Primary Device
Cisco Catalyst 9300-48P
★ 3.3 Value Score
Technical Specifications
- Switching Capacity: 256 Gbps (Standalone) / 736 Gbps (Stacked)
- Forwarding Rate: 190.47 Mpps (Standalone) / 547.62 Mpps (Stacked)
- Ports: 48 x 10/100/1000 Ethernet PoE+ ports; modular uplinks (1G, 10G, 25G, 40G options)
- PoE Budget: 437W (Default with 715W PSU); Up to 1440W (Maximum with dual 1100W PSUs)
- Layer: Layer 2, Layer 3
- Stacking support: StackWise-480 (480 Gbps bandwidth; up to 8 units in a stack)
Curation Review
- ✔ Pros: Industry-leading StackWise-480 stacking bandwidth for high scalability; Innovative StackPower technology for power redundancy across the stack; Advanced security including AES-256 MACsec and Encrypted Traffic Analytics (ETA); x86 CPU architecture allows hosting of third-party containers and apps
- ✘ Cons: Complex and mandatory Cisco DNA Smart Licensing model; Higher total cost of ownership (TCO) than the Catalyst 9200 series; Significant heat and fan noise when under full PoE load; Historical hardware reliability issues with specific DRAM/DIMM batches
- Est. Price: $3,200 - $4,800
Compare Against
Ubiquiti UniFi Pro Max 24 PoE
★ 5.0 Value Score
Technical Specifications
- Device Type: Managed Switch
- Switching Capacity: 528 Gbps
- Forwarding Rate: 395 Mpps
- Ports: 24x 2.5G PoE + 2x 10G SFP+
- PoE Budget: 600W
- Layer: L3 (Layer 3)
- Stacking Support: No
- Management: UniFi Network Application
- Cooling: Fanless with passive cooling option
- Power Consumption: Approx 80-250W (depending on PoE load)
- Max PoE Devices: 24
- Throughput per 2.5G Port: 2.5 Gbps full duplex
Curation Review
- ✔ Pros: Excellent 2.5G port density at mid-range price; Fanless design offers silent operation and reliability; 600W PoE budget supports modern high-power devices; Integrated into UniFi ecosystem for centralized management; 10G uplink SFP+ ports for aggregation; Low latency and responsive performance; Energy efficient under typical loads
- ✘ Cons: Limited to L3 (no advanced routing); No stacking support limits scalability for large deployments; 2.5G ports may not justify cost if 1G sufficient for use case; Passive cooling means outdoor/high-temp deployments not recommended; Limited redundancy/HA features compared to enterprise switches; SFP+ modules sold separately
- Est. Price: $699 - $899
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