Question : Problem: stacking 3com switches

hi,

i'm looking at buying 3com switches but am a bit confused on the configuration needed.
i work in an office with about 100 staff.  our switches are 5 years old and i think they should be replaced.

we have a mix of 40 ports -- 10/100/1000G for the servers
and 120 ports for the users

i was thinking about getting
1 -- 5500G 48port for the servers
1 -- 5500G 24port for the users
2 -- 4500 48ports for the usrs

what would be the best way to connect this up so they could basically be 1 managed device? or any other suggestion on how to connect these together for good data flow.  the add-on modules to get this working are a bit confusing to me.

any help here would be appreciated.

regards,
MarkCnz

Answer : Problem: stacking 3com switches

Nothing wrong with your choices, I just think it's more than necessary. But you know your network better than anyone.

I don't know what your budget is, but your costs are getting close to Cisco territory.
If you got the money, Cisco might be a better choice.

Myself, I'm a fan of Extreme switches; better performance (expecially with QoS) and costs less than Cisco.

Note that the diagram I provided is for clustering, not stacking.
Stacking can only be done within the same family of switches. You can stack the 5500s together and the 4500s together. Stacking also requires a special stack cable.

For clustering, you can either use fiber (need SFPs) or copper (preferably CAT6).