18 Aug 2009

D-Link DGS-1005D "Green"

Previously I was using a NetGear JGS524 switch (24 Gigabit ethernet ports) which was doing a good job for my small home network but was a bit noisy.

So I went to my local store and bought a D-Link DGS-1005D "Green" (5 gigabit ethernet ports, fanless, said to be eco-friendly).

Eco-friendly?

First, the package. At the same time I bought this switch I also bought a D-Link modem, same size, not green. Both were provided in boxes with mostly the same content but the switch's box was smaller, with less "materials". So yes, the packaging is a bit greener.

The switch materials: no idea. I don't know what kind of plastic was used but it looks similar to the modem one. No more clue on the electronic parts. The power adapter is smaller than the modem one. Anyway, electronic devices in general are very energy greedy to build.

The D-Link switch is able to reduce power consumption on a port if nothing is plugged in (or if the connected device is powered off), the switch is also able to adjust the power on a port depending on cable length (plugging a 1 meter ethernet cable should consume less than a 100 meters one).

My "old" NetGear was consuming about 13 W while doing nothing (no ports connected), on constructor's website it says to consume up to 40 W (under full load I presume).

The D-Link DGS-1005D consume 1.1 W with a bit of traffic (0 W with nothing connected to it (my watt-meter is not really done to measure power below 1 W).

So yes, it consume much less than my previous switch, but I wonder how much other small switches like this one consume.

Functional?

The question here is mostly: is it working? Well… I'm not really sure. I usually listen music streamed from my server to my MacBook, it looks like that from time to time, since I'm using this switch, iTunes stops the music and displays a "buffering" message (before resuming when data are back). At some point I was not able to backup the MacBook with TimeMachine, it failed with a network error.

To be sure about that I plugged back my NetGear switch. Same problems, but less often… (I have changed too many things in my home network recently and it looks like I have things to fix).