Netgear FE508 Installation Guide - Page 10

Installation Guide for the Model FS508 Fast Ethernet Switch Ethernet switches provide private, dedicated, 10 Mbps (or 100 Mbps) capacity to each connected PC/server or hub/workgroup segment, which is significantly higher than in a shared environment. The higher bandwidth enables applications such as multimedia, imaging, video, or highperformance client-server functions among users who are spread out over the network. This improvement is accomplished very easily, with no change to the desktop (the network interface cards or software and the network wiring). As a result, the performance upgrade and the applications it enables are obtained very quickly and at a low cost. Types of Ethernet Switches Ethernet switches can be classified in different ways-as desktop switches or as segment switches. A desktop switch is designed to support one or a few PCs per port. It is generally used when the individuals need the full 10 Mbps network throughput to support the applications. Often, these switches support only a single MAC (media access control) address per port, have high-speed 100 Mbps ports to connect to fast servers, and are relatively inexpensive compared to a segment switch. A segment switch, in contrast, is designed to support an entire workgroup on each port, with each port having significant memory buffering and supporting thousands of MAC addresses. Switches can also be classified by speed. As the name suggests, 10 Mbps switches support only 10 Mbps connections. Similarly, 100 Mbps switches support only 100 Mbps connections. Usually, 10/100 Mbps switches have primarily 10 Mbps ports with one or few 100 Mbps ports. Autosensing 10/100 Mbps switches support 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps connections on each port and are the most versatile and adaptive type of switches. Model FS508 Switch Overview The Model FS508 switch is an autosensing 10/100 Mbps switch. This feature-rich switch is developed primarily to be used as a segment switch, even though it is priced as a desktop switch. All eight ports on the Model FS508 switch can adapt automatically to the speed of the connected network or the PC, and the ports can operate at either 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps. In addition, each port can automatically negotiate with the connected device to operate in full-duplex mode. If the connected device is operating at half-duplex mode only or does not have the capability to participate in the negotiation process, the port will default to half-duplex mode. A manual override duplex toggle switch is also provided to force any particular port to operate in full-duplex mode. 1-2 Introduction