Differences between Managed Switches and Unmanaged Switches and Their Purchasing Methods

The unmanaged switch is also known as the fool switch. It does not process data directly, but can be used by plugging in the Internet cable. It is a data link layer device, which can identify the MAC address information in the data packet, then forward it according to the MAC address, and record these MAC addresses and corresponding ports in an address table in its own internal.

Non managed industrial switches have limited functions and are single in assembly. They are suitable for small networks and cannot be used in large and medium-sized networks. They have great limitations on network upgrading and expansion, and do not support ARP protection. However, its advantages are cheap and convenient to use.

The price of network managed switches is a little more expensive than that of non network managed switches, and the operation is more complex, which requires configuration. However, it has many advantages, such as large backplane bandwidth and faster data forwarding; Flexible networking, using the access layer of large and medium-sized networks; Support the division of vlan. Users can divide different areas for different applications to effectively control and manage the network; It has the protection function of ARP to improve and reduce ARP spoofing in the network; It is easy to expand and flexible to apply. It can be managed through network management software, or remotely accessed through its own access control, so as to increase the security and controllability of the network.

The network managed switch can provide different types of ports, such as SFP port, SFP28 port, QSFP port, QSFP28 port, etc. These interfaces are used for data transmission and can be connected to optical communication products such as optical modules/DAC high-speed cables/AOC active optical cables.

Take connecting SFP+ports as an example. For short distance equipment interconnection, the low-cost 10G DAC high-speed cable scheme or the 10G AOC active optical cable scheme can be used. If the transmission distance is long, optical modules and jumpers should be used for transmission. Common optical modules include gigabit multi-mode 550m, gigabit single-mode 10km, gigabit multi-mode 300m, gigabit single-mode 10km, etc. The product specifications of optical modules can be customized according to customer needs.