Review: Linksys SRW224P network switch

If you’re looking for a network switch, don’t be fooled into thinking they’re all the same. It’s worth shopping around.

This is especially true if you’re a business buyer looking for more than basic network connectivity.

If this is the case, the SRW224P from Linksys could be just what you’re after.

This very affordable Ethernet switch adds support for Power over Ethernet (PoE) and remote management, plus mechanisms to prioritise network traffic and maximise bandwidth.

The SRW224P doesn’t look that special, delivered in a standard 1U rackmount format (mounting brackets supplied), with a built-in power supply at the rear and 24 RJ-45 ports at the front.

These are all auto-sensing, capable of working out the speed of the link (10 or 100Mbits/sec) and whether you’re connecting to another switch or an end-point device, to eliminate the need for crossover cables.

Support for PoE means the switch can also work out whether attached devices conform to the 802.3af PoE specification.

If they do, it can deliver DC power over the Lan, making for much simpler and neater deployment of things such as wireless access points and VoIP (Voice over IP) telephones.

The maximum power available is 180w, so with up to 12 devices connected, each can get the maximum 15.4w specified by the 802.3af standard. This drops to 7.5w per port if all 24 ports are used, but is still enough for a wide range of devices.

A pair of Gigabit uplinks are also built in to connect to a faster backbone network, with a choice of either ordinary Cat5 or optical cabling.

But beware – mini-GBIC modules are required to handle fibre-optic cabling, and they’re not cheap. At around £240 ex VAT, they cost almost as much as the switch itself.

There’s no dedicated stacking bus, as on some rival products. Any of the ports can be used to link switches together, and you get facilities to aggregate ports to create dedicated high-speed trunks.

But each switch needs to be managed separately, which could be an issue on a larger network.

When it comes to management, you’re spoilt for choice. You can, for example, connect a PC to the local console port, or use an SNMP console.

Most people, however, will opt for the built-in web interface, which is much easier to use and requires nothing more than a web browser.

SSL support makes this a secure option with a clean and easy-to-follow interface, although a fair degree of technical knowledge is required to configure the more advanced features.

These include the ability to define up to 128 Virtual Lans (VLans) and a range of Quality of Service (QoS) settings to, for example, make sure that VoIP gets priority over ordinary data traffic.

Still, you can take your time implementing these, and there’s plenty of help available in the accompanying user manual. We had no real problems and found the Linksys switch very easy to configure.

One last point is the cooling fan, which makes the Linksys quite noisy. But then all 24-port switches are the same and need to be located where they won’t cause annoyance.

Plus there’s an extra attraction in the form of a cashback offer should you want to upgrade the Linksys switch to something more advanced from parent company Cisco.

There’s a three-year limit on this, but it’s a good offer on a switch that already offers a great deal to the growing small business.