Trendnet

I not long back ran into an interesting circumstance while setting up a network for a client of mine. I’m sharing this problem and it is solution in hopes that somebody else facing the same scenario might find it useful. My client’s network originated from a Comcast router that provided four LAN lines servicing two rooms in his office/warehouse. In the main office, I set up a computer that would act as a network server. The computer was connected to the office’s printer and fax machine. We put the files that necessitated to be accessible to the rest of the workers (including those working in the other room) on this computer, and I attempted to hook every one up to the network.

The office I was setting up uses Vonage for their phone lines. We had two Vonage gadgets daisy-chained from one of the Comcast cable outlets in the room. The Vonage router that was next in line from the Comcast LAN connection was a Motorola VT2442. Connected to the Motorola VT2442 was a D-Link VWR wireless router. Because most of the computers used in the office are laptops, I had no disturb setting up a network that would concede access from any computer hooked directly to either of the two Vonage routers. The problem came in to play when we realized we necessitated to connect a desktop in the next room to our network. By logging in to the two Vonage routers, I set them up on the same subnet (192.168.15.x). However, the isolated desktop in the next room was receiving an address from the Comcast router that was on a subnet 10.1.10.x.

After searching online for a solution and finding not one thing that worked, I called Vonage’s technical support. Kudos to those guys. Here is what we figured out.

Probably because I’m not an expert networking guru, I wasn’t conscious that you may change a router into a switch. That’s what had to take place in this situation. Thankfully, the Vonage technical aid guy walked me through the following process.

I unplugged the Comcast LAN connection from the WAN port on the Vonage Motorola device, and I plugged it into one of the LAN ports on the same device. I then took another Ethernet cable, and I plugged it into another LAN port on the Motorola device. I connected the other end into the WAN port on that device. Apparently, setting up a router in that configuration changes it into a switch.

I followed the same pattern on the Vonage D-Link VWR device, connecting one of the remaining LAN ports on the Motorola device to one of the free LAN ports on the D-Link device. After setting up these appliances as described, I was competent to set up a network based on the subnet being perpetuated by the Comcast router (10.1.10.x), and each computer in the office (including the renegade desktop in the other room) was capable to connect to the resources they necessitated on our network server.

The moral of this story: If you find your subnets aren’t catching, make some switches from your existent routers.

Trendnet

The compact 8-Port Gigabit GREENnet Switch provides high bandwidth performance, ease of use and reliability, all while reducing power consumption by up to 70%. GREENnet engineering mechanically adjusts power voltage as needed, resulting in significant energy savings. Boost your office efficacy and eliminate network congestion with Gigabit speeds and total switching capacity of 10Gbps with Full-Duplex Mode. Plug and Play this sturdy metal switch for authenti high-speed network connectivity.

Trendnet Photo

Trendnet Photo

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Most helpful client reviews

88 of 89 persons found the following review helpful.
Quiet, fast, and low power as promised
By Pilchard
Recently we have installed network storage devices, and started to run backups and multi-media services on our home LAN (local area network). As a result the load on our network increased substantially. We decisive to upgrade from fast ethernet to gigabit. Due to the arrangement of devices, we have assorted 8 port switches connected to a more prominent 24 bit switch which I guess is the central cohesive source of support and stability of our LAN.

When buying goods for gigabit switches, the Trendnet 8 port gigabit greennet switch came up as not only a low cost, but also a low power switch. We purchased assorted and have been using them for closely half a year.

These switches are silent (there is no fan), and very low power (on my Killowatt meter they always show 0 watts), and very fast. They have fixed help for jumbo packets (I forget the precise number, but it is around a jumbo packet size of 7-9K).

This is a good solution as a low power, silent, gigabit switch that runs cool and is low cost. The switch is unmanaged, but does have status indicator lights. You will see if you are getting fast ethernet or gigabit speeds on each port. We have had no trouble with these switches.

45 of 45 persons found the following review helpful.
What Netgear USED to be….
By Josh Daniel S. Davis
This switch is solid. In 3 months, I’ve had no difficultnesses with this Trendnet switch.

Compare to my netgear crashes, gets into reboot loops, etc even after power brick and switch replacement.

The Trendnet switch runs cooler than the netgear counterpart.

The Trendnet, like the NetGear, has a metal case for better EMI control. The netgear case is just more or less thicker, which ought to provide better in-case ventilation.

The Trendnet switch has ports/power on the back, and activity/connection LEDs on the front. Because of this, it makes for a much more tidy desk, and requiring little effort to see link lights.

We’ll see how this is doing when it’s a year, or 18 months old, but so far, it’s power-on durability outperforms the competition.

NOTE: This is an unmanaged switch. 10/100/1000 line speed, auto-crossover. There is no monitoring port, no web management, no SNMP, no IP sharing, and no routing.

This is a low cost, and well designed device. I highly commend it.

42 of 44 persons found the following review helpful.
Fast, affordable, economical
By Wayne
This switch is well built with a metal case, performs well, and is economical. I did lots of benchmarks and found that I got greatest or most complete or best possible speeds while doing multiple concurrent huge inter-computer file transfers. I repeated a lot of of the tests while bypassing the switch to see if there was a alter in speed and there was none, so this switch held up with whatsoever I could throw at it. If you want more speed, chances are you will gain more with better cables/plugs/jacks/etc. rather than looking for a more immediate switch.

I likewise applied a Kill-A-Watt meter to see how much energy this uses. The amount was so low that it took days to get significant readings, and this will cost pennies a year and electricity is not cheap where I live. Also, the switch is economically priced. This switch caused my network diagnostic to misreport cable quality as poor, but even though some utilities might give you untrue readings, your connection will not suffer.

I read elsewhere that this switch is not compatible with WOL (wake on LAN/magic packet) and the person who posted that got the info from Trendnet support. It turns out that this works PERFECTLY with WOL as long as your computer’s port is set to automati negotiation. In other words, if there’s any limitation, it’s with the quality of tech support, not with this switch.

The only minor negatives are that the printing next to the LEDs is not on both sides, so it will appear upside-down if this is wall mounted, making it awkward to keep track of port numbers. Also, the slots for wall mounting could have been more spectacular to accommodate more prominent screws. The documentation is minimal, but this is finelooking much plug and play.

UPDATE Jan 2011. I have read remarks from clients who have had difficulties using multiple switches of this model on the same network. I have three of them. One is connected with approximately 25 meters of Cat-5e cable to another on a dissimilar floor in my home. The cable run is UTP, when it comes to half vertical, and half horizontal even though an attic with no shielding (except distance) from other cables such as power cables. A third switch is connected with approximately 8 inches of the same type cable, permitting me to have more ports in that location. Benchmarks of file transfers will not give a true picture, since the weakest link (hard drive speed, overhead from selective information encapsulation, switches, network cards, wall jacks, drivers, cable, etc.) will be the limiting factor. All other elements of the chain will carry out at least as well as the benchmark suggests.

I tried copying regarding 450 GB of comparatively big and scarcely compressible info coming from images of blu-ray and DVD sources. Transferring through all three switches, full length of the cable, etc. gave me transfer speeds of with regards to 96MB/sec. Presumably, the hard disk arrays are the limiting components in my system, but the switches without doubt or question had no trouble with those sustained speeds. I applied Windows 7 drag and drop over a network, which is not amid the most effective methods. A series of littler files such as JPEGs gave me “speeds” closer to 15MB/sec, which genuinely means that the speed over the wire was in all likelihood in regards to the same, but a big amount of the data was overhead encapsulation.

Although it’s likely that the switch was not the limiting factor, it’s clear that users who are getting poorer performance have other constituents that limit performance, making it totally unlikely to say that the switches are the cause of their performance issues. A direct run of cable from one of the computers to the other, bypassing all three switches, would show if there were any increase in performance, thence showing if the switches themselves (or something related to plugs, cables, or jacks) caused the problems. But the speeds I got from assorted such tests were consistent, and higher than what I would have expected given that I used Windows drag and drop over a network.

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