Review on Zyxel 24 Gigabit Managed Rackmount GS1900 24E by Michael Sharp

Wow. Let me start by buying this switch as my "master switch" at home. I will be replacing the basic 8 port unmanaged gigabit switch I am currently using. I was very surprised at the build quality of this switch when I took it out of the box. It's a lot heavier than expected and even rackmount ears are included in the box. The power supply is also integrated, so you don't have to deal with a useless wall. As soon as I looked at the web interface, I was even more shocked at how many options this switch has. The manual gives very little detail on what each feature actually does (e.g. a feature called "EEE" that can be enabled or disabled on each port. A quick Google search reveals that Energy Efficient Ethernet is.) Either way, if you need something like that QoS, monitoring (spanning in Cisco lingo), multicast/IGMP snooping, port VLANs including tagging and trunking, link aggregation, LLDP, SNMP including traps, syslog -Logging, access list management interface, spanning tree, loop protection, storm protection, port security including 802.1X, AAA/RADIUS/TACACS+ user management, etc. this thing has it all. It even has a nice port reset feature. So if a port is disabled for various reasons like storm control or port security (you can choose from a list), the port will be reset after the time you set. You can name the ports and set the speed and duplex manually if required. The icing on the cake will be the command line interface, but no luck here. It can have an internal serial port, but this port is not visible. WebUI is clean, logical and easy to use. It uses the Cisco method of having a "working configuration" instead of a "saved configuration" - just click the "Save" button at the top of the interface. That means if you do something that might block you, like B. editing access lists for administration, save your changes before changing anything. If you're locked out (like me) all I have to do is reboot the switch and I'm back online. I also noticed that multiple copies of the firmware can be saved so you can choose which one to boot from. strong but unfortunately cannot be mounted in different orientations to allow for different mounting options on wall panels for example. (That's because it uses 3 triangular screws, unlike some others that have 4 symmetrical holes so you can mount your ears in different orientations.) It has two holes on the bottom so you can attach it to a wall plate be able. , but only ports up or down. (Because the cutouts are at the bottom.) Also included are 4 rubber feet and 2 screws for wall mounting. The kit also includes a standard USA IEC power cord. The switch also has a power button on the back and is fairly rigid so it's very unlikely to be accidentally hit. I paid $99 and am blown away by how good it is! 16 Gigabit ports and fully managed. Highly recommended, especially for the price.