[Beowulf] Good 1 Gbit switches - which ones?

[Mark Hahn]

> I like the HP Procurve Products:
> Procurve 2824, 24-ports of GigE (4 ports can be either copper or fiber) List
> $2,499 look for a street price around $1,970
> Procurve 2848, 48-ports of GigE (4 ports can be either copper of fiber) List
> $4,899 look for a street price around $3,855
> 
> They are both 1U form factor, stackable; the 2824 has a switching capacity
> of 48Gbps and the 2848 has a switching capacity of 96Gbps

HP seems to make fine products, as does SMC.  SMC's 8624 for instance,
is widely used in clusters, also claims 48 Gbps, and sells for about $1000.
I saw a 48 or 50pt version at a tradeshow ~6 months ago, but I don't see
signs of it on the net...

offhand, I'd guess that even cheaper/smaller switches from no-name vendors
are not disasterous in performance any more, simply because all the vendors
probably use the same basic multi-port chips to implement their switches...