darn good for people like us. I do wish the Dreammachine Pro had a few other features like better multi wan options and wan failover, but, I fear the next step up is fully Cisco or some kinda Pfsense firewall/router + Cisco switches.
If you don’t need any management, the Neatgear XS508M is basic 8 port 10GBase-T, B&H has it for $600
If your gear has SFP+ ports, hard to beat the Mikrotik CRS305-1G-4S+IN, 4 x SFP+ 10G ports + 1 x GigE for $136 on Amazon. And if your have a mix of SFP+ and 10GBaseT gear, the SFP+ to RJ45 adapters can be found for around $56:
although since this is a small fanless switch, adding 4 of these adapters to a switch makes it run quite hot.
Using the CRS305-1G-4S+IN. Awesome little router/switch. Using three of the four SFP, it does run really hot.
SFPs always run smokin’ hot. And at $55 a pop…ouch!
Have you ever looked at the price of branded Arista, Cisco or Juniper SFP+ modules?..
But at $130 for the switch plus 2 or 3 of these modules, I think it’s still the cheapest option for a small 10G switch right now.
Not tricky just mildly disappointing.
@randy
Turns out it has:
24 100Base-TX ports bit only two 1000Base-TX
I was better off with what I had. Thanks for the help.
The saga continues.
