All the equipment in the server room has to be moved from a Cajun P550 switch to an Alpine 3808 Extreme switch, including our filers: an F760 with 9 Ethernet ports, an F740 with 4 ports, and an F230 with one port.

- Is it necessary to bring down the filers before changing out the cables, or is it possible to get away with leaving them up and just unplugging the old cables and plugging in the new ones?

- With the F760, eight of the ports are on two boards, and the ninth is a separate port labeled 10/100 BASE-T. If the system can remain up during the migration, does it matter what order the ports are moved?

Also, if anyone has experience with this sort of migration, I'd appreciate any warnings, suggestions, or sadder-but-wiser advice (i.e., things you wish you'd known before you migrated your equipment) you can offer. We've already been warned to turn autonegotiation off and nail up the speed and duplex state on the Extreme.

Thanks!