D-Link DGS1005D Gigabit Switch

D-Link recently introduced a new range of eco-friendly switches based on its

Green Ethernet technology. Green is the mantra being followed universally by the

industry and what better way to do it than by saving on power costs. In offices,

switches and routers keep on running 24x7, that leads to power wastage. So, what

this switch does is to sense if the PC connected to a given port is on or off,

by pinging it, and if it finds the PC off, it drops that port to a low-power

standby mode. From the pinging response, it also auto-senses the length of the

cable from the switch to the PC. Now, the power consumed by a cable is directly

proportional to its length. If the length is more, the power consumed is more

and vice-versa. This switch automatically drops the power level when the

distance is less, as compared to normal switches that keep all ports at maximum

power. So for an initial price premium of about 15-20%, you can save on a lot of

power.

Planned together with lower power devices (such as LCDs instead of TFTs) that

can also help cut down your capex cost of UPS backup capacity. (And all that

also cuts down heat, and thus air-con capacity, saving you on generator

capacity). This ultra-compact switch required no set up at all: it was plug 'n'

play all the way, supporting 10/100/ 1000 Mbps networks and can operate in half

and full duplex mode. The cable diagnostic feature determines whether the wire

connected to the device is good or not, and hence saves on troubleshooting time.

In case a wire is faulty, an amber light shows on the corresponding port's LED.

For testing the switch, we connected two PCs to the switch in an isolated

network. We ran QCheck benchmark, and found the TCP throughput to be 727 Mbps,

UDP throughput at 255 Mbps, and 1 ms response, which are definitely good scores.

1 GB of data went through in 189 secs, which is fast. For transferring 1 Gbps of

data it took 3 mins 9 secs which is also a very good result.

Bottomline: The 'Green' benefit apart, this

switch is quick and costs just a bit more than a normal gigabit switch. Hence, a

worthy buy.