D-Link DGS-1100-24V2 Smart Managed Switch [24x Gigabit Ethernet]

The switch works as soon as you plug it in, and the ports are open by default. The only downside is that the configuration IP address in the manual doesn't match!

I was running out of ports in my 8 port unmanaged switch, I was looking to upgrade to a 24 port switch and was waiting for a sale got this on time. The VLAN is very useful since I have three subnets in my home network, by configuring half of ports to VLANs, I was able to use this this smart switch for all three networks instead of buying more unmanaged switches. I have a pfsense router with the VLAN configuration and this switch works well with that. I had to configure the switch to static with the LAN ip address range first. The D-Link SmartConsole Utility is very useful, if the switch disappear from the network it will find it for you.

I've been buying surplus ethernet switches off auction sites for years (HP, Dell) because I wanted reliability and quality with enterprise features, and I can't afford $1000+ price tags. This is the first switch that meets my needs which I can afford to buy new. It's way easier to use than HP and Dell switches and it runs cool and quiet, plus it probably weighs less than half of those other switches.

I put one of these in two computers for a client, and they have worked so far with no fault. The 8GB is more than enough for pretty much any applications.

I've purchased 3 of these processors in the past month for clients, and all of them have been very pleased with their performance.