Paul, First of all, the major difference between managed and unmanaged switches is that managed switches are configurable, can support VLANs and some managed switches offer some rudimentary routing. In my case, I have a small number of users who generate tons of broadcast traffic, so I put them into their own VLAN to segment that extra traffic away from my other "normal" users.
If your network is a flat network and you aren't saturating your LAN most of the time, a managed switch isn't going to buy very much. You'd be better off setting up a linux or windows box, run Ethereal on it and monitor what packets are traveling on your wires. You might find that the MTU for your fiber router could be incorrect. Using an MTU (too big or small) will degrade performance. I will also assume that when you say "performance", you really mean "internet performance". Are you getting your internet service from the same ISP? Is your fiber terminating at the same peering point as your previous RF WAN connection? A good test is to yank all of your users off of the switch(es) after business hours and compare the internet performance with only on machine in the wire. If your internet performance still stinks, I would start questioning your router or link performance. Have you tried any of the Bandwidth peformance websites? www.PCPitStop.com is the one I normally use, although I'm not sure how accurate that would be routing across the big pond. Here is a DSL bandwidth test for the UK: http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/speedtest.asp Cheers, Eric -----Original Message----- From: Paul Love [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 12:43 AM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: OT Exchange Help Good day chaps.. To improve overall performance regarding our exchange and other servers we have replaced a radio (10Meg)WAN link with a Fibre 10Meg Full duplex circuit. Only problem is now after installation and testing all ok when we plug the NTE into our switch we are getting dreadful performance ?, someone said we need a managed switch that the NTE would go into. We run Data and Voice over the link as before with no problems, the current switches are FS524 Netgear unmanaged auto sensing, the BT guys think this is the problem and that we require a managed switch on the end of the Les circuit to match that of the NTE i.e. Full or Half Duplex, wondered if any of you guys have come across this before ? Really annoying that on the transparent radio link it worked fine, but now with a really sexy fibre its worse... :-( Kind Regards And Thanks in Advance. Paul _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Web Interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=exchange To subscribe: http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with. _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Web Interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=exchange To subscribe: http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
