8 port switch that wont fry

N

NetTechie

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 10, 2014
Messages
251
I have had several switches die on me, including a d-link and a netgear 10/100 5 port switches. I read all these positive reviews on amazon of cheap ones (TP-Link) and they don't really tell me the risk level of them overheating and being toast. Maybe switches are less hot these days, as they've gone green, but for my application I can't have one that dies. I intend to hook up a computer used for futures trading to it, with many streaming charts (I have 14 monitors on that computer). If it failed I could be in deep trouble. The only switch I have that is still working is a Linksys 10/100 and am converting over to gigabit.

What switch brand is reliable? I'm temped to just buy Linksys again, but maybe there is a better choice?
 
Either you've been going with really cheap switches or maybe there's a power issue at home.

I've been pretty happy with my Netgear GS108.
 
airflow is key ventilate your closet and make sure your not smothering your switch and remember heat rises
 
I've been using TrendNet Green Gigabit switches for years and they are cool to the touch and trouble free. You can sometimes get the 8-port for less than $20, at least the ones with plastic cases, as the metal case models cost more. They have pretty good reviews, at least the last time I checked.
 
I say the Netgear GS108 as well.

I used the 5, 8, and even a 16 port of the GS line.

Out of probably 50-60 I have bought, I have only ever had one 16 port have problems.. and that particular switch died right away.

Been using them for years and have only ever had that one switch give me problems.

Linksys, TP-Link, Trendnet, etc can't touch them for reliability. And they run cool as well.

Where I work, I have swapped out all the other brands including those I listed above for the Netgear ones due to performance and reliability issues as well as sometimes they would just act funky and swapping them out fixed the random problems the users were having.

Edit: If you are wanting a system that will absolutely not fail as long as you have power you might want to look into getting a redundant setup though.... You would want 2 different Nics in your computer as well as a switch setup that can do failover. You better have two different ISPs as well so if one goes down for whatever reason, you can auto failover to a backup.

Might even want to go to a vm setup with two different hosts with a failover setup so if one goes down it will auto failover to the other host. Just depends on how crazy you want to get with making sure your system doesn't go down.
 
I'll be doing dual isp's at the point I'm trading. That's kind of a must. Hadn't considered doing dual nics etc, might be worth thinking about!
 
bds1904 said:
Gs108 is my standard go-to for a basic 8 port 10/100/1000. Lifetime warranty, never seen a dead one. Probably put in several hundred by now.
Click to expand...

Its funny you say that. Review wise I rarely see many that die. But in my experience I have had 3 GS116's go out on me, and 1 GS108. Maybe it is just me but anytime I see a site with one of these its the 1st thing I test if they are having network issues. Every single one just refused to pass any traffic.
 
Yeah, if this is so critical, stop using shitty ass switches. Grab an HP Procurve and be done. Lifetime warranty as well on them.
 
/usr/home said:
Yeah, if this is so critical, stop using shitty ass switches. Grab an HP Procurve and be done. Lifetime warranty as well on them.
Click to expand...

Not to start an argument :D but I've seen lots of HP Procurve switches die but their warranty process is super easy and fast. You should always have a spare switch anyways if it's that big of a deal.

That's my policy, spare on site at all times and nothing but lifetime warranty's.
 
/usr/home said:
Yeah, if this is so critical, stop using shitty ass switches. Grab an HP Procurve and be done. Lifetime warranty as well on them.
Click to expand...

I am in total agreeance, these install's all predate me. I either warranty them out with Netgear, and tell the customer to keep a spare on hand or replace them with whatever fits their budget (Dell, HP, Ubiquiti, etc)
 
Switches, even consumer ones, don't normally die that frequently. With 14 monitors I'd look at your electrical distribution first. Hopefully, you're distributing the load across different circuit breakers. And, invest in quality active inline UPS (for router, switch, PC and primary monitor but not all) since power issues can kill power supplies/plugs and electronics.
 
I've got a APC unit for power backup, and everything is on it to do with the network. The issue with the ones that died was that they ran HOT, and I mean you could fry eggs on them, the netgear being the worst. I knew they'd die. The GS108 has a review on amazon that says it runs hot... I doubt I'd buy any netgear switches, regardless of how many use them and don't have issues - wait a few years, you'll see.

As for the 14 monitor setup, that is new, and the switches died before I had them. The netgear lasted a few years, but the Linksys must be around 10 years old now (purchased new), and has never had a glitch with almost constant use. The linksys runs mildly warm.
 
+1 to spare on site. Seriously, we are talking like $70 in extra hardware here. If a business can't spring for that then they deserve the hours or day of downtime.

I did consulting and clients always wanted everything as cheap as possible, no spares for cheap but important hardware, etc. They would complain when something blew up and I'd always just reply back that I could fix it, but it was going to take X amount of time, but if they purchased a spare for the future then it would take Y amount of Time. They never see the value of spare hardware for critical infrastructure until something hits the fan.
 
Last edited:
For something that critical I'd look at getting a managed switch, make sure it has fans. Then get a spare. Whenever you make a config change, chagne it on the spare too. You may also be able to do some kind of redundant setup but for a small network where the 1 switch connects straight to the router that may actually add more complexity than needed.

Everything I've bought from Netgear died prematurely on me, so I would not touch them. If money is no object, I'd go Cisco or Juniper, but Dell and HP is not bad either for a much lower price.
 
I've got Netgear FS and GS switches (metal cases) that are at least 5 years old and going strong. The OP's that was hot enough to fry eggs was either a defect or not ventilated properly. As other's have said, if it's that critical, spend the money and go with the enterprise level products. If downtime and single point of failure are issues, build in redundancy.
 
If it is that critical....I would be running redundant switches, NICs, and PSU's. Even if you go with a "cheap" switch, you could run two to help minimize any effects of a loss.
 
While redundancy is the real safety measure, I'd figure a good grade switch that I can trust could be ok.

Yes, I suspected the netgear was defective when I discovered it ran that hot. So I got a D-Link and it was also extremely hot. Both ended up failing. First the D-Link, then I used the hotter netgear, it died too. Then I moved my linksys into the spot and it never failed or ran hot, working fine to this day.
 
diizzy said:
Just go for a small manageable switch by a reputable company or one made by HP. They're usually better than the ultra cheap SOHO switches.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...leNEW-_-Network - Switches-_-ZyXEL-_-33181320
http://www.nextwarehouse.com/item/?957754_g10e
http://www.nextwarehouse.com/item/?1513442_g10e

//Danne
Click to expand...

I decided to order the ZyXEL one as it is available warehouse deals on amazon for $56+tax.

Edit: After reading the manual for the ZyXEL I think I'm just going to get another Linksys one, that auto senses the port speed because having to track each device cable to which device, and set the speed accordingly seemed like a lot of trouble. So I canceled my order on the ZyXEL. The Linksys model I think I'm going to get is the LGS108 because it has no QoS or other features that could malfunction, which worry me when those features are on a cheaper unit.
 
Last edited:
I have no idea what you're going on about, auto negotiation is a part of the Ethernet standard.
//Danne
 
Yeah never had to actually manually set speed. Though on managed switches, ports can take a big longer to come up, and this can actually be a problem for systems that boot up very fast, such as a dedicated embedded machine that is suppose to immediately connect to say, network shares, or something. In that case you can just enable portfast option (I think that's what it's called). You can also disable spanning tree altogether, in a single switch or very basic environment.
 
I decided to have a look at the GS108 from Netgear, wow that switches wall wart is light. In fact, it's so light it feels like I have a paper envelope in my hand. :D
 
I also noticed the Netgear has a nice lifetime warranty... right? Wrong, 2 year on the power adapter. That means if it fails, middle of something important (heavy load for example), Netgear will not back it after 2 years. Well, it feels like it's not made to last, and I guess Netgear agrees. I believe the Linksys is lifetime on everything on the LGS108.
 
Seriously, if you're that worried about failures and warranty, just buy two, and then you have a spare switch and power supply ready to go...
 
FFS. If you aren't going to take our advice, just get two of whatever shitty switch you want and be done with it.
 
/usr/home said:
FFS. If you aren't going to take our advice, just get two of whatever shitty switch you want and be done with it.
Click to expand...

And the advice is get a managed ZyXEL or HP Procurve? I am not against doing this, tbh. Though some advised to get the Netgear...
 
NetTechie said:
Edit: After reading the manual for the ZyXEL I think I'm just going to get another Linksys one, that auto senses the port speed because having to track each device cable to which device, and set the speed accordingly seemed like a lot of trouble.
Click to expand...

LOL you might need to work on your reading comprehension if you think any 1000BASE-T switch doesn't have auto-negotiation.

NetTechie said:
I believe the Linksys is lifetime on everything on the LGS108.
Click to expand...

Again reading comprehension is key here, but here is Linksys' "Limited Lifetime Warrenty" document: http://downloads.linksys.com/downloads/userguide/Linksys_SMB_Limited_Lifetime_Warranty-USA_Canada_APAC-final.pdf Which literally says on the first page, "For all components (except for the fan and the power supply), this product is warranted for as long as the original end user continues to own or use the product, provided that, if the manufacture of this product is discontinued, warranty support will be limited to five (5) years from the date of notification of product discontinuance. Any notice of discontinuance shall be posted on the Linksys website at linksys.com, and the date of such posting shall be deemed the date of notification."
 
Wow, thank you for this observation on the warranty Camaro. I appreciate it.

And if I don't have to worry about auto-negotation then maybe a ZyXEL would be a better option.

Edit: I got Linksys and ZyXEL switches and compared them. I ran speed tests transferring ISO files between computers, the ZyXEL was very unstable on speed, dipping down to 50mb/s and lower, the Linksys stayed above 90mb/s and only dipped a couple times down to around 92mb/s. Both were able to achieve 113mb/s though the Linksys seemed pretty solid, so overall I got better performance with the Linksys. The speed of 113mb/s is the max for Gigabit, as I understand.

Now as for power adapters, I liked the Linksys power adapter, it is DVE brand, not a no-name one or in-house brand. I've seen DVE brand on a lot of devices, so far I've not had any fail. The ZyXEL uses a "OEM" brand, which I'm not familiar with.
 
Last edited:
cyclone3d said:
I say the Netgear GS108 as well.

I used the 5, 8, and even a 16 port of the GS line.

Out of probably 50-60 I have bought, I have only ever had one 16 port have problems.. and that particular switch died right away.

Been using them for years and have only ever had that one switch give me problems.

Linksys, TP-Link, Trendnet, etc can't touch them for reliability. And they run cool as well.

Where I work, I have swapped out all the other brands including those I listed above for the Netgear ones due to performance and reliability issues as well as sometimes they would just act funky and swapping them out fixed the random problems the users were having.

Edit: If you are wanting a system that will absolutely not fail as long as you have power you might want to look into getting a redundant setup though.... You would want 2 different Nics in your computer as well as a switch setup that can do failover. You better have two different ISPs as well so if one goes down for whatever reason, you can auto failover to a backup.

Might even want to go to a vm setup with two different hosts with a failover setup so if one goes down it will auto failover to the other host. Just depends on how crazy you want to get with making sure your system doesn't go down.
Click to expand...

This post has had me thinking about dual stuff. My question is, if I wanted to do a switch setup that does failover, what would this require? I'm assuming the router is the one that does the failover, and the switches have to be managed ones. What protocol is used on such a dual switch setup?
 
For what it's worth, it's your network devices that causes the slowdowns not the the switches.
//Danne
 
NetTechie said:
This post has had me thinking about dual stuff. My question is, if I wanted to do a switch setup that does failover, what would this require? I'm assuming the router is the one that does the failover, and the switches have to be managed ones. What protocol is used on such a dual switch setup?
Click to expand...

HSRP/VRRP.
 
diizzy said:
For what it's worth, it's your network devices that causes the slowdowns not the the switches.
//Danne
Click to expand...

Interesting, so I gave this some consideration, and realized a possibility of the problem was that the hard drive might be causing slowdowns. So I tried a different computer with a solid state drive. No more slowdowns. Thanks for pointing this out.
 
Last edited:
I've got a question, what setting controls access to the Zyxel admin page (switch ip page) for a person not directly connected to the LAN ports of the switch? I can access it from computers connected to the switch, but if I try through a computer connected to the router and not the switch, the page does not load. I'm assuming this is a security setting on the Zyxel switch?
 
Last edited:
NetTechie said:
I've got a question, what setting controls access to the Zyxel admin page (switch ip page) for a person not directly connected to the LAN ports of the switch? I can access it from computers connected to the switch, but if I try through a computer connected to the router and not the switch, the page does not load. I'm assuming this is a security setting on the Zyxel switch?
Click to expand...

It's probably either a routing issue if you are in a different subnet than the switch or a firewall issue. Not enough information to say.
 
Same subnet, router is 192.168.1.1 and switch is 192.168.1.244 static, computer is dhcp ip from the router. I would assume the admin page uses port 80, which I doubt is blocked by a firewall?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top