Make sure you understand (unlike me) that this is an extension of your router, and an indirect extension of your modem! Plug this box into the out on your router, THEN plug all your other devices into this box. Basically. . .. . Modem to Router, Router to this box and finally all other devices off this box. I may be a bit repetitive here, but I just want no one else to waste a hour of their time trying to figure out that concept.
I was thinking that if I plugged the modem into this and then everything else into it, it would work. It didn't. Sometimes I feel like Bill Gates, other times I feel like a complete moron. I'm giving this five stars because I just got it to work and haven't had enough time to see it do anything wrong.
Working in the IT field for over 14 years now, this is a great little switch! It offers layer 2 switching functions including VLAN and QoS. The hardware itself was built really well and has that "business grade" metal feel to it. It comes with 4 rubber feet to attach for desktop use but they are left unattached in case you wanted to wall mount it.
IMPORTANT: This product has a version 1 and a version 2. The major difference (and possibly the only difference) is that V1 in only configurable via a software utility you have to install from disc, whereas, V2 is configurable via a web GUI which for me was a MAJOR plus.
I received the V2 product thankfully. I didn't do anything special when ordering, I'm guessing the supplier flushed out all the V1s. From un-boxing to walking away, it took me all of 15 min. And that's only because I geeked out on looking through all the cool settings. You could be up in running in less than 10 if you're used to this kind of equipment. My initial experience with this unit has been fantastic. I would recommend this to anyone no problem.
Once I realized how to login to it, it worked great. Very happy. To get in to it, you need to
1) isolate your switch so it is not plugged into the router.
2) Setup your computer with a static IP of 192.168.0.100 and subnet 255.255.255.0.
3) Then plug your computer's cable into any of the switch's ports and enter 192.168.0.1 in your browser's address field
4) UserID and Password is Admin and Admin
Once you are in, you then can change the unit's Username, password, IP address and subnet to anything you like.
Plug the switch back into the router, switch your computer back to DHCP or however it was setup to before and you are off and running.
For typical home use, this 5 port GB switch is great. I’ve been using theirs brand for 10 years and two of this particular 5-port GB switch model for 6 months. I prefer to use hardwired connections for all my non-portable network devices. That means that low-demand devices are connected as well has high-demand devices. It also means that each switch will have at most one connected device needing defined quality of service. This switch is perfect for that environment.
A bit more: an unmanaged device like this is great to expand each drop of a managed switch/router. For example, have two computers, and a printer in one bedroom that has one Ethernet drop. This 5-port switch lets me connect the three devices, with growth for a fourth.
In the living room, the one of these switches allows connection of a TV, an Apple TV, an internet radio-capable receiver, and a blu-ray player. The blu-ray player connection is for firmware updates. For source material over the internet, I use only one of the devices at a time, so there’s no competition for throughput or quality of service. The lack of managed network control in this switch has no observable negative effect on my family’s network-related activities.
That this switch is unmanaged is not a practical concern for my uses and, I expect, most other home uses. In a small office environment, the throughput of the rest of the network and each computer is likely to be more of a limiting performance factor than this switch.
So, if your needs are for a few devices connected to one Ethernet drop, strongly consider choosing this switch.
After hardwiring our house in one room there was a laptop, desktop, Xbox and Playstation. We only had one RJ45 cable from the hardware run and was switching it from one device to the other.
The TP-Link came into play like this..... Port 1 we plugged the RJ45 cable we had (input). Port 2 laptop. Port 3 desktop. Port 4 Xbox. Port 5 Playstation. There is no configuration, no rebooting or powering off anything. We just plugged in the TP-Link and made our connections per described above. It works like a cable TV splitter. You will need small RJ45 cables to connect each port to your additional devices. In my case I purchased four CAT5E (CAT6 and CAT 7 cables will work too) for devices mentioned above.
Feature Product
- 16 10/100/1000Mbps Auto-Negotiation RJ45 ports supporting Auto-MDI/MDIX
- Green Ethernet Technology saves power consumption
- Ieee 802. 3x flow control provides reliable data transfer
- Steel housing, desktop or wall-mounting design
- Support 802. 1P/DSCP qos and IGMP snooping function
Description
The TP-LINK 16-port 10/100/1000Mbps desktop switch provides you an easy way to make the transition to Gigabit Ethernet. Increase the speed of your network server and backbone connections, or make Gigabit to the desktop a reality. Plug and play Design, with no configuration required, makes the product easy to use. Moreover, TL-SG116 adopts lower power consumption design. With the innovative energy-efficient technology, the TL-SG116 can save power consumption, making it an solution for your home or office network. Interface Available: 16 x 10/100/1000Mbps Ports, Auto-Negotiation Auto-MDI/MDIX; Internal Memory: 4.1Mb; Protocols Supported: IEEE 802.3i IEEE802.3u IEEE802.3ab IEEE802.3x IEEE802.1p
Man - gigabit is the bomb. Tested my previous netgear switch with cat 5 against this gigabit switch with amazon basics cat 6 cables. A 20+ seconds file transfer (cat 5) was done in 2.7 seconds (gigabit and cat 6). I'm not used to the latest-greatest performing like manufacturer claims - but man, that's an impressive speed bump for under 20 bucks! All my previous swicthes from this manufacturer have run forever, too. It's a no brainer for transfering files around the house or office.
TP-Link's 5-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch is great for those situations where you have limited ethernet ports. As advertised, the unit is truly plug-and-play; plug the power cable into a wall outlet, connect an ethernet cable from the wall (LAN) to the switch, connect your other ethernet devices to the switch.
My son's dorm room only has TWO ethernet ports (which were placed behind the desk); this ethernet hub allows him and his roommate to utilize the college's extremely fast ethernet network for their computers and smart TV versus the crowded and slow WIFI network. HUGE DIFFERENCE IN SPEED OVER WIFI
I got an 8 port for behind my TV and a 5 port for my office and couldn't be happier. I got AT&T fiber and was only getting like 100 mbps over wifi which wasn't going to fly. I got an ethernet cable and wired up my PCs in the office and my xbox, ps4, smart tv, cable box, cloud drive, etc behind the tv and everything is getting close to the speed I am paying for. The PCS both get in the 900s and the xbox is getting around 800 mbps through these switches. I was going to get the more expensive ones but these ones work great! Why pay more.
Hello,
I work in IT at a small company and anytime we need a small switch so we can have 2 computers or a printer, NAS, or network camera, we always go with these. They're gigabit so we always have good throughput, I also like that the power adapter is very small, about the same size as a phone charger. It also runs perpendicular to the prongs so the other socket on the outlet can still be used. I added and access point at my house and decided to get one of these. It runs perfectly with no issues.
Pros: Inexpensive, compact, cool, does the job well. Supports 802.1q VLAN tagging, rate limiting and a handful of other enterprise-grade features. Great for networking enthusiasts (the 802.1Q VLANs work fine in cooperation with Cisco gear in my lab setup).
Cons: No web interface for configuration. You have to use an awkward Java-based utility which (as shipped) only works with Windows. (There's instructions online for getting it to run on other platforms with an appropriate JRE) The unit clearly is a downgraded version of a similar switch, as it still exposes a Web server, but it doesn't do anything. (The actual configuration is done through apparently encrypted UDP packets). Also, you can't assign VLAN 1 as a tagged VLAN at all (see below for details).
Upshot: Great if you need a cheap managed switch and don't mind fussing with the Java configuration utility. Once it's configured, you don't have to ever use the utility other than to modify the config, so it can run for a long time without any supervision once it's been setup in your environment.
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Details (for the network geeks): You cannot assign VLAN 1 to be a tagged VLAN on any port. The only way VLAN 1 can be used is as an untagged (native) VLAN. This means if you have an e.g. Cisco switch connected to a port, you can't just configure that switch's port as a trunk with allowed VLAN 1. You have to set the Cisco switch's native VLAN on that port to 1. This is a minor inconvenience, but it stumped me for a while when trying to configure a lab environment.
Not really a con, but also does not support any sort of automatic VLAN configuration, you have to manually enter the VLANs. (I don't expect automatic VLAN config from an entry level switch though, so again, not a con.)
