Perfection, if you need to connect multiple computers together.
Written: Aug 14 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: I can’t think of a single thing that could improve this product.
Cons: Nothing I can think of.
The Bottom Line: Technology may have reached the zenith for what is needed.
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| grimjack2's Full Review: LinkSys 5 port Switch w/ EZXS55W 10/100 Card |
The first thing I noticed when I took this out of the box was how small it is. When did Switches become so tiny? When I purchased some hubs made by Netgear around 18 months previously, those models were more than twice as large (with one less port), and felt three times as heavy because of their metal cases that acted as a heat sink.
This Linksys model EZXS55W only weighs 6 ounces. It is 4.3” x 3.4” x 1.3” in size and feels like there isn’t anything inside of the case. Don’t be fooled by this appearance. This is more than capable to be used in a business environment.
Even though the office I work in has a network connection in each room, the need for more connections has risen. Each employee wants easy network access with his or her notebooks. All of our newer printers are on the network directly, instead of having to be accessed via a powered on machine connected by a parallel cable. And many offices now have a second machine up and running. The original plan was to add stackable hubs or switches in the server room and run extra Cat 5 cables to each office for each machine that needed it. This is actually inefficient wiring wise, and installing a switch in each room makes far more sense now that the technology and price have improved.
These switches function for us basically like a TV cable splitter does. The network cable from the wall plugs into the Switch, and then there are 4 extra ports out to hook up anything else. It looks like there are five, but really only four. If the switch isn’t being used as a splitter, and is just allowing machines in the same location to see one another, then there are five. This wasn’t obvious to me, but the directions say that if the uplink port is being used than the port next to it must remain empty and unused since the port adjacent to the uplink port and the uplink port are joined together inside the switch and cannot both be used at the same time.
I do want to mention how great the instruction book is. It is much better than such a simple product needs. Aside from clear instructions, and good pictures, it also includes a little section on the history of Ethernet, and even an Appendix that gives excellent directions on wiring up your own twisted-pair cabling.
This switch is quite advanced. It automatically senses 10 and 100 base TX connections, and shows you with it’s light what speed you are connected by with each port. Even though it says it is 10/100 speed, it can actually reach speeds up to 200mbps in full duplex operations. It has an uplink port for connecting other hubs and switches to it, which is pretty standard for almost any hub or switch bought today. It also has automatic address learning and address aging which improves transfer speed when all the ports are full. Also, the switch has the ability for advanced store and forward packet switching which makes recovery from packet collisions less of a time waster.
Another benefit for this particular switch is a memory for addresses. Most hubs broadcast data packets to all nodes until it finds the right address where as this switch stores data packet’s destination information and sends it there directly.
The instructions say that it has auto partitioning, which protects PCs from downed network lines, but I’m not sure exactly what this means.
This is truly plug and play for those who don’t know anything about network connections. There are no drivers needed, or anything other than a power cord and the network connections themselves to plug into it. Not too surprisingly, it has free technical support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (in North America) and it comes with a five year warranty.
The box boasts being ready to connect to cable/DSL modem or router, but anyone who knows networking knows that this isn’t a big deal.
Each port has three lights representing something on the front of the switch. The first one lets you known when a connection is detected, and it flickers as data is transferred. The second light lets you known if you are in full duplex or half duplex mode, and it flickers when there are collisions detected. The third light tells you if you are connected at 100 or 10 mbps speed.
Hub vs. Switch
Why a switch instead of the even cheaper hub? Well, with five users a hub divides the total bandwidth so that on a busy 100 speed network, the best you could see is only 20 mbps for each person. This switch allows up to 200 mbps for each user in full duplex mode. Most hubs are only half duplex mode, which means you can only send or receive data at the maximum speed. This switch is full duplex allowing 100 mbps in both directions.
I had no idea Switches had become so cheap, small, and technically advanced. I see no reason to save the $20 by purchasing a hub instead, and strongly doubt that you will even be able to purchase them anymore after the end of this year. I predict that switches like this will become very commonplace as more and more homes and offices have multiple networkable machines near one another.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
grimjack2
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Location: San Rafael, CA, Marin County
Reviews written: 181
Trusted by: 124 members
About Me:
Film is my favorite art form. I live a life of constant amelioration.
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