Netgear ProSafe GS110TP switch review

An eight-port Gigabit smart switch with PoE support

The GS110TP is an entry-level eight-port Gigabit Ethernet ‘smart' switch, with web-based management capabilities that offer a cheaper alternative to fully-managed Layer 2 or 3 switches.

It has the added attraction of 802.3af power-over-Ethernet (PoE) support, providing up to a total of 46W of power to connected devices, with a maximum of 15W per device. Each port can be powered down on a schedule and the maximum allowable power draw specified.

We were pleased to find the switch is very small and compact, with an all-metal casing and a silent fanless design.

Each front-mounted port has two status lights for link state, activity, and PoE status. There are two additional SFP uplink ports for optional Gigabit fibre-optic networking modules.

The switch can be used as an ordinary ‘dumb' switch straight out of the box, so it could make a sensible choice for those planning to add network management at a later stage.

Netgear's Smart Control Center application is used for basic maintenance tasks, such as firmware upgrades. But the main administration is done via a Java-based browser interface (SNMP is also supported).

Configuring any switch can be a complex task, and you'll need to refer frequently to the contextual help (accessed via an almost invisible ‘?' icon in each menu), the clear and comprehensive manual or online knowledge base. There are configuration examples for some of the more complex tasks in the appendices, and during testing we found these helped enormously.

Netgear ProSafe GS110TP switch review

An eight-port Gigabit smart switch with PoE support

Some of the menu controls are very fiddly, however, such as the almost-invisible arrow icon that reveals the port list in several menus. Some of the menus are also ludicrously wide (see picture below).

Overall, it's not the most usable interface we've seen.

Thankfully, some of the most commonly-used features can be automated; Auto-VoIP prioritises any detected traffic that uses common VoIP protocols, and Audio-to-Video makes it easier to perform advanced control of multicast traffic.

Three default Virtual LANs (VLANs) are provided - a default VLAN for all ports, plus configurable Voice and Video VLANs. Other VLANs can be created as required.

Ports can also be combined in Link Aggregation Groups (port channels) to provide fault tolerance or load sharing. Quality of service (QoS) uses either Class of Service (CoS) or the more complex Differentiated Services (Diffserv).

Security is comprehensive, with support for 802.1x port authentication and Access Control Lists (ACL) based on MAC or IP addresses. Netgear claims its ACL wizard makes light work of setting up rules, but before you can use the wizard you need to create ACLs, which is not a task for inexperienced users.

Finally, the switch also has several power-saving features, including a short cable mode that reduces power for cables under 10m long, and a sleep mode that can turn off ports with no activity.