Network Equipment Buying Guides

Practical guides written for the people who specify and import network equipment.

The cheapest switch is the one you do not have to replace in a year. Here is how managed and unmanaged models really differ.

Both move packets, but they make decisions at different layers. The difference decides how your VLANs talk to each other.

A PoE switch that is 10% undersized fails one camera at a time. Do the arithmetic before you order.

Three generations of Power over Ethernet, three very different power envelopes. Match the standard to the device, not the brochure.

They look almost identical on a spec sheet and behave very differently in a rack. A field guide to pluggable optics.

Ports and protocols are no longer enough to describe traffic. What changed between firewall generations, and what it means for sizing.

A NAS box and a file server solve the same problem at different operating costs. How to pick for a small business.

Refurbished-as-new is the oldest trick in grey-market networking. These checks catch it before the balance payment leaves.

One rack unit doubles your drive and expansion options and halves your node density. When each format wins.

Buying a data-center switch on port count alone is how projects end up re-cabled in year two. A buyer's checklist that goes deeper.