Managed vs unmanaged switch

[Jeff Hinshaw]

in an industrial realm, why would you choose a managed switch over unmanged switch?  Just cost??

[RussB]

Not just cost. A managed switch will insure that any Ethernet device on a particular machine or 'Line' will never get interference from un-authorized network devices or errant internet connections.

The alternative is to put only select devices on the un-managed switch with a Router to the outside world for data collection and maintenance.

[panic mode]

managed switches cost more than un-managed ones. if price was the only factor, there would not be any managed switches lon the market... (except for things like fetish or bling factor).

main reason for managed is that they are configurable (managed). level of configurability may vary depending on supported features but check the specs to see more.

for example, one can force ports to use specific baud rate only, belong to specific subnet, etc.

 

[NevergoldMel]

Managed switches should not be necessary unless there are reason to not physically separate the controls network from the Regular use network in the organization. 

[Park.CTRL]

Managed switches have features like trunking, VLANs, MAC filtering, advanced POE stuff, port mirroring, security stuff and even some routing. If you don't need those things than just get a switch. If you have to plug things into a big network somewhere, find out who supports it ask them what to do.