OK switch, but not for me.

Author's Rating:

Pros: Low price for name-brand and good customer service.

Cons: Requires steady AC current supply.

The Bottom Line: 
Fluctuations in AC line voltage caused by turning the toaster on or city-wide brownouts could cause data loss. Similar peer-group consumer grade switches do not have this problem

Author's Review
This D-Link "GigaExpress" gigabit switch is probably the cheapest of the name-brand switches. You use a switch when you want 2 or more devices to share a single ethernet connection. The devices being shared could be computers, but they also could be routers or wireless access points or print servers or hard drive boxes or any combination of almost any number of devices that have an ethernet port.

Gigabit ethernet is 1000 Mbs (megabits per second), and is fully compatible with the slower 100 Mbs and 10 Mbs ethernet.

Gigabit switches are now cheap enough that it makes sense to buy a gigabit switch now even if you only plan to upgrade to gigabit in the future. I would like to warn you that if your computer(s) has older accessory slots - PCI vs the new PCI-Express for desktops, or CardBus or PC-Card vs the new PCI-Express for laptops, you won't get true gigabit speeds, even if you install gigabit adapters in the older PCI slots. The reason is the limited speed of the PCI slots. You will get slightly less than double the speed of a 100 Mbs (Megabits per second) connection. You won't get ten times the speed of a 100 Mbs connection. Still, slightly less than double is still a significant improvement.

This unit comes in the traditional D-Link industrial-looking silver and mud-gray design with labeling on a blue-green background. Newer D-Link devices are now black with silver trim, but I still like the older design. I actually like the color, and the older style units such as this DGS-1008D are stackable. The DGS-1008D comes with 4 little rubber feet that also serve to stack the DGS-1008D with any other D-Link device of the same style and width. D-Link units seem to come in small, medium, and large widths. This DGS-1008D is a medium width. The 5-port DGS 1005D switch used to come in a medium width, and now comes in a small width even though the model number never changed. This DGS-1008D has mounting holes on the bottom so you can mount it on a wall. It also comes with 2 screws and 2 drywall inserts, so you can mount it on drywall without a trip to the hardware store. The DGS-1008D comes with a 7.5 volts DC, 1000 mA, traditional wire-wrapped transformer. It seems like all D-Link units used to come with a 5 volts DC switching transformer. I like switching transformers because they conserve energy. The only place I wouldn't use a switching transformer is with a radio because of the electrical noise. The traditional wire-wrapped transformers are NOT energy efficient, and consume power as long as they are plugged in and even if the device being powered is turned off. Note that the DGS-1008D does not have an on/off switch, but most similar devices do not have one either

The DGS-1008D is your basic consumer quality switch, and it performs well, except under certain conditions. On an overloaded circuit, every time the copy machine is turned on, the DGS-1008D resets itself as if it were being toggled off and then on. This is BAD because you will lose whatever connection you had at that time. You may also lose data. Putting the DGS-1008D on a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) with voltage regulation does not help. The DGS-1008D cycles off then on every time the copy machine is turned on. This issue is noteworthy because I tested the D-Link DGS 1005D 5-port Gigabit switch, NetGear GS605 5-port Gigabit switch, and D-Link DI-604 100 Mbs router all under the exact same conditions and NONE of these other devices exhibited any problems.

I called D-Link tech support and talked to a sympathetic person who quickly offered me an RMA number. You still need to go to their website with the RMA number and fill out an online form. I don't see why you should have to perform this extra step. D-Link offers to send you a replacement right away if you promise to send in your bad unit. You need a credit card to do this so they can charge you if you fail to turn in your bad unit. You can also elect to mail in the bad unit so they can check it out and then they will mail you a replacement unit which could be a refurb. I chose this latter option because I wanted my unit to be checked out. I received a brand-new replacement unit. Unfortunately the replacement had the same old problem. Apparently, this problem of cycling off then on is an issue of poor design that D-Link will hopefully fix in a later version.

I have come up with my own fix for now. I bought a $20 Radio Shack 273-1667 multi-voltage regulated AC-DC adapter and set it to 7.5 volts, tip positive. I selected the type "M" adapter tip that looks blue, 2.l mm internal diameter, 5.5 mm external diameter. By using the Radio Shack DC adapter instead of the one supplied by D-Link, I have solved the power cycling issue. The only problem now is that the Radio Shack DC adapter is only rated at 800 mA versus 1000 mA for the original D-Link adapter. This means that I won't try to fill up all 8 ports on the DGS-1008D.

Don't buy this unit if your electrical supply is not steady. This includes overloaded electrical circuits and city-wide brown-outs. Even putting the DGS-1008D on a UPS may not help you.