Today we are venturing back out into the world of networking with a review of the TRENDnet TEG-S762 6-port multi-gig switch. TRENDnet was founded in Southern California in 1990 and has gone from strength to strength in networking and surveillance products. Their unmanaged switches are great for homes or small offices. The TEG-S762 is available on Amazon (UK) and Amazon (US). Retailing for approximately £120 / $124 it could be considered a cost-effective LAN upgrade. Let us take a closer look to see if price equals performance.
SPECIFICATION
- 4 x 2.5G RJ45 ports
- 2 x 10G RJ-45 ports
- Wall mountable
- 60Gbps Switching Capacity
- Fanless design for silent operation
- NDAA / TAA compliant
- Supports CAT5E cabling or better (CAT6 recommended)
- Dimensions: 160 x 110 x 26mm
- Weight: 0.5kg
TEG-S762 SWITCH PACKAGING AND ACCESSORIES
The top of the packaging consists of a smart Blue and Black colour scheme with an image of the switch clearly represented. The specification is briefly touched upon with a mention to both the 2.5G and 10G ports, as well as mentioning the fanless design.
Looking at the rear of the box, the specification is listed in more detail, in multiple languages, which is a nice touch if your primary language isn’t English. There are more mentions to the fanless design as well as touching on those 2.5G and 10G ports again. A few fancy graphics help keep the aesthetic of the packaging clean and user-friendly.
Inside the packaging, you can see the switch is well-protected by the inner cardboard and plastic wrap. But there is a 12V, 1A barrel-style connector (similar to most routers and home switches) as well as an instruction manual/safety note.
CLOSER LOOK
So now we have the switch unboxed, it’s time to have a closer look at what it can do. Ports 1-4 are 2.5Gbps ports and ports 5 and 6 are for 10Gb connectivity. However, all ports can be used for 2.5Gb and 1Gb connectivity. If you’re planning on 2.5Gb or higher, then I’d recommend you look at getting some CAT6 cabling (Cat5E is supported but as the price difference is negligible, we’d always recommend getting the better cable specification.)
On the front of the switch are LED ports which indicate what speed your devices are connected at, be it gig, 2.5Gb or 10Gb connectivity. These LEDs are small and low impact, so if this is going in an office or living space, it isn’t going to be lit up like a Christmas tree. Green equals 2.5G connectivity, Orange means you are connecting at 100 or 1000Mb and the LED flashes when activity is detected on the port.
The power connector sits on the left-hand side, I prefer when these are at the back of a device, however, a lot of manufacturers place them at the front. I just feel that if it was at the back, it would help more with cable management (which I am terrible at).
See what I mean, if you’re looking at this head-on, it can start getting untidy real quick, but given the fanless, wall-mountable design, there are plenty of ways to tidy it up and make it look a lot nicer. This is more of a user issue, rather than a design issue.
We did a test with ports 5+6 and can confirm they did negotiate down to 2.5GbE, in line with the equipment that we currently use in the office. It’s nice to see an unmanaged switch that supports all 3 speeds.
Given that this is a fanless switch, it felt only natural to take the cover off and look at the passive cooling. There are 2 heatsinks on the board to help with any heat dissipation. So cooling or overheating isn’t going to be an issue. The case has grills around all 4 sides so it’s a well-thought-out design. My only criticism is that the metal case seemed to attract dust quite easily. But this will naturally show more on Black objects (think of how much a Black car would show dust and dirt etc).
However under normal circumstances, there is no need to remove the cover, this was only done for us to show you the internals. Please be warned that capacitors can still carry a charge, even when a device is powered off. So be careful if you plan on dismantling or cleaning any form of electronic device.
So onto the test that we could do, was to run iPerf (We opted for JPerf to be able to show you a visual illustration) and boy, did this switch hold up absolutely fine. We utilized jPerf to continually send data through the switch over multiple tests.
As you can see the switch continually handled and processed at 283 MBytes per second (on par with devices that are connected at 2.5GbE). We ran this test for 10 minutes and it didn’t stop below the 283 Mbytes at all. As you can also see no jitter or latency was recorded. So this switch does exactly what it says it does. We repeated this test over different durations and the results were the same. We didn’t notice any noticeable increase in temperature either.
We could only test up to 2.5GbE as my office is currently only set up for 2.5GbE, but just for completeness, if you had a 10GbE device connected, you could expect speeds of approximately 1250 Mbytes per second. It’s important to think about as well, with 10GbE, whether you would benefit from SFP ports, like on the TEG-S562. We’ll try and cover this more in a future review. If you’re going to be using this for a home or small office, then 10GbE works fine over ethernet. But if you are going to be moving large amounts of data continuously or over a large distance, then think about going for SFP alternatives.
Given that this is an unmanaged switch, there are no management capabilities, POE or VLAN options. So when upgrading your network, you need to give some forethought to what your requirements are. As well as the capabilities of the devices you are connecting. 2.5GbE is fast becoming the new standard on a lot of motherboards, NAS devices and servers. TRENDnet has a plethora of devices available depending on your requirements.
FINAL WORDS
VALUE
Okay, so there aren’t many competitors to this particular model, the closest being the QNAP QSW-2104-2T which is almost identical (but larger chassis). The TRENDnet TEG-S762 comes in at nearly £40 cheaper for the almost identical specification. You’re getting a switch that is ready for the here and now, but offers some futureproofing with the two 10GbE ports.
DESIGN & PEFORMANCE
It looks great, the LEDs aren’t obtrusive like some switches can be, it’s going to fit well into any environment and the fanless design means you can install and forget all about it. The only downside with the LEDs being on the smaller side, it can be hard to keep an eye on what speeds the ports are connected at. To be honest I prefer how discrete it looks. It would even work in a bedroom or home office and you don’t have to worry about the endless flashing or illumination keeping you or the children awake.
We have decided to award the TEG-S762 the EnosTech value award as it’s a great value-for-money device for any small network upgrade.
We would like to thank TRENDnet for sending in the TEG-S762 switch in for review, and we look forward to working with them again in the future.
