Cisco CCENT/CCNA Home Lab Equipment

Here is my personal recommendation for building your own Cisco CCENT/CCNA Home Lab.

💻 Build Your Oen Cisco Home Lab for under $100

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[RobertSeeley]

I always recommend the 3750 switch. You can get it in 10/100 or 10/100/1000 and it has stack ports so you can stack them together. They are around $40 each last I checked. I'd also say go for 1841 routers. They are cheap too and have expansion slots to add T1 or serial cards to practice WAN technologies.

[lwa.dev]

Hey, thanks for putting together this content, I’m new too all this and looking at buying older Cisco equipment.... now I relax and start enjoying working on putting it all in action...🙂

[power]

Great video, definitely recommend physical hardware when first starting out in networking. Then move to a virtual environment like gns3 or eve ng once you have the basics down.

[justanotherguygeorge]

Thanks man for the info. I appreciate that!!!

[cybermartian]

Appreciate this bro, I'm actually taking some free CCNA courses on YouTube from Jeremy's IT Lab gearing up for the cert. Always looking for ways to improve my understanding in networking and I need to try this home lab, didn't how easy and inexspensive it could be.

[alarmsquadnj]

That great and very helpful I’m starting out am from Puerto Rico but going back to New Jersey for IT work

[AussieFreakGamers]

Good video! and I totally agree that when first starting out learning Networking Technologies, real physical hardware is crucial. When I prepared for my CCNA R&S, I picked up a couple of 2600 routers and 2950 switches, to learn the fundamentals. After I passed the exam, I bought 4 x 3550 switches and 6 x 1841 routers. I like the 1841's as they are small in size, and quiet which is useful if your equipment is in your study room/ or desk. I used one of my 2600's as an access server by installing a relevant console terminal access server interface, which I highly recommend as it soon gets tiresome moving the console cables from one device to another. By labbing everyday I passed the CCNP R&S, and subsequently began working as a Network Engineer. I've since gained other CCNA's in Security and Collaboration but it all began from learning the technologies with my physical home lab. Creating network topology's, breaking them, then trying to fix them, it's great fun :) Even though I do virtualize many of the routers these days (around 20 or so on an old rack server running ESXi), I still enjoy playing around with real physical devices.

Good luck with your studies mate :)

[NegroRotary]

came across your video, thank you so much, I'm adding Cisco 871 and 1721 to your list, I saw them cheap so why not

[its-techie]

Awesome Video!
Unfortunately, I won't be able to do a home lab in the place I live. I hope that won't hinder me in my pursuit of a Networking Carreer. I'm currently going through the Cisco Classes at my college and working with Packet Tracer.

[nightowl]

Im looking forward for the new CCNA. Are the devices you stated still ok for that? And can they run IOS 15 ? thx!

[yusufstark]

Great video, you said you can do most things that are required for the ccna exam on this equipment. Could you elaborate on what you can't do on this equipment and suggest any additional/alternative equipment that allows to practice all of the exam criteria? Many Thanks ☺

[jacedragon]

are these ones ok to start Cisco 1921 router switches ws-c2960 and ws-c3560... im having a hard time finding any suggested router or switches for cheap.. lowest i found were around $45.. i added everything to my cart and still came out to $350 so i might just buy a bundle that comes with extra stuff. the bundle i found has the router and switch combo that i mentioned above

[ikennaihegbu]

Thanks for this video, i got 2 cisco 2600 series router, 1 cisco catalyst 2950 24 port switch and 1 cisco 3560G series. Do you think this is enough to practice for the new CCNA exams?

[agb]

Would you recommend going for the CCNA as a beginner? I have some experience having taken ICND1 and 2 in college but I have never worked as a network guy. I currently work as a break fix PC support tech.

[CFH]

How would you recommend powering all of this? Buying a UPS or a Tripp Lite 14 rack-mountable power strip?

[drbass]

Would I be able to do ccna cert with my equipment:
Cisco 2960
Cisco 1841
Cisco 3750
2x Cisco PIX 515

[robertgoodman]

Hey Dakota, I understand that CCNA is more widely preferred for job searches than network + but I'm considering network +. I would still want to have a home lab to practice networking for my networking career path. However, I cannot find anything online for a Network + home lab. Since Network + is not brand specific, what does one do? I figure well, I'm gonna have to choose a brand anyway so it might as well be Cisco for a home lab?

[nickteachworth]

Cisco 1800
Cisco 2600
Cisco 2800 x2
Cisco 2960
Cisco 3550 x3
Cisco 3500 x3
Cisco 7940 x2
$50 for all

Found this on Craigslist in my area, I know some are phones. But could I build a lab with this equipment for CCNA cert? Thanks for your input and vid!

[mikep]

Studying for my ccent exam. Jus curious why you need two routers and two switches for a home lab?

[SS-qlbt]

The link for the 48 port switch is 400$