HP ProCurve Switch 1700 Series

Despite low prices making Gigabit Ethernet a tempting proposition, there's still a large sector of businesses that won't touch it with a bargepole. Known as the Late Majority, they're the sceptics that won't adopt a new product or technology until nearly everyone else is already using it, and it's been proven beyond any doubt to work. And it's these users that HP is targeting with its latest ProCurve 1700 family of switches.

The two models in the range provide eight and 24 ports of switched Fast Ethernet. Both can be managed via a web browser and are fanless, and therefore silent. There are also options for Gigabit uplinks for those who don't want to be classed as Laggards - those who oppose a new idea until they realise they're the only ones left to adopt it.

The 1700-8 is a compact, lightweight box offering seven Fast Ethernet ports, with the eighth capable of supporting Gigabit over copper. It uses a small external power supply and is completely silent (as is the 1700-24). For the 1700-24, you get a full complement of 24 Fast Ethernet ports, but for Gigabit uplinks the last two are dual personality and share the backplane connection with two SFP ports. For the latter, HP offers SX, LX and LH mini-GBIC modules for long-distance connections over fibre-optic cabling.

The status LEDs are the same for both switches, with a small matrix to one side showing link status and activity, and another showing connection speeds, although the LED doesn't differentiate between Fast Ethernet and Gigabit links.

The switches ship with a default IP address, and the web-management interface is password protected. Those familiar with HP's common ProCurve interface for its web-managed switches will be disappointed, as that offered by the 1700 switches is a lot more basic. It opens with a status screen showing general switch details, along with a table of information about the ports and their connection speeds. The switches are SNMP compliant, so you can change information about their name, location and contact, while a rate-limit function allows you to set available bandwidth for broadcasts and multicasts.

General switch features are comparatively basic, but there's still a lot that probably won't be used. You can hard set a port's speed and duplex mode if you wish and, although we've never seen any significant speed benefits, both models support Gigabit Jumbo Frames. Port trunking allows multiple ports to be placed in single high-speed links for switch-to-switch connections, and you can mirror data from one to another where a network analyser has been connected. Of more value is the support for 802.1q VLANs and the ability to preserve 802.1p packet prioritisation, which will allow them to slot into larger networks as edge devices.

These managed Fast Ethernet switches may initially look good value, but alternatives from Netgear, Linksys, D-Link and SMC are just as affordable. One of HP's biggest selling points is its lifetime warranty, whereas the competition stretches to five years, although if you're running Fast Ethernet that far in the future you'll definitely be a Laggard.

Author: Dave Mitchell