Customer reviews for the NETGEAR 8 Port 10 / 100 / 1000mbps Gigabit Switch

An update on using Jumbo Frames (> 1514 bytes per frame) with this product. According to the Netgear site the V1 version of this (non-firmware upgradeable product) did NOT support Jumbo packets. The V2 version shipped from early 2006 onwards (which is what should be on the shelf of all Netgear resellers now) DOES support Jumbo frames. All V2 product is labelled as GS608 V2 they say.

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• Ease of use
• Value for money

Just works. Very good value, looks the part and being V2 it supports jumbo frames without any problem.

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• Ease of use
• Value for money

Just installed this product, delighted!
Everything sets up as it should, no problems
(1 Caveat though - see below). Of course, Gigabit
networking makes all those Multimedia file
transfers sooooo much faster. Using this hub
and some Belkin Gbit desktop PCI cards I
can shift 1Gbyte of MPEG (or any other) data
in about 40 seconds or so PC to PC (when that
transfer has exclusive use of my little 1GB
network).

That caveat: The wording on the site, and indeed
on the product box (from which the site spiel
is probably derived) "kind of" indicates that
each port is individually self-adjustingt to
straight or X-over CAT5 cables. My experience
leads me to believe this is not the case. Sure
enough you can use either flavour of cable, BUT
they must all be the same: All crosover, or all
straight. It doesn't seem to work if you mix
and match. Not a problem - just for reference.

Highly recommended product for an initial try or
in-home 1Gbit network.

Alan

• Overall
• Ease of use
• Value for money

A good switch, but you have to remember the following: You should use CAT6 cable to get stable high bandwidth transfers (above 100 mbps). CAT5E is a minumum for gigabit connectivity. This switch does NOT support jumbo frame, which means your cpu usage will be very high attempting to reach gigabit connectivity because it's still using 1500 byte MTU. You should use Netgear GS108 for an MTU of 9216, or GS116 switch for an MTU of 10240 (also sold at dabs) which will greatly lower your cpu usage at high speeds. Great network cards to use with this (or any) of Netgear's switches is the GA311, although it's jumbo frame only goes up to 7500 bytes. A lot better than 1500 bytes if your switch supports it. You should spend that little extra and get the Netgear GS108 if you care about transfering at a full gigabit.

• Overall
• Ease of use
• Value for money