Question 1

can I run a line from my router to the switch, then from switch to receiver, blue ray, xbox 360 and Xbox1? will xboxs run ok? dont need both on togthr

Accepted Answer

Yes Bertt, you can, and you definitely should, run a twisted-pair ethernet cable from your router to the switch. After you connect the router to the switch, you can run twisted-pair cables to any device that has an RJ45 ethernet port. You've probably maxed out on your router's RJ45 ports, and so adding a switch will greatly expand your capacity to distribute hard-wired internet access to every device in your house that has an RJ45 ethernet port. May I suggest that you buy a switch with as many RJ45 ports as you can afford. The more RJ45 ports your switch has, the more devices (computers, TVs, A/V receivers, DVD and Blu-Ray players, Xbos etc.) you can connect to it for fast, reliable, secure internet access. You won't be sorry that you buy a switch with extra ports. You may not need them now, but eventually you'll probably acquire other devices that have RJ45 ports. It you don't have your house already wired for ethernet distribution, your biggest challenge will be finding wiring paths to every location where you have a computer, TV etc. One last topic: how well you device operate after you've made all of the cable connections through the router to the switch will depend more on the speed of your router and on the speed of your Internet service. Switches are very fast, so they're not likely to be the bottlenneck in a slow Internet connection. Best wishes. JKL

Question 2

Is one of the 5 ports used to connect to the router, so that only 4 are available for other device use?  Thanks.

Accepted Answer

Hi TomKM. You are correct - 1 port is used to connect to the router leaving 4 available for other devices. The GS108 offers 8 ports & is just a tad larger than its little brother if you needed a few more ports.

Question 3

On this product I can choose unmanaged (cheapest), unmanaged plus (middle price) or unmanaged click ( most expensive). What are the differences?

Accepted Answer

This article explains a lot between the Unmanaged and Unmanaged Plus.  "http://www.networkcomputing.com/networking/netgear-adds-features-to-unmanaged-switches-for-smbs/a/d-id/1084688?"Really it depends on the application of what you using it for.  If this is for use at a personal residence to add/hardwire devices i.e. additional computers, xbox, TV, Blueray Player etc then just the regular unmanaged switch (cheapest) will work fine.  If you are using this for a business application where you want features to configure VLANS, QoS and cable testing then you will need the plus.  As far as I can see the click is like the plus but is easier to mount in different locations but has the same options as the plus.  I personally have two unmanaged (cheapest) switches for my home in two locations.  I don't have any need support to configure a VLAN, QoS and cable test so I opted for the cheapest that had a rebate at the time.  They both work great.  I haven't had any issues.

Question 4

Does this send 1Gbps speeds per port or is it divided between all devices connected? I'm not sure how to tell.

Accepted Answer

J.F. Carter has a good answer. Just to add some “Old School” history from a network architect:

Original Ethernet from 1983 was a coax cable that worked at 10Mbps in half-duplex mode; you could either send or transmit, not both (full-duplex) and only one device connected to the coax could use it - the algorithm that determined if the device could access the coax was called CSMA/CD (Carrier-Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection).

The difference between a Switch and a Hub:  A good example of half-duplex and full duplex is a cell phone v. a home telephone: on a cell phone you can either send (talk) or receive (listen) as the antenna can send or receive (half-duplex) not both at once (full-duplex). On a “landline” telephone, there are two wires, one to send (connects to the mic) and one to receive (speaker) so you could talk and listen at the at the same time (full-duplex), and these wires provided low-voltage power to the phone. If you had a blackout where you lost power to the house your phone might work if the phone lines were not affected 😉

Ports on a Hub shares the backplane (so you are limited to the bandwidth of the backplane across all ports in half-duplex mode and it acts like coax with CSMA/CD. If you have a 10/100Mbps hub, the fastest you can operate is determined by how many ports are in use, and you can only send or receive (half-duplex).

A Switch (like the NetGear GS108 10/100/1000Mbps) provide port to port cross-backplane full-duplex access between any two ports. Ports 1 and 3 can pass data between them at the same time Ports 2 and 5 can at 1Gbps. Since the backplane is full-duplex, each port has 1Gbps to send and 1Gbps to receive or an aggregate of 2Gbps and a total of 16Gbps across the backplane of an 8-port switch.

Keep in mind, if you are gaming between devices, you are limited to the port speed of each device as you pass data between the ports that are gaming. Another example is the use of a NAS (Network Attached Storage) where you have a storage device for backups or sharing data. The NAS may have 1Gbps or dual UTP connections for 2Gbps and this is shared when multiple devices access the NAS.

Your bottleneck is at the ISP port and whatever speed you subscribed to: 10Mbps, 100Mbps, ect. That is shared.

I see no need for a Hub today especially as 1Gbps Switches are now so inexpensive and more functional. And a 1Gbps (10/100/1000Mbps auto-sensing switch) helps reduce latency and packet delays. My laptop will do a backup over UTP CAT-6 using GoodSync to my WDC NAS at speeds to 350Mbps.

In closing, I use wired Ethernet in the house where possible (DVR, TV, desk computers, printers, [I don’t game…], etc), and wireless for iPad, iPhones and guests, and it is nice for the laptop when not docked. When we built the house, I had coax for DirecTV, twisted-pair for phones and UTP for CAT-6 connections run to rooms where I wanted it. At each room, I have a GS105 or GS108 NetGear Switch as needed like by the TV where the TV, TiVo and DVD have network connectivity, or at my desk where I have my laptop docking station, printer and other UTP devices. All phone, UTP and coax home to a media wiring closet in my office as a central area for all connections where the ISP and DirecTV demarcations are located and where the wireless router sites, and all ports terminate to a Switch and this Switch connects to the Wireless Router that handles DHCP (IP address assignments to devices) and ISP connection. The NAS sits in the media wiring closet too.

Knowledge is POWER!!! I hope this helps if you stayed awake 😉

Item Dimensions D x W x H	4"D x 6.2"W x 1.1"H
Color	Blue
Compatible Devices	PC; Mac
Connector Type Used on Cable	RJ45
Cable Type	Ethernet
Number of Ports	8

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NETGEAR 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Switch (GS108) - Desktop or Wall Mount, and Limited Lifetime Protection

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