NETGEAR GS605 5-port Gigabit Desktop Switch
See it at Amazon.com for $28.91Average Customer Rating
(4.0 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
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(5 out of 5)A switch is a switch
I bought one of these units several months ago because I was constantly moving 500MB to 6GB MPG files between several of my regular computers and my DVRs and moving files this large takes quite a while at 100Mb. I hoped Gb speeds would help a lot. I did some timing and I was able to obtain about 3x shorter transfer times on my local LAN with everything connected to the Gb switch. My problem was that my house was already wired with CAT 5 cable and Gb ethernet really requires CAT 5e cable to get consistent speed. With my CAT 5 cabling, the speed was very intermittent--one time much faster and not the next.
I know this review should be about this product itself and so I'll say it's a fine product and I'll probably buy another one when I finally decide to re-wire my house. But inexpensive unmanaged switches like this are commodity products and this one is not a whole lot different than any other so I just buy whatever is cheapest.
Just make sure you have CAT 5e or CAT 6 cabling before going to Gigabit and expecting Gigabit speed.
(4 out of 5)Understanding Gigabit networking
I do not own this product (yet), but want to clarify something about gigabit speeds. Unless you have a gigabit network card (nic)on your machine, this will do nothing more than a fifteen dollar switch. If you do have a gigabit card, it will only make a difference if you are transferring data from a machine that also has a gigabit card. Here is the real kicker for just about everyone left - for gigabit to reach it's true potential speed, you have to have a motherboard with gigabit built in. Anyone with a card can only reach the potential of PCI bus, which is ~400Mbps. That is not to say that a 300% improvement is not worthwhile, just don't expect full gigabit speed. Oh and remeber there are 8 bits to a byte, so that is about 167 megabytes per second potential transfer (and that does not include management overhead due to collisions etc). A switch is not a switch...
(5 out of 5)Great Price for Speed!!!
I just purchased this switch for a home network just hoping to solve some router issues. I ordered it from work so I could not recall if my 3 year old Dells would do Gigabit or not.
Sure enough they did and this thing just works like a champ and no fan noise like some competetive brands. The transfer speeds are exceptional.
The manual completely left out the meaning of the LED colors. A quick web search answered the question.
Green - 1000
Yellow - 10/100
(5 out of 5)Great Switch - Stellar Value
I've got two of these on my home network, serving a couple of Gigabit Ethernet based Macs, a TiVO and a host of audio and video gear and they've always performed perfectly. Great design, great value and excellent performance.
(5 out of 5)Works as nicely as it looks
In a time where the choice of cheap 5-port, desktop, GigE switches is plentiful, this one stands out for one simple reason: exterior design. It looks good enough to show off anywhere, and the vertical stand is a great desk-space-saver, something that becomes handier every day.
The only case where you wouln't buy this model would be if you need Jumbo Frame support -- but that's something 99% of people with a SOHO setup can't even use (because your standard router for Internet access won-t support it...). So why bother?
Definitely my favorite in this price range and feature set. Highly recommended.