Cheap Switch Upgrade

The core switch I have at work is a rather old Cisco Catalyst 4006. This switch has been very reliable for the past 8 years, but recently I've had a couple uplink ports fail which is making things difficult. The old uplinks were all 100 megabit fiber ports that really aren't used anymore, at least on new equipment, so finding replacements is kind of tough.

I looked around on eBay and found a 6 port gigabit module that looked perfect for what I need. This would allow me to upgrade 6 of my 9 locations to 1000mbps and keep 3 at their current 100mbps speed while still leaving me some spare ports in case some more die. I looked it up at CDWG and it's a current module you can buy brand new selling on NY State Contract for $2036.60; I got a used one for $60 shipped! It arrived this past Friday and I installed it this morning. The switch recognised it right away and all 6 ports work just fine.

I also got 15 GBICs to go in this module and in a bunch of other switches (since one is needed at both ends of every link). These will typically go for over $100 each new, but I got them for $2 each. I love eBay...