Port count, port speed, and whether the fan ever stops
A switch is the least glamorous purchase in a network and the easiest to get right, because nearly everything about it is countable. Port count comes first, and it is worth counting the sockets you will actually fill, since one goes to the router and one to any switch further down the line. Port speed comes second and is written as a standard: 1000BASE-T is the ordinary gigabit socket, 2.5GBASE-T and 10GBASE-T are the faster ones, and many units mix them, putting a handful of quick sockets beside a row of gigabit ones. A figure printed as a switching capacity is the sum of every port running flat out in both directions at once — that is how the quantity is defined, not a throughput anyone will see. The second division is managed against unmanaged. An unmanaged switch is a box you plug in; a managed one offers VLANs, link aggregation, port mirroring and a configuration page, and the middle ground sold as smart or web-managed offers part of that. The third division is physical: a metal or plastic case, a desktop shape or ears for a 19-inch rack, an external power brick or an internal supply, and above all whether the unit is fanless. A switch usually lives where people do, and a fan in a living room is heard. We compare port count and port speeds, managed or unmanaged, stated switching capacity, fanless or fan-cooled, case material, desktop or rack mounting, and power supply type.
eight RJ45 sockets · 10/100/1000 Mbit/s · fanless · desk or wall · no case material named · no switching capacity printed
An eight-socket gigabit switch whose listing names the standards it meets and the fan it does not have, and never says what the case is made of.
Best for: A desk or a cupboard that needs a few more wired sockets, where silence matters and where nothing plugged in will ask for power over its network cable.
≈ 14 €
eight sockets at 1.0 Gbps · unmanaged, stated · Layer 2 · Cat5e or Cat6 named · fanless · metal case · on-off switch
An eight-socket unmanaged switch that names the cable grades its sockets expect and puts a power switch on the case, and publishes no figure for the unit as a whole.
Best for: A cupboard or a desk where the switch will occasionally need restarting, and where the wiring is already Cat5e or Cat6 and expected to stay that way.
≈ 21 €
eight gigabit sockets · 10/100/1000 Mbit/s · 16 Gbit/s switching capacity stated · fanless · plastic case · desk or wall
An eight-socket gigabit switch that publishes both the material of its case and a switching capacity, which is two answers more than most of this shelf gives.
Best for: A room that needs eight quiet wired sockets and a unit light enough to hang on a wall, where a plastic shell is a fair trade for the price.
≈ 14 €
eight gigabit sockets · unmanaged, stated · 802.1p and DSCP QoS · IGMP snooping · fanless · metal case · power adapter in the box
An unmanaged eight-socket switch that names its traffic-priority and multicast standards and lists what arrives in the box, without printing any figure for the unit as a whole.
Best for: A living room or study where set-top boxes and streaming devices share the wiring, and where a metal case that never needs a fan is worth the small premium.
≈ £22 / 21 €
eight gigabit sockets · 10/100/1000 Mbit/s · unmanaged, stated · IEEE 802.3x flow control · fanless · 124 × 59 × 23 mm
An eight-socket gigabit switch that says unmanaged in its own title and publishes its measurements, and gives no figure for what all eight sockets can carry together.
Best for: A shelf or a router cupboard where the exact depth matters, and where a plain switch with no settings page is what is wanted.
≈ £14 / 13 €
eight gigabit sockets · unmanaged, stated · 16 Gbps capacity · 11.5 Mpps · 192 KB buffer · 9 KB jumbo frames · metal · 0.57 W idle stated
An unmanaged switch that publishes a capacity, a forwarding rate, a buffer size and an idle consumption, and prioritises voice traffic on two fixed sockets without a settings page.
Best for: A home office running a telephone over the network, where the two priority sockets can be used as the maker intends and where the unit has to be silent.
≈ 19 €
eight gigabit sockets · up to 2000 Mbit/s per socket in full duplex, stated · non-blocking architecture · Layer 2 · fanless · metal case, black
An eight-socket gigabit switch whose headline figure counts both directions of one socket at once, and which never says where the unit is meant to be mounted.
Best for: A shelf or a desk where the unit can simply sit, and where multicast television and a quiet metal case matter more than knowing how it mounts.
≈ $35 / 27 €
Every price named in a summary was read on the date that review carries. What a shop asks today is shown beside the product, and it moves.
