Cisco® FlexStack and FlexStack-Plus stacking for Cisco Catalyst® 2960-S, 2960-X and 2960-XR Series Switches provides a true stacking solution, with all switches in a FlexStack or FlexStack-Plus stack acting as a single switching unit. FlexStack and FlexStack-Plus provide a unified data plane and single configuration for a group of stacked Cisco Catalyst 2960-S, 2960-X, and 2960-XR switches.\n\nFlexStack and FlexStack-Plus lower the total cost of ownership with built-in 1:N redundancy, high availability, and preprovisioning, not available in standalone switches. High-availability features such as EtherChannel and FlexLinks will work across stack members, increasing uptime and network connectivity.\n\nFlexStack-Plus is based on FlexStack. FlexStack was introduced on the 2960-S in 2010. FlexStack-Plus is being introduced in 2013 with the 2960-X and 2960-XR models of Cisco Catalyst Ethernet switches.\n\nFlexStack-Plus is an improvement over FlexStack because it doubles the speed of the stack bandwidth and allows for more members to join the stack. The FlexStack-Plus bandwidth for a single stack member is 40Gbps compared to 20Gbps with FlexStack. With multiple stack members, the FlexStack-Plus bandwidth is 80Gbps, and the FlexStack bandwidth is 40Gpbs. With FlexStack-Plus technology, eight 2960-X or XR members can be joined into a single stack. With FlexStack only four 2960-S members could be joined into a single stack.\n\nFlexStack-Plus is backward compatible with 2960-S and FlexStack. Mixing 2960-X and 2960-S members in a stack is supported. When the stack membership is mixed with 2960-X and 2960-S models, FlexStack-Plus falls back to FlexStack capabilities of 40Gbps stack bandwidth and four members maximum per stack.\n\nFor the remainder of this document, the term 2960 will apply to all the 2960-S, 2960-X, and 2960-XR switches unless explicitly called out. Also, the term FlexStack will refer to FlexStack-Plus as well as FlexStack unless explicitly called out.