That said, if your SAN is not a Global 100 monster, the SANbox 5602 is viable--it has all the features you'd expect from an enterprise-class product. The management software is intuitive, and vertically upgrading your smaller or older SANbox switches is easy, assuming they're not so old that you have to recable everything.
Consider this solution if you run a small or midsize SAN, especially a QLogic SAN. My tests showed 80- to 110-Kbps throughput improvement over the SANbox 5200 using a 2-gigabit network--enough to stave off a massive upgrade cycle.
If you're accustomed to bells and whistles from leading-edge vendors, such as FC-IP connectivity and Cisco VLANs, you may find the QLogic switch's simplicity too constraining. But if it's core FC functionality you're after, you'll probably agree that the SANbox 5602 is about as good as they come.
Don MacVittie is a senior technology editor at Network Computing. Write to him at [email protected].
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