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47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A solid hub, but 10 Mbps is too limiting today., September 24, 2000
Our office used to use a handful of the EN-104 4-port hubs and some of the EN-108 (the 8-port version of the same product).As 10 Mbps hubs go, the EN-104's are really nice. The quality of NetGear equipment has always impressed me: - Nice sturdy metal construction instead of plastic. - Status indicators built into the jacks, so you can easily tell which cable is connected and is active. - Right-angled barrel power connector which reduce the likelihood of disconnecting power accidentally. - With an easy-to-access switch, Port 1 toggles between station mode and uplink mode. Unlike some hubs where two jacks are wired together, this design prevents accidentally shorting a station to an uplink. - Screw-mount notches on the underside allows for easy attachment to the wall, underside of a counter, etc. If you want to set up a network without spending much, these hubs work well. However, I suggest you buy a 10/100 Mbps hub instead. Here's why: Practically all new networkable devices today support 100 Mbps (FastEthernet) as well as 10 Mbps (Ethernet). The EN-104 hub (and other 10 Mbps hubs) will limit you to the slower speed. As 10/100 Mbps hubs are readily available today, and are quite affordable, I think your money is better spent on the faster hub. Is there a noticeable difference between 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps? It depends on your usage, but if you regularly work with files larger than about 300 KBytes or larger, you'll notice a tangible difference. For truly large files (like graphics/movies, or when installing an application via a network drive), a 10 second transfer at 100 Mbps will take well over a minute at 10 Mbps. If the NetGear 10/100 hub (DS-104) is a bit too pricey for you, you might consider the Linksys EFAH05W 10/100 hub. Though not as "nice" as NetGear equipment, the Linksys 10/100 hub is only a few dollars more than this NetGear 10 Mbps hub.
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