NetGear GS108 Copper (GS108UK) 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch

This type of switch was originally recomended to me by a friend who is an IT manager. It is very easy to use; simply plug in the Ethernet cables and go! This is the second GS108 we have installed on our small office network the first having performed well over the past six months.

We originally our network used a 24-port switches but whenever one of these this failed the whole network was down, now we have changed to using a series of 8-port switches daisy-chained together. This isn’t as neat as a single switch but in the event of a failure we can quickly swap out the failed switch and keep the essential parts of our office working.

A nice little switch that does it's job well. It has auto sensing ports so you dont need to worry about using crossover cables to connect to other routers or switches. It has a kensington lock slot at the back for anyone who may need to secure it. It was very simple to set up and seems to be very reliable as I have had no problems moving large files and folders over the network to the servers that I use, that are connected to it. All in all a good switch with that extra boost of speed for those who need to switch to gigabit.

Great switch, zero hassle, runs cool, auto-sensing ports, only downside is that there is no specific WAN port, auto-sensing allows any port to be used to add this to another or extend network, but when you do that you only have 7 ports left for local use. Photo in this review is NOT the same as the product, check NetGear site for actual GS108 photo - it's much shorter, no excess width so not designed to be mounted in a rack.

I had high hopes for this switch. As someone who has always bought and trusted Netgear products I did not think I was making a bad choice by buying Netgear again but it turns out I was.

The switch arrived well packed as you would expect and being an un-managed switch there is no initial setup, just 'plug & play'. At first everything worked fine, all 8 ports in use, 3 gigabit, 5 megabit then after about an hour four ports switched off. I tried rebooting the switch which resolved the issue but it kept reoccurring, either 1-4 would stop or 5-8 would stop. After a bit of googling I found several forums which indicated the router was under-powered and this was a reasonably common problem when mixing Gigabit/Megabit.

I returned the switch to the seller with no problems and switched to a HP Procurve 1410-8G which is in the same price range, comes with a lifetime warranty and so far has worked flawlessly.

This device is very well built and everything i'd expect of a Netgear product! Overall I am entirely happy with the way the device preforms.