What is the best Switch ????

No not really as I don't use many CISCO Products. As for the Linksys the only ones of those that I use regularly now are the ones supplied by the ISP's for Small Business Modems.

But under the confines of the above question I still maintain that CISCO are the best with an overall better Quality/Service Backup than any of the others particularly the ones supplied by HP.

HP will replace with new equipment any that fail while Under Warranty and quite often their new products [b]Do Not[/b] work the same way so you have to scrap all of the Old Working Stuff to use the New Product that HP supplied to replace the failed component. Then the replacement unit falls over dead 3 days after the Warranty on the original unit expires and you are back in the same mess that started this entire thing off.

CISCO on the other hand offers fantastic After Sales Support and Technical Support which many companies could try to emulate.

Intel Switches seem to have poor quality Fans which get very noisy very quickly but more importantly here at least they are not easily replaced. You either live with the noisy fan or buy a new Switch if your not handy with a soldering iron and know where to source small fans.

It's very easy to be a CISCO Sheep as you say because they do offer a superior overall product which admittedly is more expensive but I personally would prefer to pay a bit more initially and have [b]Real[/b] Service and Support than what you are left with by many other companies. OH that's not covered by our Warranty so buy a new one don't bother us with silly questions about products that we are not required to support.

Now what is it that they say [b]The Pain of a Cheap Product lasts long after the Warm felling of the Money Saved wears off?[/b]

But I notice that you are incapable of offering any opinions to the above question. ;)

Col

is knowledge that's needed, as that affects the performance and reliability. Particular models are designed for heavy business usage, while others are designed for light small business or home usage. That affects their quality and performance as they have different performance and design criteria. Also, working with a router also affects the usage and performance levels.

As a general rule, the answer by Hal 900 is about the best you'll get without more info on intended traffic figures. I've used all those brands and some of those models, except the HP (don't buy HP at all). I've had situations where performance has improved in two areas because I exchanged the switches for each other - it's really horses for courses, and you need to know the course.

Business use, can't beat Cisco, but 3Com, Linksys, and D-link aren't all that far behind, and they do better at low traffic usage for small business and home usage.

On the limited information given, I'd simply echo what Hal has said.