NETGEAR 16 Port Gigabit Business-Class Desktop Switch - Lifetime Warranty (GS116) NETGEAR 16 Port Gigabit Business-Class Desktop Switch - Lifetime Warranty (GS116)

Pros: Provides basic connectivity of 16 1Gbit devices for the budget conscious.

Cons: Power plug seems to be the culprit with failing devices. Problems with the power supply can lead to erratic behavior of the device, overheating and premature failure.

Other Thoughts: If you happen to have a good device, switch the power supply (wall plug) to another, better plug that produces stable 12V/1.5A.

If your device is not working properly you can remove its circuit board inside, remove the heat sink from it and heat the board up with a hot air gun for a couple of minutes on each side. Reassemble the unit and use a quality power supply.
This technique has shown to revive those switches if no permanent hardware damage occurred.

Good luck!

Pros: GS116 worked fine for 5 years. It recently got so it would only at 100mbps and lower. I contacted Netgear Tech Support and they arranged for a free warranty replacement in a few minutes. Lifetime Warranty.. I like that.

Cons: It did partially fail after 5 years of use but devices DO fail occasionally. With a great warranty, a little inconvenience, but no worries.

Other Thoughts: It is a non-managed switch.. Just plug it in, connect your cables and it works. Runs cool, no fans.

Pros: I have had this for about 10 months now.
No trouble
never had to reboot it (ok, once I did as part of troubleshooting an issue that ended up being something else).

Cons: I do have a weird high pitch sound coming from mine.. Not bad enough that I think it should be replaced, but it is there.

Other Thoughts: I bought this one when I moved out of my buddy's house who had the same one on his setup. His is still running to this day... about 3 years and I expect worry-free trouble from mine for the years to come.

This is being used in a home network environment.

Pros: Was a good switch at a good price point.

Cons: Failed after nearly 4 years in service with a screeching power wart and a bulging capacitor in the unit itself.

Other Thoughts: This thing caused me a load of grief because it was failing in an intermittent way. I looked it up online and found various issues with failures on this unit along with poor RMA, so I decided to replace it with a D-Link DGS-1024D instead.

Pros: Small footprint, simple GB switch has been running great.

Cons: none

Pros: Small footprint, compact layout and clearly labeled. It's fan-less and seems to run nice and cool, even with 12 of the 16 ports running.

Cons: None that I can find so far. Maybe i'd like the power plug to be 90 degrees at the unit, so it can be tucked away tighter. With it's strain relief it has to be at least 1 inch away from any wall behind it. Also the wall wart could be turned 90 degrees like some of the new ones are. I have it plugged into a UPS along with my firewall and modem, and the jacks are sideways anyway. But it would be nice not to cover 2 outlets if it was in a powerstrip or the non-battery backup outlets on my UPS.

Other Thoughts: This replaced an old managed 10/100 with a cooling fan that was almost as loud as a server. The speed and the silence are welcome.

Pros: The main unit apparently runs forever. It's made of steel so it can dissipate heat without a fan as well as being unquestionably physically sound. There are no settings, adjustments, drivers, firmware, or things to get hacked or infected. The ports and lights are on the front with the power cord in the back because that's what works for wiring cabinets. It's not meant for show and tell, but for quick and easy hookup and diagnostics, while keeping that all-important power cable out of 'oops' reach.

Gigabit will likely remain viable for a very long time yet. Sixteen ports is plenty for my past, present, and future 'networked everything' geek home.

Cons: The power supply failed after 5 years of 24/7/365 use, including on uninterrupted backup power through power outages. The first 4 years was in a location with low quality power, and the last 1 year is in a place with higher than usual voltage (125V). It is never turned off. Being a brand and model that has lasted so long, it was not hard to find an aftermarket replacement power supply, but the experience of network paralysis was so traumatic that I suggest a backup plan be ready in case it happens to you.

It also does not have all the fancy management software that a company would usually need to hire an employee to maintain. That's sort of a take it or leave it feature unless you want to trunk your ports for a poor-mans multi-gig connection, but that would put many of the related parts and software into another price ballpark anyway. This device is simply plug in and go until the lights don't light up anymore. Until the power supply quits, it will never need a reboot.

Other Thoughts: Having 16 ports will generally suffice for an exceptionally smart home, and if 'hotspots' are culminated onto sub-switches before making a run to this main switch, there's not really enough wired network objects in the near future to fill it up.

It has plenty of ports, speed, and capability to merge multiple office sections onto one line before several of those lines are sent to a more expensive switch to trunk them onto a multi-gig or optical line. That saves a lot of money in both wiring and hardware.

I prefer the 'store and forward' technique that this uses, as some modern devices, like security cameras, are commonly 10-100Mbs and don't yet use jumbo frames. The method this switch uses will buffer an entire packet from a device and then send it to the destination at that new speed. This keeps the small/slow camera feed packets from slowing down my jumbo framed, gigabit packets between more capable devices.

Pros: High reliability, no fan, works great.

Cons: Gets a little warm, failed after 5 years of use.

Other Thoughts: I've had this switch since 2007, and it's been great. I haven't used all 16 ports, but with average use on an average of 8 of the ports for 5 years it failed. Netgear setup an RMA with minimal hassle. Love that lifetime warranty.

Pros: Worked for about 3 years - until it failed.

Cons: Had to power cycle multiple times per day. When anything was plugged into port #1 the whole switch would just boot-cycle continuously and would not work at all.

Always ran hot, especially if every port was used. I had old CPU heatsinks sitting on top of it just to help.

Other Thoughts: Netgear says this has a lifetime warranty. Save your receipt. The Netgear site is cryptic at best and nobody there answers any questions. I am still waiting for a replacement, don't know if I will ever actually get one.

Pros: Switch is compact, with sideways-plug wall wort (does not block outlets on most plug strips). Has clear link and speed indicators right next to each port, which makes connection debugging easy.

Cons: Bought this from NewEgg in December 2007. It flaked out in June 2012 -- very slow connections, intermittent links, etc..

Other Thoughts: Tempted to buy another NetGear GS116 since I love the form factor but decided to try out TP-LINK, hoping it lives longer.