Is there any reason NOT to enable ip routing on the 300/500 series switches?

[jmolina-SWOC]

I recently purchased a small stack of Cisco 300 series small business switches for a client, specifically "SG300-52P"s. The current OS version I am using is 1.4.0.88.

I intend to use one of them as a layer 3 switch, and the rest as layer 2 switches.

In order to enable IP routing on these switches, the command "set system mode router" must be typed on the command line. However doing so causes the following warning to be displayed:

myswitch#set system mode router
Changing the switch working mode will *delete* the startup configuration file
and reset the device right after that. It is highly recommended that you will
backup it before changing the mode, continue ? (Y/N)[N]

This is quite extreme and burdensome. I am concerned that at some point in the future, I may desire to enable IP routing on any or all of the other switches. If this comes to pass, I will need to be physically present with a console connection to restore the switch configuration. I would not be able to do this remotely.

Given that enabling IP routing seems to enable addition features without any additional restrictions, does Cisco have any good reason not to enable it on all of these switches now, before they are deployed?

[bhackbarth · Accepted solution]

I'm sure someone can correct me if I'm wrong.  But I think the reasons are as follows.

-These are small business switches, not Catalyst switches. For a reason.  They are marketed for small businesses and to be set up by techs not necessarily Cisco trained.

The device ships as Layer2.  It performs hardware switching (fastest) up to a certain load, and then the switch starts "soft switching" (slightly slower).

In layer 3 mode you only get soft switching.

In addition, it's easier for less experienced (small business)  techs to set up the device as layer 2.  Unless they're familiar with VLANs, they might run into confusion even setting the IP address of the management VLAN.

In conclusion...the switch will do a lot of neat, advanced stuff. But it's still marketed for those who might not need all the advanced stuff and probably have never heard of "CCNP", etc.