NETGEAR ProSafe GS716T - switch - 16 ports > Reviews > Neat gear from Netgear

Author's product rating:   

Speed	Very fast
Ease of Installation	Excellent - very quick and easy
Ease of use	Very easy
Reliability	Excellent
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Cheap, Easy to configure
Disadvantages:	SFP GBIC ports are shared with copper ports, loud fan .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I haven't found a cheaper 16 port Gigabit Ethernet switch than this Netgear. This 19" rack or desk mountable switch has 16 copper ports and two SFP GBIC ports. The GBIC ports are shared with copper ports 15 & 16 - so you get to use either or, not both, which is a bit of a shame - but they do say it is a 16 port switch after all... They have at least given you the option of adding either short or long range fibre capability to the switch.

The switch will work out of the box as if it were unmanaged, but then you'd be missing the point...

The switch is manageable via its built in web server, which provides an easy to use interface to all the common functions you would expect - 802.11Q VLAN tagging, Quality of Service, Jumbo frame support, 802.3ad link aggregation. You can upgrade the firmware using the web interface too, keeping the switch up to date with bug fixes, and features. On the front panel of the unit, there is a reset button, and also a "factory default" button, to clear the user configuration. These are very useful should you inadvertently misconfigure the switch, or forget the management password.

There are two features I particularly like - one is "Storm Control" which will help to prevent a total network outage due to a system on the network failing, or a loop condition occurring, the other is a statistics page, which gives you counts of network traffic passing through the various ports which is useful for troubleshooting.

I think you will be hard pressed to find a more capable managed switch in this price range. The only thing that would prevent this from being used in the home environment is the racket the cooling fan makes. I am not sure why it has to be so loud - the fan in this is louder than that in the PC on my desk. If you can hide the switch away in a cupboard though, then you could probably cope with it in the house. I would certainly recommend this switch to small office users, and to home users with the caveat about the noise!