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Hi to all :) To most of you it'll prolly sound like a very silly question to ask, however to me as a fresh network trainee the answer is unfortunately not so obvious.

So, the question is whether the first row (counting from the top) contains odd or even-numbered ports?

The reason why I ask it at all is b/c my intuition would tell me that the little triangular icons above the ports indicate the position of a given port, so "▽1" would mean that the port highlighted in blue is going to be Gi1/0/1 and so the port highlighted in orange is going to be Gi1/0/2.

HP 5500's Ports

However, when I look at the drawings by my more experienced colleagues at work, they seem to see it the other way round. I'm not entirely convinced though that they paid any attention to the vendor's pictograms and didn't do things out of habit based on their experience with Cisco hardware.

Which is why I hope that someone here, who's got a hands-on experience with HP switches will be able to clarify this issue for me.

PS. I have no physical access to the device so I cannot check it with my own hands by playing with cables...

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  • At least all Procurve switches (I've seen) have port 1 on the top left and the odd-numbered ports in the top row. This looks weird to me... – Zac67 Feb 7 '18 at 20:27
  • Indeed, with ProCurve ones there's no confusion as the ports are very clearly denoted (Vide: HP ProCurve 2610). Unfortunately such is not the case with the 5500s (Vide: HP 5500) – Martin Ledermann Feb 7 '18 at 21:03
  • Well, if you've got a switch at hand you can check by plugging a cable and see which port comes up and compare a port's MAC to a known device that's plugged in. – Zac67 Feb 7 '18 at 21:25
  • Err - on i.ytimg.com/vi/qqV74q09RdQ/maxresdefault.jpg the labeling is swapped to that on your pic above - just like on the Procurves. – Zac67 Feb 7 '18 at 21:26
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    This is just my "guess" of what has happened. Some HP switches have their labeling below the ports. Someone during design copied the bottom labeling from one model/line and moved the labeling to the top for this one and mistakenly flipped the triangles. No one looked closely and most everyone deploying them followed the "industry norm" of port 2 below port 1....until someone noticed the direction of the triangles and asked (here). If they had reversed the port order on this line, I am sure there would have been enough "noise" among network professionals for someone to be aware of it. – YLearn♦ Apr 19 '19 at 5:50

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