Hello everyone,

I'm looking for suggestions and experiences with 16 port kvm switches. I don't need anything real fancy. Just basic kvm with reasonably priced "tails".

I've tried searching, but since kvm is 3 letters, I can't search on that.

TIA,

Frank

id go with a tripp-lite kvm switch. Thats what we use at our shop. We have 2 8port switches for our repair desks. Havent had a problem with them yet. However.... tripp-lite comes with no cabling and an 8port switch is like $180 then you would be looking at 8 cables at $20 a pop... could get kind of expensive.

You could go on ebay and find 2 8 port compaq KVMs and use a serial cable to achieve 16 ports.

the compaq kvms are pretty nice, and on ebay, they are around $150 each.

That's if you are not afraid of used equipment

The compaq KVM's are actually top of the line AVOCENT (used to be APEX) they are exactly the same as the Apex and Cybex switches, only with a different name painted on them.. Deffinently high quality KVM's. Check out ebay for the current 'market' price of them... I believe you can pick up an 8 port (they can be daisy chained) for less than $150.

I'm been looking at ebay, but the are always "missing" something. The description will say "it was just pulled from production" but when I email the seller it's missing the rack mount hardware or the power cord.

Anyone have any experience with aten or tripp-line kvm's?

Frank

I would stay away from the ATEN boxes... BTW, Aten makes many of the belkin and some of the other generic KVM's, The older ATEN boxes were really not very reliable, (things like keyboard or mouse would lock, requiring a reboot of the server, etc). I was a Tripplite reseller for awhile, they seemed to have a solid, reliable product, but as always, my prefrence is still the Apex/Avocent KVM's.

As for the ones on ebay.... sometimes that's what you get... I'm sure if you keep looking, the 'Perfect' one will pop up. In many cases, you may just have to settle with something that doesn't have all the accessories. The good news is that many of the higher end KVM's just take a standard computer power cord, nothing special there.

If you go with one of the name brand KVM's, you can usually order the rack mount kit from the MFG.

I picked up a unit and was able to find cables from another ebay seller for around 3 dollars each. You should be able to find just about everything. The rackmount assessories might be harder to find. Most of those units you are seeing are from failed telecoms or hosting companies. The banks or leasing companies just come in and remove anything that isn't tied (or screwed) down and leave everything else.