Abstract

Hewlett-Packard Co. commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the Layer 2 switching performance of its Procurve Switch 2524, a 24-port 10/100 Ethernet switch with two Gigabit Ethernet fiber uplink ports along with the Layer 2 switching performance of a Cisco Systems, Inc. Catalyst 3500 (3524) Series XL Switch with two Gigabit Ethernet fiber uplink ports and a 3Com Corp. SuperStack II Switch 3300 TM with a single Gigabit Ethernet copper uplink port, both 24-port, 10/100 Ethernet switches. The Tolly Group measured the throughput of each of the aforementioned switches directing traffic from 10 Fast Ethernet ports to a single Gigabit Ethernet port in a partial-mesh configuration, and directed the remaining Fast Ethernet ports in a full-mesh configuration. Tests were conducted of packet sizes of 64, 512 and 1,518 bytes for all devices under test. 

Summary: Hewlett-Packard Procurve 2524 Switch vs. Cisco Catalyst 3524 and 3Com SuperStack II 3300 (Tolly Group Report #201100, Jan 2001)

Hewlett-Packard commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the Layer 2 switching performance of its Procurve Switch 2524 and compare it against two competing 24-port Fast Ethernet switches: Cisco’s Catalyst 3524 XL and 3Com’s SuperStack II 3300 TM. All switches were tested for wire-speed throughput using 64-, 512-, and 1,518-byte packets in full- and partial-mesh configurations, with up to two Gigabit uplinks. The goal was to determine each device’s backplane capacity and ability to forward packets under heavy load without loss.

The HP Procurve 2524 consistently demonstrated 100% wire-speed throughput across all packet sizes, delivering up to 8.8 Gbit/s of aggregate throughput. Cisco’s Catalyst 3524 achieved 90% throughput for 64-byte packets and 80% for larger packets, peaking at 7.9 Gbit/s. In contrast, the 3Com SuperStack II 3300 TM—equipped with only one Gigabit uplink—delivered just 25–30% of wire-speed, with a maximum throughput of 2.0 Gbit/s, highlighting a significant performance gap. Test equipment included Spirent SmartBits SMB-2000 and ML-7710 cards to simulate full-duplex traffic and measure packet loss and rate.

The report concludes that the HP Procurve 2524’s non-blocking architecture and dual Gigabit uplinks make it the superior choice for enterprise environments requiring full performance across varying packet loads. The test validated its scalability, reliability, and suitability for high-demand networks, outperforming both Cisco and 3Com in sustained Layer 2 traffic scenarios.