TP-Link 5 Port Gigabit Ethernet Network Switch - Ethernet Splitter | Plug & Play | Fanless | Sturdy Metal w/ Shielded Ports | Traffic Optimization | Unmanaged | Limited Lifetime Protection(TL-SG105)

Pros: This is a non-blocking (i.e. bandwidth between any pair of port is independent of other pair), full duplex 5 port Gigabit switch with nice sturdy metallic construction and supports jumbo frame support. There are 2 LED per port, one green (Gigabit/s) and one orange (100Mbit/s) to identify port speed. There's a green power LED as well. It connects flawlessly with laptops, desktops, and other ethernet switches. It does not heat up, stays lukewarm even when all ports are operational.

Cons: None

Overall Review: I opened up the switch and found an ASIC on which a black heatsink was glued on to. The five connectors are grouped into 2 groups, one group with 4 connectors and another with 1 connector. I tested the switch with Linux desktops, Windows 7 desktop, and a Macbook Pro Thunderbolt ethernet. I initiated file transfers from the laptop to /dev/zero of a linux desktop. The speed was 112MByte/sec. Simultaneously I transferred files from Windows desktop to another Linux desktop. There was no effect whatsoever in speed of the two parallel transfers. The switch is similar in size to a 3Com 5 port desktop Gigabit ethernet switch.

Pros: Good speeds Solid construction Competitive price

Cons: Slightly slower than similar switches

Overall Review: If the model numbering wasn’t a dead giveaway, clearly this switch was built to compete with the Netgear GS-10x series switches. The features, size, shape, look, and feel are nearly identical. I had a Netgear GS-108 switch to compare this TP-LINK SG-105 to. The only real difference is one is five port and the other is eight. For most practical intents and purposes, these switches are identical. My speed tests show that the Netgear fared better over the run over a very large file (a blu-ray rip), but for most of your everyday, run of the mill networking, this is a great switch at a great price. Unless you know you’re going to be absolutely taxing the switch for serious amounts of time The warranty on this one is five years, which isn’t close to the Netgear’s, but honestly ethernet is a technology that’s been around a very long time and has a very well defined ISO standard. These devices won’t fail often so the warranty is a bit of a moot issue. Bottom line is, this is a great switch, especially for the price. Actual speed test results: 3 GB file: TP-LINK = 30 seconds, Netgear = 29 seconds 22 GB file: TP-LINK = 261 seconds, Netgear = 199 seconds

Pros: Built well, has a sturdy feel to it. Auto-switching ports so you don't have to worry about using the right port for the right thing. It's fast, I didn't notice any decrease in speed through the switch vs straight through the router. Includes small rubber feet to protect the desk you set it on. It's small and compact while being well made.

Cons: Has instructions for mounting to a wall but it doesn't include the parts that you'd need to do that. Doesn't include even 1 Ethernet cable, kinda weird for a modern networking device.

Overall Review: A switch is a very simple networking device. There's not much to it. It provides more ethernet ports for you to connect more devices to your network using cables which allows you to free up space on the wireless network. This switch is full speed Gbit which is nice since 100Mbit is pretty slow. As I said it's well built and includes a 5 year warranty so you don't have to worry about anything. In closing I can easily recommend this switch for anyone looking to add ports to their home or small business network. It's being sold at a good price with a long warranty and performs as well as anyone could hope. Overall it's a solid product.

Pros: This is a 5=Port Gigabit switch. I have CAT6 throughout my home with a 16 port patch panel into a Dell PowerConnect 2816. Still in one of my rooms I need additional ports and this is perfect. One of the pros is the hard metal casting. I prefer the solid metal frame to the more common plastic. Also to note it’s quite low in power consumption. When I fired it up it was quick to start passing traffic. I set a NAS and a Laptop on the switch and started hitting it with pings. I received no latency between devices. I transferred a 28GB Bluray across with no packet loss at the peak of the NAS ability with average 112MB/sec throughput although that’s more a limitation on the NAS CPU than the speed of the network. One of the exciting parts of the switch is the support for 9K jumbo frames. I set my NAS and Laptop NIC to 9K and had no issues. I’ve used a few switches that are a bit off and when trying to use 9K start dropping packets; this one is excellent. I transferred various large (over 10GB) files between NAS and computers. With the lower power it also doesn’t generate much heat. Physically on the exterior when I loaded up all 5 ports I started pushing traffic through all ports for 20 minutes. After this I could still not feel any additional heat. It features activity lights which are next to each port. I prefer this arrangement as I can clearly see which port might be having a fault in traffic or connectivity. Some place the arrangement nowhere near the port which is not as easy as when looking directly at the port in question.

Cons: No mounting screws. It comes with rubber stick-on pads but I would prefer to physically mount this and will have to find and provide my own capable screws.

Overall Review: It’s an unmanaged switch and delivers just what it says. The price dictates this of course but it’d be nice to have some ability to adjust ports and tag VLANs. While you require a port to be used for up-link this is the case of all switching. The power adapter at 9V .06A I can use almost any adapter to power this. At this price point it’s hard not to buy one for each room to expand gigabit ports. It doesn’t provide power over Ethernet (PoE) which would be great with this compact size to power an IP camera.

Pros: - This thing is TINY! Barely wider than the 5 RJ-45 ports across the front, ~4" x 4" x 1". - 5 ports of gigabit goodness!!! - It's cheap (currently $25), but this may end up being a con as well (if its price point reflects its quality) - Supports IGMP snooping and 802.1p QoS - Supports up to 9k jumbo frames - Supports up to 4k ARP table - Each port has link/activity lights - All metal construction, doesn't feel cheap - Screw holes in the bottom for vertical mounting - AC adapter is the narrow type (the prongs are in-line with the overall length, not perpendicular) so it only uses 1 outlet on most power strips - Great/cheap switch to give the teenagers for gaming with their friends - Auto-MDI/MDIX means you don't have to worry if your cable is straight-thru or crossover - So far, I've seen REALLY good response from the TP-Link support staff here. They seem to have a genuine concern for their products/reputation (more than you can say for a lot of other vendors)

Cons: - Un-managed switch - Touted as 5 port, but I'd consider it 4+1 (the uplink is the +1, but at least it's gigabit too) - Rubber stick-on feet always tend to come off over time - Manufacturer's MTBF not listed for this product, combined with another reviewers report of questionable capacitors

Overall Review: Not really sure how you could go wrong with this product in 95%+ of home consumer situations. The features are a little lack-luster for me, but as a networking guy by trade, my requirements are considerably higher. The power adapter is 9V 600mA tip positive output.

Pros: This switch is exactly what it says it is, a 5 port no fuss unmanaged switch. I hooked this into my Buffalo wireless G router and instantly worked without any power cycles. I was able to move files from one port to the other with lightning fast speeds, about 200mb/s. I hooked up a test scenario where I could enable Jumbos and got a nice little speed bump from that setting being enabled. I also stuck the unit in a box with no ventilation to test its fan-less design and make sure it didn't slow down once the unit started to heat up. I had the same throughput regardless of where the box was located. The price is right for a switch like this, there are some lower cost units and then some higher cost units but this offers good features at a reasonable cost to the consumer.

Cons: I can't think of anything wrong with this switch, I can't complain about it not having features it wasn't advertised to have. It has everything I would look for in a switch this size and this price. The only thing I can think of is it doesn't have a very long cord for the power adapter but that would really be reaching.

Overall Review: If you are looking for a hard-wired solution to your network and need 4 extra ports for some of your devices, this is the way to go. It has nice features that not everyone will use like Jumbos but the speed is there and this device is a really nice way to expand your network.

Pros: • Sale price of $24.99 with no rebate is on par with other switches in this consumer range • Piece of cake to setup – plug and play, up and running immediately • Good packaging, not a lot of fluff and wasted space. So many small pieces of network gear come in these giant packages, but not this one • Easily identifiable 24/7 support sticker on the front of the box. When I see something like that – it tells me the company WANTS to help you. So many other companies make it an act of congress to get a hold of them. I’ve owned three TP-Link routers, and a pair of their switches – they all have that 24/7 support sticker • TP-Link regularly responds to issues brought forth in Newegg reviews. Once again, that tells me that the company cares about the consumer experience, and stands by their product lines • Very sturdy – looks and feels like a miniature piece of pro gear • Does not get hot when all 4 channels are downloading from various sources, even in a hot (80* Fahrenheit) room. This switch barely gets warm. I cracked the case open on it, and there’s a nice-sized aluminum heat sink taking care of cooling duties – very nice • Despite its small footprint, does not tip or feel unstable with all five CAT cables connected to it • Performance is solid, like any switch in this category range. Speeds were comparable to running a CAT cable right off the gigabit router it was connected to, and also compared favorably to running the CAT cable right off the modem itself

Cons: • Regular price is steep compared to other switches in its class, but it’s on sale often, so definitely not worth docking an egg • While it’s called a “5-port” switch, you really have four ports to work with. Your internet source has to plug in somewhere, right?

Overall Review: Tough to get too excited about an unmanaged gigabit network switch, so what I think you’re really looking for here is value and reliability – and this unit brings both of those to the table. Its performance is right in line with most any gigabit switch I’ve used, but I think it’s small footprint + solid construction gives it a little edge over similar units. The thing I’ve almost always notice with network switches that use plastic for the chassis – is that they get really hot when you have a lot of traffic from multiple connected devices. Heat is always the killer with PC components/peripherals, so any time I come across something that runs cool, well it just puts a little smile on my face, because I know that it will last longer in the long run. I tested the TL-SG105 with four desktop PC’s downloading game content with multiple Steam accounts. All download speeds stayed in the 6+MB range, which is exactly what I saw when I tested the gigabit ports on our router (Asus RT-N65U), and right on par with single download speeds. If you need the extra wired connectivity, have an appreciation for willing customer service, and can find the TL-SG105 for under $30 – it’s very easy to recommend as your next 4-port switch purchase.

Pros: There are only so many things you can write about an unmanaged network switch, so I want to focus on the things that make this a stand-out from other switches in this price class. They are mostly small things. The unit is both wall-mountable or can stand on a surface. TP-LINK ships four rubber feet from 3M that the user can choose to put on the bottom of the unit. They are actually nice, solid rubber feet, being 3M they will probably also stick nicely for a long time. The wall-mounting option is fairly standard, and the manual gives the measures needed to perform that installation. The power supply is very compact and will only occupy one outlet on a wall and many if not most power strips. It is only longer on one end. For it's size, the switch is surprisingly heavy. Of course it is light, but it had more heft to it than I expected. The ports and the LEDs are fit very clean into the metal case; no crooked LEDs or gaps between the ports, both of which I have seen in 80+ dollar unmanaged switches. This unit looks sturdy, clean and presents itself as a professional piece of equipment. This switch refuses to heat up. With all ports going with LAN transfers and feeding 4 machines with a 50/25 internet connection, I could not feel any increased temperature of the metal case after 2 hours. It stands to reason that the switch really is very power efficient. I have a few other unmanaged switches, none of them get very hot, but they do get warm to the touch -- not this one. I've beaten on this switch with 3 desktop machines and a wireless AP. Everything worked, I didn't have any drop of signal, measurable delays or lag. At this price level, I can really not find fault with anything about this product.

Cons: The manual is very tiny, perhaps that could have been made larger in size and print. It's not something I'd take an egg off for, though. The content of the manual is fine.

Overall Review: Just as a note, the version of this model I reviewed is labelled as "1.1" on both the packaging and the circuit board inside. Some technical notes: I did test Auto MDI/MDIX with a crossover cable alongside straight-through on other ports and had no problems at all, it worked fine. Power usage is lower than my newest (bought in 2012) other "green" switch from a competitor. That "other" one draws 4W, where this TP-Link draws about 2W. I measured with a Kill-A-Watt, it's not super scientific, but it clearly shows about half the power draw compared to another switch that is advertised as "green" and is a 5-port Gigabit as well. The switch is very easy to open. Two small screws on the underside hold the chassis together, and there's no "Warranty expires" warning, or any sticker getting torn when taking the top off. Inside are some fairly large rj45 transformers, along with the actual switch logic chip. On the logic chip sits a heat sink, and it's glued on the chip with a thermally conductive adhesive, so I could not make out what chip this actually is, I didn't want to risk damaging the chip. The heat sink covers the entire chip and is as high as the casing allows, it was warm to the touch after I opened the switch just after power-off... so it's doing it's job well.