Guys sorry if this has been asked before. I did search. Actually reading on here has helped me learn a lot. I'm in the market for a managed switch. You might ask yourself why anyone would ever want a managed switch in their home. Well mainly for VLAN support. I'm a programmer and i want VLAN support to help me setup test scenarios. I really didn't understand the difference between the cheaper managed switches today and the more expensive ones. Thanks to server fault i do now (well at least one of them) which would be Layer 3 support so you can route traffic between VLANs which i definitely want. VLANs aren't going to do me much good unless i can communicate between them.
Anways i'm wanting to make sure i don't get a flaky switch (firmware or for whatever reason) and have wierd network issues or autoneg issues. I currently just have a 8 port trendnet gigabit switch which does well for what it is. I also want a gigabit ports that support 9k jumbo packets which i currently have in my 8 port chepo switch. I want anywhere from a 16-24 port switch. Hopefully these switches aren't to hard to administer and they have some type of web (https) interface instead of command line/shell. Remember i'm not as versed in this stuff as you guys :).
Of course i don't want to spend $400+ on a switch for my home. I have been eying the dell powerconnect series because of cost mainly. I'm looking to pick one up on ebay. You can get a 5224 for about $100, a 5324 for about $150, and a 5424 for about $300ish. Is the 5224 going to be sufficient or would you guys stear clear of it? Maybe go with the 5324? Are there any more options i have? Any help would be apprecaited.