TRENDnet 24-port 10/100Mbps TE100-s24g GREENnet switch

Lean, mean, green machine:

Whats big fast and green? No, its not some new super hero, but a it is a super switch. More specifically a new 24 port green switch. While the color itself is black the new TE100-S24g switch from TRENDnet utilizes “GREENnet” technology to reduce power consumption by up to 40% couple this with a huge set of 24 ports and you have quite possibly the meanest green switch in town. Join me while I review this new 10/100 24 port green switch from TRENDnet.

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TRENDnet‘s TE100-s24g 24-port green switch.

I will be testing data transfer to multiple PC’s to determine maximum transfer rate. I will be using passmark’s network benchmark utility which will provide a steady network stream without being limited by CPU usage thus giving a more realistic benchmark of the switch.

Before we get into the meat and potato’s of this review lets take a moment to go over the actual switch itself.

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A closer look:

The front of the box as you would see it on a retail shelf.

The bottom of the box contains the full list of specifications that this switch supports. I have posted this info later in the review.

Additional information:

The TE100-S24g was built to meet increasing demands for lower power networking devices. It stands to reason the more power your server components draw then the more heat that will likely be produced. The switch itself draws a maximum under a full 24 port load 6.5 watts if you used this 24 hours a day every day you will use a total of 56.979 KWH per year, In my area I am paying about 7 cents per KWH this means my yearly cost would be about 4 dollars. which

Back of the box has a networking diagram and a brief marketing spat.

A closer look at the diagram on the back.

Overall the box comes with what you would expect from a current switch with one additional exception which is only used when rack mounting the switch. The switch comes with the side mounts and screws to mount it in a rack. Other than that the switch comes much as you would expect, inside the box you get the TE100-s24g switch, Power cable, rack brackets for rack mounting, and the manual.

First opening, the unit is wrapped in light blue plastic and secured with Styrofoam

Standards	IEEE 802.3 10Base-T IEEE 802.3u 100Base-TX IEEE 802.3x Flow Control
Network Media – Also standard networking media though cat 5e and Cat 6 are also used for 100/1000 network switches.	Ethernet: UTP/STP Cat. 3, 4, 5 up to 100m Fast Ethernet: UTP/STP Cat. 5, 5e, 6 up to 100m
Data Rate – Also standard for a 10/100 switch.	Ethernet: 10Mbps/20Mbps (half/full-duplex) Fast Ethernet: 100Mbps/200Mbps (half/full-duplex)
Protocol / Topology – standard network support	CSMA/CD, Star
Power Consumption	6.5 watts (max.)
Switch Fabric – The number of packets per second that a device can be observed to transmit successfully to the correct egress interface in response to a specified offered load while the device drops none of the offered packets	4.8Gbps forwarding capacity
Interface – standard ethernet ports	24 x 10/100Mbps Auto-MDIX RJ-45 ports
RAM Data Buffer – smooths the transfer between multiple connections to ensure steady transfer	1.25Mbits
Diagnostic LED – standard green/amber for status changes	Power, Link/ACT, 100Mbps
Power – Pretty standard power supply	100~240VAC, 50~60Hz, 0.4A Internal Power Supply
Dimension	440 x 140 x 44mm (17.3 x 5.5 x 1.7 in.)
Weight	1.86kg (4.1lb)
Temperature- Pretty standard operating temperature	Operating: 0° ~ 40° C (32° ~ 104° F) Storage: -10° ~ 70° C (14° ~ 158° F)
Humidity	Operating: 10% ~ 90% (Non-Condensing) Storage: 5% ~ 90% (Non-Condensing)
Certifications – meets EU and US health or environmental requirements	CE, FCC

All the accessories

(left to right:) Manual, power cable, screws, rack mounting brackets

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Benchmark Testing and Analysis:

As I stated earlier in the review to test the switch I will be using passmark’s network benchmark utility which will provide a steady network stream without being limited by CPU usage thus giving a more realistic benchmark of the switch. The machines performing this test all have Gigabit network cards and are forced into full duplex mode.

For testing purposes the switch was mounted along side our dual quad-core Xeon server in our mobile server rack used for lan parties.

Dual quad-core Xeon server and TRENDnet TE100-s24g mounted in our mobile rack

testing was done more as a stress test utilizing 10 machines connected to each other with passmark’s network benchmark utility each test was kicked off over a 120 second duration with a total of 1.35 gigabytes of data transferred between each machine pair. As I stated before all machines were utilizing Gigabit network cards set in full duplex mode which should ensure that the bottle neck would be the switch.

During the test CPU load averaged around 15-24% which is not that surprising as the test floods the pipes what was surprising is that we only really averaged about 93-96 Mbps ( note that the switch should be at 100Mbps) In all honesty its not surprising we didn’t actually get 100 and overall is pretty good as you normally don’t max out the pipe unless your under uber ideal conditions.

As you can see from the graph the data received and the average were pretty much spot on equal which shows that there was no real changes to the data packets and there were no dropped packets which would have been marked in green.

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Summary and Conclusion:

Overall I liked the TE100-s24g switch at first glance its not really anything special. Once you get some hands on time with the switch you will find that the build quality actually quite good, the switch feels solid and coupled with a clean interface made it a winner in my book. I really liked the prospect of a very cheap operating cost at 4 dollars a year for a residential customer this was an awesome prospect. One of the other things I really liked was the usage of a typical grounded power plug, the same kind of plug that would be used for a standard power supply. I was mildly disappointed to find that my short distance test (+/- 10ft) still didn’t manage to get to the elusive 100Mbps though I understand that its more of a maximum possible speed not the standard operating speed. As for flaws, I really don’t have any the switch was very well designed and well thought out. The TRENDnet TE100-s24g at the time of this writing retails for about $89(USD) which is about average for this type of switch. Due to my overall experience using this switch I will be giving it the approved hardware award, it is definitely a switch I would recommend to anyone who is looking for a 24 port 10/100 switch as its good build quality as well as the decent transfer rates in our benchmark.