Two More Cisco 7204 VXRs Added to My Home Lab!
Last week, I was browsing eBay (as you do!), and noticed two Cisco 7204 VXR routers auctions which were about to end pretty soon and the starting bid was £0.99, and there were no current bids!
I’ve wanted to play with the bigger Cisco routers for a while. I have played with the Cisco ISRs, which are designed more for branch/smaller offices. I already have one 7204 VXR in my rack, but adding two more couldn’t hurt, so I figured I would go ahead and try my luck and bid. To my surprise, I won both!
I managed to win one of them for £20, and the other for £0.99! £20.99 for two 7204 VXRs isn’t bad at all, just a quick search on eBay shows that the NPE-300s, which came with both routers, is generally selling for £30, so I’m quite pleased.
The I/O controllers (C7200-I/O) are a bit old, and use DB-25 connector for the console port and not the normal RJ-45 that most Cisco devices use. The I/O controller also don’t have any Ethernet ports either, but I did get some FastEthernet modules with both routers. I will probably upgrade the I/O controllers to C7200-I/O-2FE/E some time this year, but for now, it will do. 🙂
I now have three 7204 VXRs in my rack, the first one I bought last year some time.
In the picture:
- Top 7204 VXR has: NPE-225, 128MB RAM, C7200-I/O, Dual FastEthernet Module and an Enhanced ATM module (ATM PA-A3).
- Middle 7204 VXR has: NPE-300 with 256MB RAM, C7200-I/O, Single EthernetModule, and an Enhanced ATM module (ATM PA-A3).
- Bottom 7204 VXR has: NPE-300 with 256MB RAM, C7200-I/O-2FE/E, and an Enhanced ATM module (ATM PA-A3).
I’m not really sure if the Enhanced ATM modules will be of any use to me, as I don’t think it is possible to use them back-to-back (please correct me if I am wrong!). I do want to get a few Cisco PA-4T+ 4 Port Serial modules but that’s for later on.