I have a Dell 6248 managed switch with 48 1 GB ports. I'm out of ports and would like to add an additional 48 1GB ports. The official Dell-Recommended solution is to get another 6248 and link the two with a 48GB fiber SFP+ uplink (might be using the wrong term here).
Is there a cheaper way to add 48 1GBe ports? For example, is there an unmanaged switch I could stack that's both theoretically and actually compatible?
Are there hidden compatibility issues if I try to stack with some other non-Dell managed switch?
Best Answer
You could do this with a switch with less ports, or bond GbE ports instead of using fibre. Both of these have obvious disadvantages (less ports, and a potential bottleneck).
If you need any managed features (particularly, as in EEAA's comment, spanning tree, VLANs, QoS, and port security), you can't deploy an unmanaged switch in most cases. However, if you know all the traffic on the second switch is on the same VLAN and the switch is a leaf switch (it will have only one connection to the managed switch and not connect to any other switches), and everything on it will be equal in terms of QoS, you could have the managed switch just tag all the traffic coming in from it, and you won't need that switch to be in the spanning tree topology. Only do this if port security isn't a concern either.
I can't think of any specific model like this. However, you'd be looking for an unmanaged switch that supports the same fibre interconnect as your dell 6248 - if memory serves, the line protocol is usually proprietary.