Comparison of FS.COM S3900 Series Gigabit Ethernet Switch

Gigabit Ethernet switch is an essential part of communication systems. It is widely used as the access layer switch, which facilitates the connection of end node devices to the network. The Gigabit Ethernet switches on the market mainly differ in port and function. Then which to choose from so many options of Gigabit switches on the market? FS newly launched the S3900 series Gigabit Ethernet switch. It is designed with an advanced feature set that brings high availability, comprehensive security, robust multicast control, and advance QoS to the network edge, while maintaining simple management. Let’s know more about the S3900 series Gigabit Ethernet switch.

FS.COM S3900 Series Gigabit Ethernet Switch Introduction

FS.COM S3900 series Gigabit Ethernet switch is advanced layer 2 plus (layer 3 Lite) Gigabit managed stackable switch with 10G uplinks, which can satisfy the demand for the future network upgrade. The S3900 series switches are the ideal Gigabit access and aggregation switch for SMB, enterprise, and campus networks. The S3900 series of switches are equipped with 24/48 ports, copper/SFP ports. All of S3900 series switches are managed stackable switches. The most distinctive characters of the S3900 series switch are listed below.

Performance and Scalability

FS.COM S3900 series Gigabit Ethernet switch has the switching capacity up to 128Gbps/176Gbps. It delivers wire-speed switching performance on all Gigabit ports and takes full advantage of existing high-performance Gigabit CPEs, PCs, 11n/ac Wi-Fi applications, etc. Besides, it significantly improves the responsiveness of applications and shortens file transfer time. Moreover, the 4 built-in 10G SFP+ ports provide uplink flexibility, and create 10 Gbps high-speed uplinks to 10 GbE switch or device through the connection of 10G SFP+ transceivers or 10G SFP+ DACs, thus reduce bottlenecks and increase the performance of the access network. Except for the 10G uplinks, S3900 stackable switches also have the potentiality of adding extra available ports in the future. Besides, the stackable switches which are stacked together can be managed as an entity, thus save the time and energy when you manage the stackable switches.

Reliability and Energy Efficiency

The design of the S3900 series incorporates high energy efficiency which can greatly expand your network capacity with much less power. The fanless design of S3900-24T4S ensures noiseless operation without disturbing your family or your staff and increases the reliability of the system. The S3900 series switch is an eco-friendly solution for your family and business network.

Robust Multicast Control

The S3900 switch is equipped with IGMP snooping technique which prevents the flooding of multicast traffic. The multicast traffic is forwarded to only those ports associated with an IP multicast receiver. Thus the technique reduces unnecessary load on host devices.

Superior Management

With industry-standard command-line interface (CLI) program, which is accessed through the console port or telnet, the S3900 series Gigabit switch provides superior management user experience. Besides, user-friendly web interface helps users to quickly and simply configure switches.

Continuous Availability

FS.COM S3900 series switch contains STP protocols. IEEE 802.1w rapid spanning tree protocol provides a loop-free network and redundant links. IEEE 802.1s multiple spanning tree protocol runs STP per VLAN base, providing layer 2 load sharing on redundant links up to 64 instances. The STP protocols prevent bridge loops and the broadcast radiation and also allow a network design to include backup links to provide fault tolerance if an active link fails.

Comparison of FS.COM S3900 Series Gigabit Ethernet Switch

The following chart shows the details of the three types S3900 Gigabit Ethernet switch. You can choose from them according to your actual needs.

Switch Type
S3900-24T4S
S3900-24F4S
S3900-48T4S
Ports
24 10/100/1000BASE-T, 4 SFP+ uplinks
24 SFP with 4 combo SFP, 4 SFP+ uplinks
48 10/100/1000BASE-T, 4 SFP+ uplinks
Switch Class
Layer 2+ (Layer 3 Lite)
Layer 2+ (Layer 3 Lite)
Layer 2+ (Layer 3 Lite)
MAC Address Table
16K
16K
16K
Jumbo Frames
9KB
9KB
9KB
Flash Memory
64MB
64MB
64MB
Stacking
Yes
Yes
Yes
Switch Chip
BCM56150
BCM56151
BCM56150
Switching Capacity
128Gbps
128Gbps
176Gbps
Forwarding Rate
95Mpps
95Mpps
130Mpps
Input Power
100-240V AC, 50/60 Hz
100-240V AC, 50/60 Hz
100-240V AC, 50/60 Hz
Max Power Consumption
21W
43W
45W
With Fan or Fanless
Fanless
With Fan
With Fan
Price
US$ 280
US$ 400
US$ 410

Which to Choose Among S3900 Series Gigabit Ethernet Switch?

When it comes to choosing from FS.COM S3900 Gigabit Ethernet switch, you need to consider the number and type of ports you need and whether the switch is fanless or with fans.

What are the Port Type and Port Number You Need?

FS.COM S3900 series Gigabit Ethernet switches offer three different port combination options, which can be chosen according to your network demands.

If you need 24 port Gigabit switch, both S3900-24T4S switch with 24 10/100/1000BASE-T ports and S3900-24F4S switch with 24 SFP ports are within the scope of consideration. If cost, backward compatibility with legacy copper cabling networks, power consumption are important for you, S3900-24T4S switch is the better choice. If you prefer lower latency and switches with combo SFP ports then you could consider S3900-24F4S switch with 24 SFP ports which contain 4 combo ports. Besides, compared with S3900-24T4S switch with copper ports, S3900-24F4S switch which is connected with SFP fiber optic transceivers modules & fiber patch cables is more suitable for long-distance transmission of 550m to 150km.

If the network devices you are going to connect are of large amount, and you have a relatively big network, then you need to choose a switch with more than 24 ports. The S3900-48T4S switch with 48 10/100/1000BASE-T ports can satisfy your demand. It has the switching capacity of 176Gbps, which is the largest among the S3900 series switches.

Fanless Switch or Switch With Fan?

If you are planning to use the switch in quiet space, like offices, home, shops, libraries, hospitals or clinics where noise can be an issue, FS.COM S3900-24T4S fanless switch is recommended. Fanless switches are equipped with a passive cooling system, which has the advantage of energy efficiency and lower financial cost. The switches with fans are mostly deployed in data centers which have separate data center rooms. While fanless switches are more suitable for small businesses, people working at home, and places where silence is needed.

FS.COM S3900-24T4S fanless Gigabit Ethernet switch

Figure 1: FS.COM S3900-24T4S fanless Gigabit Ethernet switch

Summary

FS.COM S3900 Series Gigabit Ethernet switch has high availability, comprehensive security, robust multicast control, and advanced QoS. The article extensively discussed why you choose the S3900 series and how to choose the most suited switch for your network among the S3900 series. If you want to purchase FS.COM S3900 series Gigabit Ethernet switches or other network switch such as 10GbE switch, 40GbE switch and 100GbE switch, please contact us at sales@fs.com.

What Is a Computer Switch?

The computer switch though has long existed in the market, few people can speak on it with great familiarity. As the network expands, the computer switch grows more sophisticated and diversified. This post sheds light on the computer switch from its definition, working principle and types.

What Is a Computer Switch?

A computer switch is an Ethernet switch in nature. It is a small hardware device that links multiple PCs, printers, assess points, phones, lights and servers together within one local area network, wide area network and different network topology. Each device connected to the switch is automatically connected to and can communicate with other connected devices, as the switch is essentially designed for information exchange. So if you hook up your cable modem to a router, then connect the router to a switch, all devices plugged into the switch can access the Internet, send and receive information and approach shared resources in a smooth, highly secure, and transparent manner.

computer switch

How Does a Computer Switch Work?

The computer switch doesn’t exchange information randomly but follow the specific instructions—the MAC addresses of every device. The IP packet arrives at the correct destination with the aid of the frame using MAC addresses of destination and source. It is the computer switch that shoulders the responsibility to complete process as follows.

  • Learning – The switch learns the MAC address of the device on the switch port on which it receives the frame.
  • Forwarding – The switch forwards message in either unicast or broadcast way. That depends on whether the destination MAC is known for sure or unknown.
  • Filtering – The frame will be forwarded through that switch port only for which the switch has already learned the MAC address in its MAC table.

Common Types of Computer Switch

There are different types of computer switches available in the market. Each has different features and functions. Here introduces four common computer switches: unmanaged switch, managed switch, PoE switch and stackable switch.

UNMANAGED COMPUTER SWITCH

Unmanaged switches are typically for basic connectivity. The unmanaged network switch is common to see in our home networks or wherever a few more ports are needed, such as at your desk, in a lab, or in a conference room. It is simply a plug-and-play device that requires no configuration. The gigabit Ethernet switch in your families are mostly the unmanaged switch.

MANAGED COMPUTER SWITCH

Managed switches are more advanced as they give you greater security and more features and flexibility. With this greater control, you can better protect your network and improve the quality of service for those who access the network. These can be achieved by setting a simple network management protocol or SNMP. Faster switches like 10 gigabit switch, 40 gigabit switch, 100 gigabit switch, etc are commonly working as managed switch.

PoE COMPUTER SWITCH

Power over Ethernet (PoE) switch is a network switch that has utilizes Power over Ethernet technology. When connected with other devices, it can support power and data transmission over one network cable at the same time, which greatly simplifies the cabling process. FS offers PoE switches with different port numbers, ranging from 8-port, 24-port to 48-port.

STACKABLE COMPUTER SWITCH

In the large data center, there may be many network applications and also many network switches. It poses great difficulty and triviality to the user to set and maintain each switch. Given this, stackable computer switch rises above the crowd. It enables multiple switches (usually four switches) to work as an individual unit in order to simplify the management, troubleshoot and configuration. This kind of switch can also work standalone switch.

computer switch type: stackable switch

Conclusion

The computer switch is indeed one of the important components of your networking infrastructure. FS offers plenty of fiber switches, PoE switches, or Ethernet-based switches with different port speeds. These switches are great in terms of sales, performance, and quality. To find the right computer switch, turn to our website www.fs.com and consult our expert staff if you have any questions.

NAT: Why Do We Need It?

NAT, which is critical to the IPv4 networks we still use today, has been hotly debated as the IPv6 grows with more addresses. However, since the IPv6 is not full-fledged, the existence of NAT still makes sense. Here I will introduce NAT definition and figure how NAT works and why we need it.

What Is NAT?

NAT, known as network address translation, is the method adopted by a firewall or router to assign the public addresses to the devices work in the a private network.

It translates the private IPv4 addresses we use in our internal networks into public IPv4 addresses that can be routed over the internet. As we all know, the private addresses may be occupied by connected local service—computers, game consoles, phones, fiber switches etc. to communicate with the modem/router and other devices on the same network. However, the home network connection uses a single public IP address to access the internet. Given this, NAT is responsible for translating the IP address of every device connected to a router into a public IP address at the gateway. Then those devices can connect to the internet.

NAT(network address translation)

NAT: Why We Need?

Assume that you have 3 PCs, a gigabit Ethernet switch which connects 6 PCs, a 10 gigabit switch connecting 6PCs and one smart phone, two ipads and all of them need to work at the same time, then you need to get each of them an IP address accessible to the Internet. But due to a lack of IPv4 IP address space, it is hard to handle the massive number of devices we use every day. Well, the network address translation, proposed in 1994, has become a popular and necessary tool in the face of IPv4 address exhaustion by representing all internal devices as a whole with a same public address available. Together with its extension named port address translation, the network address translation can conserve IP addresses.

Safety, another issue we may concern when accessing the external internet, can partly be addressed by network address translation which servers as a strict controller of accessing to resources on both sides on the firewall. The hackers from outside cannot directly attack the internal network while the internal information cannot access the outside world casually.

How Does NAT Work

A router carrying NAT consists of pairs of local IP addresses and globally unique addresses, by translating the local IP addresses to global address for outgoing traffic and vice versa for incoming traffic. All these are done by rewriting the headers of data packets so that they have the correct IP address to reach the proper destination.

There are generally two types of NAT: dynamic and static.

In dynamic NAT, we map inside local addresses in internal network to global addresses so that they can access resources on the internet. The router responds to the hosts who want to access the internet with an available public IPv4 address so that they can access the internet.

In static NAT, we usually map an internal local address to a global address so that hosts on public networks can access a device in the internal network.

Conclusion

In a word, before the full transition of IPv6, NAT can guarantee the smooth internet surfing no matter how many devices you’ve got. Knowing what it is and how it works with network address will help you establish a clear understanding of it so that you can make good use if it.