Celejar put forth on 9/7/2010 6:58 PM: > I suppose, but since the vast majority of applications of cheap > switches don't require this capability, wouldn't it be cheaper to leave > it out, and only include it as an extra feature for those who need it? > > I don't actually know what it costs them to include the RAM for the MAC > table, though; perhaps it's negligible, so they just always throw it in.
Considering the cost of the entire switch IC in a $10 USD 8 port switch (which includes an external AC/DC transformer and a 3 foot ethernet patch cable for the price) is less than $1 in 10k unit quantities, the cost of say 64KB RAM on that switch chip is going to be in the 10 cent range or less. The reason many/most cheap 4/8/16 port switches have an 8192 entry MAC table is because they're all likely using the same switch chip from a single vendor, and this chip was designed with an 8192 entry MAC table. The chip is cheap, reliable, and available in large quantities, so everyone uses it. -- Stan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4c87d446.3050...@hardwarefreak.com
