Home Network Switch Buying Guide

Today, almost every home has built a home network which requires some basic hardware. The first important hardware for your home network is a data switch. It allows you to connect several computers and some other networking devices like printers, IP cameras together. Since there are so many data switches like 12 or 24 port switch on the market, which one is the right for your actual needs? Here focus on home network switch buying guide to help you find the best home network switch.

Benefits of Using Home Network Switch

For home use, one of the main advantages of using a data switch is that Ethernet connections will become much faster and more reliable, due to the higher bandwidth it can provide. As such, it’s perfect for things like gaming or transferring network files, and other real time application will perform better through the home network switch. For example, if there are several users in your home, then you can use the switch to share an Internet connection to all the users and all the connected devices at the same time.

Meanwhile, you can use the network switch to build a home LAN. Then you can share any type of files maybe a music folder across your home network. Instead of transferring files on the Internet, other members of your home network can access the songs in the folder through the home network switch. This helps to simplify the transmission flow.

In addition, you can add a guest VLAN to manage the guest’s access permission and ensure the Internet security.

Specifications Should be Considered Before Buying

Before you decide to buy a network switch for your network, here are some specifications you should pay attention to.

    • Speed

Network speed is always the most important performance that people concern most. Currently, the network switches are capable of handling 10,100 even 1000 Mbps transfer data, which is sufficient for home use. Therefore, choose the switch that can provide appropriate speed that you need.

    • Ports

The port number means how many networking devices can be connected to the switch. Network switches with 8 ports, 12 ports, 24 ports and 48 ports are available on the market. So select a switch with enough ports for your devices. If you’ll add more devices in the future, then choose a switch which will offer you extra room to grow.

    • Price

Price is always an important factor when buying anything. There are different types of switches on the market, such as the managed switch, unmanaged switch and Gigabit PoE switch, and their prices vary greatly. So you can establish a budget for your switch, thus you can narrow the buying scope and make a final decision.

Recommendations for Home Network Switch

Network switches with 24 ports are excellent for home use. Considering future upgrade, speed and ease of use, we choose FS S2800-24T4F as the best Ethernet switch for home networking. And we also recommend FS S1600-24T4F switch as an excellent budget option.

FS S3900-24T4F Switch

S3900-24T4F switch is a great option for home use and small business. It includes 24 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 copper ports and 4 1G SFP/RJ45 combo ports. The switch provides high performance with a packet forwarding rate up to 96Mpps. It supports multiple functions like VLAN, flash memory, etc. to make it easy for your network management. Besides, it adopts the fanless design and therefore it will not generate any noise, which is welcome in both homes and offices.

S3900-24T4S

Figure 1: S3900-24T4S Fanless Gigabit Stackable Managed Switch

FS S1600-24T4F Switch

This is a Gigabit PoE+ switch features 24 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 Ethernet ports, 1 console port, 2 combo ports and 2 Gigabit SFP ports. The max power consumption of this switch is 600W. And another highlight of this switch is that it’s designed with green energy saving technology. Therefore it can save energy without sacrificing performance by sensing whether the ports are idle or not, and then power down the idle ports. It’s a great, standard switch with the plug-and-play design.

home network switch-PoE type

Figure 2: 24 Port Gigabit PoE+ Managed Switch

Conclusion

As described above, we know how to buy a home network switch. We can select one based on the speed, ports and budget. Using a network switch can help us optimize our home network. FS.COM is ready to help you purchase your new data switch. Feel like you need a direction, don’t hesitate to contact us via sales@fs.com.

A Closer Look at HP 2910al-24G Switch (J9145A)

Today, big data centers are upgraded from 10G to 40G or 100G, and some small homelabs migrate from 1G to 10G. For some small business data center, 24 port network switch is enough. The switches produced by HP are popular with many data center designers for the high quality and low price. The HP 2910al-24G Switch (J9145A) is highly recommended in many forums. This article will guide you to have a closer look at HP 2910al-24G Switch (J9145A) switch.

Overview of HP 2910al-24G Switch

The HP 2910al-24G switch (J9145A) is

a 24 port switch that can be used to build high-performance switched network. It offers low latency for high-speed networking. For port configuration, it has twenty 10/100/1000 ports, four dual-personality ports, one RJ45 serial console port and four 10G ports. The HP 2910al-24G switch can provide the most flexible and easy-to-deploy uplinks in its class. It can be deployed at enterprise edge and remote branch offices, converged networks, and data center top of rack.

HP 2910al-24G Switch (J9145A)

Applications of HP 2910al-24G Switch

This part will give a detailed introduction to the network ports on HP 2910al-24G switch and cabling solutions for the switch.

Ports on HP 2910al-24G Switch
  • Twenty 10/100/1000 ports: All these ports have the “Auto MDIX” feature, which means you can use either straight-through or crossover twisted-pair cables to connect any network devices to the switch.
  • Four dual-personality ports: Each port can be used as either an RJ45 10/100/1000 port or as a mini-GBIC slot for use with mini-GBIC transceivers. By default, the RJ45 connectors are enabled. If a mini-GBIC is installed in a slot, it is enabled and the associated RJ45 connector is disabled and cannot be used. If the mini-GBIC is removed, the associated RJ45 port is automatically re-enabled.
  • Four 10G ports: These ports provide connectivity for 10G speed though either copper or fiber optic media.
Cabling Solution

Since HP 2910al-24G switch has 10/100/1000 ports, it can be used for 1G to 1G connection. As shown in the following figure, two 1000BASE-SX SFP transceiver modules are respectively plugged into 1G ports on two HP 2910al-24G switches. Then these two 1000BASE-SX SFP transceiver modules are connected via a LC multimode fiber optic cable.

HP 2910al-24G Switch (J9145A) for 1G connection

Designed with 10G ports, HP 2910al-24G switch can realize 10G to 10G connection just like the above 1G connection. Just replace the 1000BASE-SX SFP transceiver module with 10GBASE-SR SFP+ transceiver. Besides, you can also accomplish 10G to 10 connection by using a 10G SFP+ to SFP+ DAC twinax cable. The following figure shows the cabling solution for you.

HP 2910al-24G Switch (J9145A) for 10G connection

Conclusion

The HP 2910al-24G switch (J9145A) is a high-performance Gigabit Ethernet switch. It is a good selection for small business network deployment. If you need compatible fiber optic transceiver and fiber optic cable for HP 2910al-24G switch, you can have a look at FS.COM. The following table shows some compatible optical components. For more details, you can visit our site.

ID NO. Model Number Description
13261 HPE 1000BASE-SX SFP HPE J4858A Compatible 1000BASE-SX SFP 850nm 550m DOM Transceiver, US$ 10.00
30531 HPE 1000BASE-LX SFP HPE JD119B Compatible 1000BASE-LX SFP 1310nm 10km DOM Transceiver, US$ 12.00
32156 HPE 1000BASE-LH SFP HPE JD061A Compatible 1000BASE-LH SFP 1310nm 40km DOM Transceiver, US$ 14.00
36784 HPE 10G SFP+ DAC 1m (3ft) HPE J9281B Compatible 10G SFP+ Passive Direct Attach Copper Twinax Cable, US$ 22.00
11559 HPE 10GBASE-SR SFP+ HPE J9150A Compatible 10GBASE-SR SFP+ 850nm 300m DOM Transceiver, US$ 20.00
31597 HPE 10GBASE-LRM SFP+ HPE JD093A Compatible 10GBASE-LRM SFP+ 1310nm 220m DOM Transceiver, US$ 34.00
15427 HPE 10GBASE-LR SFP+ HPE JD094B Compatible 10GBASE-LR SFP+ 1310nm 10km DOM Transceiver, US$34.00

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