I am looking to buy some inexpensive small switches for home use, primarily so that I can use them when IPv6 comes out I won't need to upgrade as much equipment then mainly I am looking for layer 2 switches as they will work with IPv6 or IPv4 , without the need for various upgrades or changes to firmware. So anyone have any recommendations on latyer 2 switches?

ALex

Pardon me if I am being stupid, but does IPv6 actually do anything for the small LAN admin? I mean, I thought the purpose of IPv6 was to allow more addresses. Or is there more to IPv6 than I realize?

Netgear, Dlink, Linksys, 3com, Dell, pretty much any name brand switch should work just fine.

IPv6 does allow for a larger address pool, which is a substantial part of it's purpose it has a 128-bit address 64 for network, and 64 for node. However, it also incorporates natively security such as IPSEC which is an addendum to IPv4, as well as other inherint security improvements. furthermore it is relatively incompatible with IPv4 at leas tin the reverse IPv6 to v4, although IPv6 allows for interoperability with IPv4 until it is phased out. It has a more efficient addressing scheme similar to IPX in that the MAC address is used to autogenerate an address for it, but it;s addressing also eliminates private vs. public IP addresses because IPv6 has a local, a site and a public network address all at the same time. The sad fact is that at some point there will be no more IPv6 except on closed networks, because it will eventually replace the IPv4 network that ISP, etc.. use now they will all use IPv6. At that popint in time your home router will be moot because it will not work with the new network, and the private IP addresses your internal computers use now will not work either. Now the reason that I am looking for layer 2 switches is that there are two types of switch a network layer 2 and network layer 3, Layer 2 will work with either IPv6 or IPv4 because the only address it uses to determine where to send traffic is the physical MAC address of network cards. LAyer three switches send data using the logical address also known as the IP address which is different for IPv4 and IPv6.

PS the switch is coming sooner than later the US governemtn has mandated all their networks be using IPv6 by 2008.

Alex

Now as for the other resonse thanks for the name brands but they all make both layer 2 and 3 switches, any specific model numbers anyone can think of that are specifically layer 2 switches. That's what I'm really looking for.

Thank you all

Alex

A switch is really no big deal especially if it's not a Layer 3 or Managed switch..
Find one that fits your budget with the right number of ports and it's the right switch..

I've found the Dell Web Managed Gigabit switches to be reasonably priced.
under $100.00 for an Eight port Web Managed switch is a great deal..
And a Backplane on the Switch that is spec'd to actually Carry the maximum bandwidth of the device..
PowerConnect 2708