smallest 24 port switches?

As I grind forward terminating all the wiring I'm faced with deciding just how much will go into structured cans and how much will go on nearby racks.  Using cans is great for keeping stuff out of sight and away from dust.  Not necessarily the best for temperature management, but that can be mitigated in various ways.  
 
It occurs to me it might be useful to know which gigE network switches are out there that pack everything into as small a form-factor as possible.  
 
Of the several 24 port units I've got the smallest is a Dlink DGS-1024D, coming in a 7x11".  It doesn't have any uplink slots and as some point I'll want to consider something like that.  Much of the traffic is video and the bandwidth consumption for this isn't going to decrease.  
 
I've got 'some' room to work with, and I'm not going to light up all 115 cables.  But there are a number of places where I can either light up all three (or more) cables going to a wall plate, or use a switch with just one.  
 
I'm fine with using 'non-standard' mounting techniques.  I don't need to use the standard brackets and clamps.  I prefer to avoid butchering the devices themselves, if just for the sake of warranties.  Doing things like tapping new mounting holes in the boxes is an OK solution, as would making/cutting rack ear brackets to make things work.  
 
So which, if any, 24 port gigE switches have folks here used inside structured media boxes?  Any pros/cons to share?

I am using a TP-Link TL-SG1024DE inside of the Leviton 42" can (plus a second one on a rack).
 
No problems to date. 
 
http://www.tp-link.com/lk/products/details/?categoryid=2878&model=TL-SG1024DE

That's about the same size at the D-Link (slightly smaller that Netgear's equivalent).  
 
D-Link also makes a slightly smaller one, the DGS-1024A, which is also fanless.  Looks interesting especially since it's power plug is on the same side as the cables (and uses a wall wart).  Frees up some more room not having to have a power cord out the other side.  But then there's the issue of seeing the LEDs.  Six of one...

Yup; its reasonable priced for a managed Gb switch although it doesn't have a CLI. 
 
The LEDs though are an issue in the Leviton can as I do not see them facing up; but never really look. (nor do I look at the one on the rack).
 
I paid a bit more than the current price on Amazon. ~ $150.00
 
http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-24-Port-Gigabit-Tag-Based-TL-SG1024DE/dp/B00CUG8ESM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393283944&sr=8-1&keywords=TL-SG1024DE
 
I see what looks like the same or similar model D-Link (a bit higher in price). ~ $195.00
 
http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-EasySmart-24-Port-Managed-DGS-1100-24/dp/B004SUO1S0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393284091&sr=8-1&keywords=d-link+managed+switch

While not a 24-port, I don't think you can get much better density than a Netgear GS116E - they're great little switches that are fanless and compact.
 
The DLink is impressively small if you don't want rack mount - I hadn't seen that one before.
 
Otherwise I'd be tempted to just jump straight to a 48-port where you can get 48 gig ports in a single 1U switch - but I don't know what your wiring closet looks like.  Speaking of, are any pics going to show up in a blog or gallery one of these days?

You may be able to fit those GS116 switches 2-deep, 'stacked', inside a Channel Vision Large Product Holder.
 
http://cocoontech.com/forums/topic/21760-leviton-21-structred-media-cabinet-how-to-connect/page-2
 
I think this is electron's pic of his:

That black knob tightens/loosens, allowing the rear bracket to move forward and back.
 
If you're interested, I can measure mine.

Here a base Visio drawing. 
 
It's just a splat of stuff and now a bit out of scale; but you can use it to document and guesstimate placement of stuff.
 
Leviton has a bunch more little Visio widgets to play wth.
 
Here I was thinking of using one ChannelVision plate which is 12" wide and attaching the switch to it redoing what I did originally.
 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y4rh9nkdwhe7v92/Drawing1.zip

Neurorad said:

You may be able to fit those GS116 switches 2-deep, 'stacked', inside a Channel Vision Large Product Holder.
If you're interested, I can measure mine.

Click to expand...

 
Hmm, that could be interesting.  It's always a toss-up on port density vs switch hops.  Provided the fabric within the switch is capable, I find it's often best to avoid chaining switches.  Especially when you don't know ahead of time where everything will get connected.  
 
Two 16 port switches would give me effectively 30 ports (uplink and then the in-between links) vs 23. But then I'd have a single gigE bottleneck.  Which can be an issue if there's a lot of media traffic unevenly spread across the switches.  I'll have to do some spreadsheet work on that.  That and for 7 more ports I'd be paying almost double.  
 
One real question is whether or not it's link aggregation works effectively or not.  Lots of things claim to do it.  But by the time you get into needing that sort of thing you're also wandering into managed device territory.  I'd be more inclined to shell out for a Cisco SG-102-24.  But I'm not sure if the GBICs are shared or not, as in 22 gigE + 2 GBIC, or 23 gigE + 1 GBIC.  Using a GBIC port isn't really necessary in my situation as none of the stuff is far enough apart to need or benefit from using fiber.  That and there's the added expense for the modules and the cabling bits.

Not really sure though if it would be utilized at the home environment.
 
Looking again at the specs of the TP-Link (not shabby for the price and so far holding up just fine).  The only media issues here that I see is relating to the bottleneck of the internet connection.  I do utilize XBMC locally and PlayOn TV remotely which works OK for streaming internet video stuff.
 
SOFTWARE FEATURES
Quality of Service Support Port Based/802.1p Based priority
Support 4 priority queues
Rate Limit
Storm Control L2 Features IGMP Snooping
Link Aggregation
Port Mirroring
Cable Diagnostics
Loop Prevention VLAN Supports up to 32 VLANs simultaneously (out of 4K VLAN IDs)
MTU/Port/Tag VLAN Transmission Method Store-And-Forward

The netgear ones perform pretty well - I've gotten full wire speed out of them.  Not many things use high bandwidth - then you aggregate it over the whole switch for what's talking when - and it'd be hard to max out a single wire much.  I mitigated further by putting things with known loads on one switch and the computers and rapidly variable items on the other (even HD ip cameras don't use more than 6mb).

Work2Play said:

The netgear ones perform pretty well - I've gotten full wire speed out of them.  Not many things use high bandwidth - then you aggregate it over the whole switch for what's talking when - and it'd be hard to max out a single wire much.  I mitigated further by putting things with known loads on one switch and the computers and rapidly variable items on the other (even HD ip cameras don't use more than 6mb).

Click to expand...

 
Agreed.  The trick is knowing what's going to be put and where, ahead of time.  Thus reliable link aggregation buys me some leeway.  If there's a way to bundle up bandwidth (either better uplink like 10gigE for $$$) or by aggregating at least two links.  The trick is in getting all the gear on that subnet to play along with the scheme.  That'd let me just run two cables from the can over to the rack and get a 2gbps trunk to a switch on the rack.  Then I don't have to be 'as concerned' about bottlenecks.  I've the option of running more things directly to the rack but want to keep my cabling tangles to a minimum.  
 
I keep entertaining the notion of being able to move the AV rack. Thus I want to avoid hard connections where possible.  There's reasonable access for chasing wires as necessary.  
 
That and there's a whole other pair of racks across the room.  Which would likely require as much, if not more, than the bandwidth to the AV rack.  The floorplan wouldn't allow enough room to bring the racks and their wiring all together into one location.  Even with a lot of planning you really can't quite estimate just how much ROOM all the wiring can take to terminate and cross-connect. 
 
My office gear is all in a rack directly below my desk.  This allows me to run a KVM (dvi, usb, audio) down from my desk to the rack.  This keeps the equipment fan noise out of my office.  But there wasn't enough room in the plan to also allow for pulling a whole house full of wires to that same location (framing issues, nearby electrical panel noise, hvac, plumbing, etc).  They're across the workshop from each other and do have 6 runs of CAT6 between then (along with a way to run more above the drywall).  
 
So now I'm at the stage where I want to buy some gear that's going to last 'a while' and hopefully avoid the kind of 'oh crap' limitations we've all run into in the past.  Good, fast, cheap... at least at this stage I can afford the good and fast while ponying up the cash.  The trick is figuring all that out.

pete_c said:

Looking again at the specs of the TP-Link (not shabby for the price and so far holding up just fine).  The only media issues here that I see is relating to the bottleneck of the internet connection.  I do utilize XBMC locally and PlayOn TV remotely which works OK for streaming internet video stuff.

Click to expand...

 
Any discussions online regarding it?  Looks impressive for the price.  But I'm always wary of the 'gotchas' especially with regard to link aggregation.  If I'm going to rearrange things and have some stuff in cans and on different racks (across the room from each other) I'd want to avoid setting myself up for failure due to congestion or other limits.  VLANs, link aggregation and such are powerful tools for fine tuning traffic flows.  But unless the devices really support them they're a waste of effort.  
 
This gets into a really narrow subset of likely network configurations.  What those of us here might want for a high-end, tricked out, home network doesn't necessarily exist 'in the real world'.  So as I'm buying the next round of gizmos I'm trying to avoid stupid stuff that just won't work "that way".

Any discussions online regarding it?

Click to expand...

 
I would just google it or read the reviews on Amazon maybe. 
 
Being "old" and historically in a commercial sense only dealing with Cisco; I got used to the CLI and never liked what was being done with the GUI a few years ago.
 
It was written poorly and response times were ridiculously slow; hence I avoided it because it was a waste of my time to try to figure out the logic utilized for providing a GUI that was worthless.
 
Relating to the "home" / "residential" network; I do see your point in the want of Link aggregation or even port mirroring. 
 
That said I cannot predict what you will be doing with this or creating a need for this today; but personally if a vendor of any product saids it can do this; and this is me; then I put them to the test; always have.
 
Buy one; test it for what you want it to do; if it doesn't meet your requirements; send it back to Amazon. 
 
They are very good with their return policies.

And not to be a broken record on the Netgear topic, I've specifically purchased and used them for 1) VLAN's - both in a corporate environment in my own home (multiple VLANs for voice, data, dmz, storage network, etc) and they've always worked fine; and 2) Port Mirroring - not long ago I had two lab kits we'd use specifically for doing wireshark to analyze communications with data terminals that used Netgear switches - they were great because we could configure VLAN assignment if needed, assign a mirror port, watch traffic, etc.  That's why I'm such a fan.
 
That said, with my recent experience with TP Link POE switches, I'll probably never buy a single port injector again now that I know I can get a 4-port POE switch for only a couple dollars more.

Sure, the port mirroring is cool.  I keep an old 10/100 hub around just for the purpose of traffic sniffing now and again.  Bit it ain't the reason I'd buy a switch.  My biggest concern would be how effectively and compatibly it supported link aggregation.  
 
Point me to a discussion on that for netgear units?  
 
The saving grace would be I refuse to use anything other than Intel NICs in servers.  So the primary endpoint for the aggregated link would be into one of those.  Not saying that's the amount of traffic I need today (but there are a few times where I do hit that).  More than I don't want to buy a switch today that can't actually live up to it.