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This question is issued from the following:
Will a Cisco 2514 router work properly with a Cisco Catalyst 3500 series switch?

Following the inner requirements, I have searched for a more recent router. As such, I have found a 3620 and a 3640 routers.

As mentionned in the linked question, these routers are to be connected with 3500 Series Cisco switches.

What router would I profit the most from:

  1. Considering performance;
  2. Considering equipment ease of use.

I am no system administrator but a developer understanding most of the basics about networks, and have already installed some networks, but no Cisco stuff so far.

Thanks for your kind guidance! =)

Community
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Will Marcouiller
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1 Answers1

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Well both are 'end of sale' models so you need to be aware of that, otherwise the 3640 has a 100Mhz processor, 20Mhz quicker than the 3620 (equating to nearly double the throughput somehow) and the 3640 has 4 slots, the 3620 only 2 - otherwise they're very similar indeed. The both run the same software so there's no ease of use difference that I'm aware of, other than extra ports to be configured of course.

Hope this helps.

Chopper3
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  • This helps! =) Do they support 1000baseT or the like to perform equally as the switches? I remember that there are others 1000 things like 1000LX, something like that, if I remember correctly. Is it equivalent to 1000baseT? In the end, will this installation be fast enough for LAN working? – Will Marcouiller Feb 01 '11 at 21:21
  • You can fit gigabit Ethernet cards into the slots, each card can then have one of the various types of physical connector fitted via a GBIC transceiver, so you can choose 1000baseT, SX, LX etc. As for performance, the 3640 can route up to 70,000 packets per second, so if you use 1512 byte packets that's about 100 megabytes per second or around 1 gigabit. – Chopper3 Feb 01 '11 at 22:04
  • +1 and accpeted answer: Thanks a bunch for these crunchy details! Thanks for helping me learn! =) – Will Marcouiller Feb 01 '11 at 22:08
  • Pleasure, nice to see a new user asking sensible questions and proving enough detail, this is often not the case so thanks. – Chopper3 Feb 01 '11 at 22:13
  • I finally have bought the 3640 following the details you provided. I perhaps don't need a router 20MHz faster for now, but will for sure someday, so I considered a medium-long term investment when buying. Thanks! =) – Will Marcouiller Feb 02 '11 at 18:58
  • happy to help dude – Chopper3 Feb 02 '11 at 19:26
  • The `nm-1GE` card, only gigabit module that would fit, is not supported neither on 3620 nor 3640. Besides, I don't see how they could route even 100Mb/s. 3620 and 3640 are rated respectively 20 and 36Mb/s according to routerperformance.pdf. – petrus Jan 05 '12 at 22:05