Netgear FS526T

In the rush to push gigabit Ethernet out to the desktop, it's all too easy to forget that many companies still haven't yet implemented switched Ethernet. Despite the falling costs, smaller businesses are unlikely to need the high levels of bandwidth on offer and will find 100BaseT Ethernet will do the job for many years to come. The FS526T proves that prices are almost at giveaway levels as it costs a mere £228. This equates to less than £10 per switched Ethernet port. Admittedly, gigabit Ethernet is now as low as £20 per port, but you'll still have to factor the cost of upgrading your workstations.

Clothed in Netgear's traditional blue livery, the FS526T is a compact slab of metal with 24 10/100BaseTX ports laid out neatly in two rows. Despite the low price, gigabit also features here as there's a pair of 1000BaseT uplink ports for high-speed server or backbone connections. Port information is limited to a simple LED array to the side showing link status and activity along with negotiated speed.

Installation doesn't get any easier. You simply load the bundled GearDiscovery utility, which searches the network for any Netgear products. It's a smart little tool that allows you to modify the switch's IP settings, password-protect management access, launch the browser interface and upload new firmware versions. The switch doesn't have a serial port for local access, but if you forget its IP address then GearDiscovery makes up for this omission.

The password-protected web interface is tidy enough, and filters allow management access to be restricted to specific IP addresses. A good range of features is provided as you can create four switch-to-switch trunks using up to eight ports apiece, while port- and 802.1Q-tagged VLANs let you separate your users into smaller logical networks. QoS (quality of service) is also supported, although all you get is the option to assign a normal or high priority to traffic on specific ports. Basic traffic statistics are limited to a simple tabular readout that can't be exported into other file formats. Switch configurations can be backed up as binary files and you also get a handy converter tool which translates selected files into lists of meaningful configuration data.

Author: Dave Mitchell