> L3 switches are typically overkill for a home network My home network consists of a little more than a handful of computers that need internet access, I've a

> L3 switches are typically overkill for a home network My home network consists of a little more than a handful of computers that need internet access, I've also got a couple dozen VM's, FreeNAS (with direct 10Gbe links to the virtualization host), and a IP phone system. It's not some enterprise network, but I still hammer the crap out of my network and take full advantage of the light L3 features available in my TP-Link switch. I've got 12 out of 24 ports currently in use on my switch, and I'm looking to add more when I finally manage to buy a place - worst case I can split the clients off to a separate switch and use some 10Gbe uplinks, but right now that accounts for a grand total of 1 port going to my wireless access point. $500 is in my price range, but finding something with enough ports gets expensive really quick - and it gets even worse if I need to get 2 switches (one for my lab, one for client access) plus a 10Gbe-capable router to handle traffic between them :/