When I was looking to purchase a new switch I needed it to meet the following requirements:

1. Needs to replace my old, low-end netgear switches
2. Needs to allow port mirroring on the switch without having to use an external hub so I can plug my IDS and sniffers in to monitor the traffic
3. Be as inexpensive as possible

This device did the trick:

When I purchased the 2708 it was on sale for $69CDN. It provides the following features:

• 8 10/100/1000 BASE-T ports
• Auto-negotiation for speed, duplex mode and flow control
• Individual port controls
• Switching Capacity 16.0 Gbps
• Forwarding Rate 11.9 Mpps
• Web-based management interface
• BootP/DHCP IP address management or Static IP address assignment
• RMON statistics
• IEEE 802.1Q port-based tagging up to 64 VLANs
• Link Aggregation, up to six groups and up to four aggregated links per group (IEEE 802.3ad)
• Port mirroring (up to four source ports)

I was able to get the switch unpacked, installed into the network, change the default password, configure VLANs, and mirror the ports for my IDS in under 20 minutes. I couldn’t be happier with this device.

Currently it’s listed at $133CDN but it is well worth the price if you’re in the market for an inexpensive and powerful switch.