Digisol LAN-Edge Switches

We received two unmanaged network switches fromDigisol, both meant to be used at the edge of the LANin an organization. Let's dwell on their features andanalyze their performance based on the benchmark results.

This is a plugand play un-managed Gi-gabit Ethernetswitch whichoffers 24 ports.This can be used to give dedicated bandwidth to individual nodesthat need it, such as servers and workstations. It can also be usedto connect Fast or Gigabit Ethernet switches to further extendyour network. It supports several key IEEE 802.3 Ethernet stan-dards, like IEEE 802.3x Flow Control protocol, which enablestransmission and reception of data in an orderly manner. It alsohas several QoS features, like IEEE 802.1p port prioritization,which delivers data to devices by honoring preset priorities. It'sMAC address table supports up to 8000 entries to facilitate scal-ability and help the switch in supporting a large network.

This Digisol switch provides flow control for full-duplex modeand has Auto-Negotiation support for each port, which sensesthe link speed of a connected network device (10, 100 or 1000Mbps). These intelligent ports detect the network speed and auto-negotiate between 1000BASE-T, 100BASE-TX and 10BASE-T,as well as between full and half-duplex. The switch has powersaving functionality, wherein it checks the length of cables andadapts the power saving mode accordingly.

Performance: We tested the switch using IxChariot'sQcheck. It gave an average throughput of 801 Mbps on transfer-ring 1000 Kbytes of payload from one end to another. This ismuch higher than HP's ProCurve 1400 24G (reviewed in No-vember '07), which was also an unmanaged Gigabit switch andhad given an average throughput of 615.4 Mbps.

DG-FS1016D

This is an unmanaged 16 port Fast Ethernet switch. Just like itscousin, this switch also uses store and forward packet-switching technology which offers reliable data transfer. It supports auto-sensing of link speed and auto-negotiation of half or full-duplexmodes on each port, so that the network devices work the mo-ment they're connected to it. Its intelligent ports can detect linkspeed and auto-negotiate between 110BASE-TX and 10BASE-Tnetworks. This switch doesn't have Jumbo frame support and itsMAC address table can store up to 4000 entries. This also haspower saving functionality like DG GS1024 switch.

Performance:

The IxChariot'sQcheck benchmarkresults for this switchgave an averagethroughput of 92Mbps, which is prettymuch similar to the other Fast Ethernet switches that we havetested in the past.

BOTTOMLINE: Considering price, performance and features, theDG-GS1024D switch is ideal for quickly adding Gigabit EthernetLAN functionality to your servers, etc. While DG-FS1016Dswitch is ideal for extending your network to nodes that don't re-quire very high data transfers.