Benefits of stacking switches

I was looking for a clear benefit of stacking switches and I believe this guy from the forum techguy.org put it so clear

http://forums.techguy.org/networking/755867-solved-benefits-stacking-switches.html


You are correct about the concept of stacking switches. The reason stacking switches is better than just doing link aggregation/Etherchannel is because of what you said. There is a specific type of cable used to link the switches together. The link is always greater than throughput of a LAG group to connect the switches. Many switches I've worked with have a limitation of 8 ports in a LAG group. So that means you're limited to 8 Gbps. Also, it's a bit unwieldy to have 8 cables coming off a switch connecting to another device. To illustrate the speed difference with a stacking bus on a stackable switch, I dug up specs on two stackable switches from two different manufacturers.

Cisco's 3750 switch is stackable and has a 32 Gbps bus. I've used these switches at work before. The cabling is included and linking switches is pretty straight forward.

Netgear's GS748TS has a stacking bus capable of 20 Gbps.

So as you can see, there is a significant advantage in using a stacking bus when available. Why is this a nice feature if you can spring for it? Well, you can add additional switches to your stackable switch(es) and still be able to manage them as one single switch. Let me say this feature is extremely useful when you have to manage a few switches in a business environment. Stackable switches also allow you to have the expansion capability of a chassis based switch solution like a Cisco Catalyst 4500/6500 switch without having to pay the higher premium to get into one.