Pros & Cons
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- Excellent price.
- 20-GigE proprietary stacking backbone.
- Good support for VoIP, video traffic.
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- Dearth of advanced features (including PoE, higher-end security, Ipv6).
- Can stack only six switches (288-port total).
The Netgear ProSafe GS724TS is the closest competitor I've seen to the
Like most of Netgear's products, this one comes in a deep purple that, if not in line with your particular aesthetic, is at least distinctive. You'll find the usual LEDs for per-port speed and activity, 24 copper 10/100/1000 ports, and four SFP (small-form-factor pluggable) ports. These last are intended for high-bandwidth applications, so they support only 100/1000 operation either via copper or fibre GBICs. There's no 9-pin RS232 console port for direct connection command-line management, but the device is fully manageable via a Web-based client or telnet. On the back, two proprietary high-speed connectors that look like HDMI ports let you stack multiple units together.
Note that you can't use the SFP ports on the front of the box for stacking. Switches like the D-Link DGS-3627 support 10-GigE connections using SFP, so on those routers you can use these ports as uplinks for stacking. This gives those switches a 20-gigabit-per-second stack transfer speed, but also lets the 10-GigE ports talk to standard 10-GigE networks (using any of the 10GBASE-x protocols) and connected nodes, especially servers or SANs. The ProSafe GS724TS, on the other hand, has no support for 10-GigE. You can only get the 20-Gbps interstack speeds using the proprietary connection. That might put off medium-size businesses that plan on having 10-GigE applications, but small businesses shouldn't worry—straight GigE should give them plenty of bandwidth. And switches in the ProSafe line pass data through stacked configurations at lightning speed, which is good both for data transfer and for fast switch fail-over in case one box in the stack dies.
Netgear's Web management interface is similar to D-Link's. It gives you full access to the switch's features but assumes that the admin has a certain amount of networking knowledge. In other words, while the ProSafe GS724TS is definitely aimed at small business, you'll still want an IT staffer or consultant to set it up for you.—
Assuming you have (or can afford to pay for) that knowledge, you'll be able to do some cool stuff. Advanced QoS includes support for port-, IP- and policy-based traffic protection and rate throttling, so networked voice and video will work well with this switch. The stacking technology (which lets you connect up to six switches for a total of 288 ports), combined with the product's low price, means that growing your network won't cost a fortune or require replacing a lot of infrastructure. Security is good and includes 802.1x authentication (with support for a RADIUS server on the back end), and Access Control Lists (ACLs) that can control access to the switch based on the MAC address.
Performance was solid, too, though I did note a couple of hiccups. Connecting the Fluke EtherScope Series II and LinkRunner Pro confirmed that each port on the ProSafe connected at GigE speed and wire-speed throughput. The hiccups happened because I tried the switch on a rarely populated test network in PC Magazine Labs. Apparently, if the ProSafe GS724TS doesn't get any traffic for a while, it goes to sleep. Once it even lost its configuration. Still, on a business network, this will almost certainly not be a problem, because some kind of traffic will constantly be running.
So if the ProSafe GS724TS is so similar to the D-Link DGS-3627, why is it so much cheaper? Well, they're alike only up to a point. The D-Link product pulls ahead in a serious way in the features department—support for 10-GigE Power over Ethernet (PoE), for example. And while the ProSafe GS724TS covers the security basics, the DGS-3627 also supports Network Access Protection (NAP) as well as Web-based Access Control, and it even has a built-in Safeguard Engine that protects it from specific malicious software attacks. Last but not least, it can handle IPv6 and Layer 3 routing.
Many small businesses don't need these features, though. For them, a smartly managed, mostly Layer 2 switch is enough. You'll want to ask your network staffer or consultant to help you make that decision, based on what you plan to run over your network. But for general office networking, small business loads of voice and video, and mainstream security needs, the Netgear ProSafe GS724TS gives you everything you need at a very nice price.
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