Overall, I was impressed with the StarTech 10 Port L2 Managed Gigabit Ethernet Switch. In a compact rugged form, it had many of the features I would have expected from a much more expensive enterprise unit. And, these features could be easily configured via the included admin web interface or using the command line. For more information about the command line, see http://sgcdn.startech.com/005329…. I am going to focus upon the web interface.
To admin the unit, connect an Ethernet cable to any port (not the console port) and setup your PC to be 192.168.2.x with a net mask of 255.255.255.0 where x is not equal to 1. The default login is admin with a blank password. This can be changed once you access the unit the first time.
Once you are logged in, the first thing to change is to disable the ability to use telnet for admin activities. To alter this, open menus underneath “Configuration” until you locate “Authentication Method Configuration”. Then, select “None” from the telnet dropdown and click the Save button.
One thing that impressed me was that this unit has context sensitive help. The help button is on the right-most top. So, for instance, see:
The only thing I did not appreciate about the unit was that the menu keeps jumping back to the top, every time you open an item. This was a little aggravating when you were down in the “Monitor” section which is towards the bottom of the menus. Not a deal breaker, but just a little clunky.
The true advantages were the enterprise features! Look at these:
- Ability to setup jumbo frames, on a per port basis.
- Ability to setup LACP, so that you can aggregate the bandwidth of ports together.
- Ability to enable loop protection.
- Ability to IPv4 or IPv6 ping without having to drop to the command line.
- Ability to mirror port traffic (inbound, outbound, or both) to a “mirror port”. Great for debugging!
- Ability to enable MAC port security, on a per port basis.
- Ability to define VLANs and VLAN tagging, on a per port basis.
We have some fiber channel cards, I pulled out of servers that were being disposed. So, I’m excited to test the SFP ports later in the week, once I get the card in the server and configured. The managed switch also had some other nice features such as the ability to dim the LED brightness and the ability to define multiple admin accounts (and also limit their admin access to only certain functions or monitoring).
Here are some additional references I hope you find useful:
I would give this unit a 5/5 rating.
For pricing and availability: StarTech 10 Port L2 Managed Gigabit Ethernet Switch