Netgear Prosafe GS724TPS 24 Port Gigabit Smart Stackable PoE Switch Review

To keep things to the point and as I’m sure you’ll agree, Netgear have certainly got their enterprise level equipment spot on and this is backed by the fact that they are one of the top manufacturers of networking gear. From the moment we go the switch plugged into our network and got things setup (which by the way was a complete breeze) the switch performed exactly as the overview states on Netgear’s website and even with a fairly large volume of traffic hitting it all at once, it is still able to deliver a stable and high level of throughput.

The web based user interface is easy to navigate around and with its ability to manage an entire stack of switches from a single login to the master switch, makes the job for administrators of larger scale networks the much easier, after all time is money. The PoE was a simple case of plug and play. We plugged in the WNDAP360 wireless access point that we looked at not too long ago and without any intervention, the switch picked it up and started delivering power as required, of which can be monitored via the web interface.

Whilst cost is more of a critical factor on the consumer side of things and in a similar fashion to what was described about wireless routers and access points in the business environment, this is going to be overkill for the vast majority of home networks. In the same light though, the vast majority of low level equipment is just not going to be up to the job for the larger networks due to a lack of features such as PoE, uplinks, SFP and switch interlinks. The GS724TPS may cost a wholesome £640 (at time of writing) but if you want the best and the features to go with, then you must be prepared to pay the best.

On the whole I’m very impressed with what Netgear have put into this and we will be putting this to good use ourselves for the foreseeable future for the likes of NAS testing with its high level of performance.