NETGEAR 5 Port Gigabit Ethernet Managed Network Switch
NETGEAR 5 Port Gigabit Ethernet Managed Network Switch (GS305E) – Desktop or Wall Mount, Home Network Hub, Office Ethernet Splitter, Silent Operatio
Easy, Plug-and-Play Setup
Simply plug in your devices. No configuration or software required.
Energy Efficient Design Energy efficient
technology provides power savings for your home.
Trust the Networking Leader
NETGEAR is the brand of choice when it comes to home networking solutions.
 |  |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| # Gigabit Ethernet Ports | 5 x 1G | 5 x 1G | 8 x 1G | 8 x 1G |
| # PoE Ports | —- | —- | —- | —- |
| Management Type | Unmanaged | Plus | Unmanaged | Plus |
| Advanced Network Features | —- | Securely separate networks (VLAN), Prioritize bandwidth (QoS) | —- | Securely separate networks (VLAN), Prioritize bandwidth (QoS) |
| Fanless Housing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mounting Options | Desktop or Wall | Desktop or Wall | Desktop or Wall | Desktop or Wall |
| Weight: | 530 g |
| Dimensions: | 33 x 20 x 4 cm; 530 Grams |
| Brand: | NETGEAR |
| Model: | GS305E-100UKS |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | Netgear |
| Dimensions: | 33 x 20 x 4 cm; 530 Grams |
Super easy to install, and the app is very good too.
Currently im using it to connect my home server to the router and so far i havent see any dips in performance. File trasnferes as well as internet speeds remain incredibly fast and stable just as they would as being connected directly to the router. The only tiny bad thing about this switch that i have noticed is that my ping has increased by 1 – 2 ms which is to be expected but it has no effect on day to day use.
Works as expected. Plugged into a network extender and then into my NAS. It gave me no trouble at all and just worked as expected.
ice and easy to set up and understand. This is my first manages switch since having an unmanaged one for a few devices but it seems to work really well
I originally bought this device in order to help me sort out a problem on my network, and it did, I had an RJ45 cat 5 cable that died. Plus I am now able to add extra internet devices to my network, beyond the 4 that my router is limited to. Apart from that, the Netgear 5 Port Ethernet Switch (GS305E) is extremely easy to use, it is plug and play all the way. However, if you want extra facilities you will have to download and install the Netgear ProSAFE Plus Utility. All in all, this device lives up to it’s promised abilities.
The switch is just plug & play. Great built quality and all the ports are gigabit. Will order another one.
What can be said about a switch as a replacement for a couple of 10 year old daisy chained routers when they just work. The only thing of note is the PSU brick (supplied) runs cold.
Delivery was next day and the switches are plug and play. Netgear do have configuration software but this was not required my my application.
I was looking to do some network diagnostics and this “managed” GS105E has a great facility to mirror ports, so you can get it to copy the traffic going through Port 1 over to port 2, and then plug a laptop running Wireshark into port 2 to see what’s happening to and from port 1.
In a business environment you might use a network “tap” for this but for the home user, spending an extra 5 to get the “E” version of the GS105 / 108 gives you a similar (and excellent) facility.
Netgear switches stand the test of time too. As far as I can determine the main difference between the GS105/108 and 305/308 is the warranty. I’ve never had a Netgear switch fail in my home environment and some have been running continuously for over 10 years.
Recommended
Switches packets really quietly, smoothly and without complaint.
The management options and interface are good too!
RoyalMail could learn a thing or two about packet handling from this
I had a smaller, cheaper hub which worked fine for internet but couldn’t connect to my company VPN network from home. Read up about it and found out i should try a “managed Hub”, so bought this and worked first time. Perfect.
I bought 2 of these, one worked great out of the box, however one for some reason had problems letting me log in to the Web interface. It would load and let me enter a password, bit it would actually let me log in. Couple of resets later and everything worked fine, strange, could just have been me haha.
Great little switch basic management options.
We bought ours for use with Dante and so far they have been solid and have worked with everything we have thrown at them.
Work right out of the box and if you do need to make changes, the menus are easy to navigate and are well laid out.
Moved over from an old TP-Link 100Mbs switch to this one and servers are all up and running on 1000Mbs. Can literally plug and play out of the box, or log in and give it a static IP address on your network and play around with a few setting including VLANs.
Personally, I just need it as a switch – and it works well – It’s also very very well made so great product and I’d recommend.
Honestly I regret not buying the 8 port version instead!
This however is a decent small managed switch I mainly bought to learn and tinker about with VLANs, key advise would be youtube some setup guides as the paper manual was not accurate for me, I learned I had to set a static ip and connect to just the switch to be able to connect to it snd switch its subnet to match my existing networks subnet, still a learning experience atleast :))
Handy for controlling broadcast storms, but not unbreakable.
Basic vlan functionality, unlikely to be used by home users.
Decent web interface and IOS releases.
Only spoiled by some shocking reviews by pretend IT expwrts, who obviously don’t have a clue about IT but can Google .
Ignore them, those with a clue laugh at their hot air (why does it have a MAC…seriously, learn about the OSI model), if you need to attach multiple devices to a router, eliminate the risk of loops, it’s a great priced rock steady little device at a low cost, buy it…oh, and its plug and play if you don’t want to mess with configuration.
This switch is advanced and has more features even paid ones so be sure that you need this level of technology before purchasing!
Other than that its great, it has plenty of ports for all my uses and it is plug and play so you dont need to do any special config if you dont want to. I will be doing extra configuration soon but for now just leaving it to route everything itself.
Virtual LAns can be setup.
You can prioritise certain devices/vlans for better speeds.
You can split out work/children/ adult devices etc.
It is a very comprehensive product and does require time to configure so bear that in mind if you want the most out of it.
Good price, easy to install the hardware (plug and play without management) getting the management tools was more of an effort. Initially Switch discovery tool/ProSafe tool could find the switch but wouldn’t allow access (actually they had the wrong IP address and were giving a default). I was able to solve this by the elite technique of switching everything off and on again. Now have full functionality. Needed to update firmware.
We needed an 8 port switch for all the devices in our snug area and we wanted 1Gb ports for a bit of future proofing.
If you want to just plug it in and go it is fine – I had no issues with any ports – all worked at 100Mb or 1Gb depending on the end device connected to the port.
I did setup a couple of VLANs as our Sky Q box sometimes floods our network. Putting it on a VLAN was simple and again we have had no issues. You can setup 8 VLANs.
Well constructed metal housing – note that the port lights are located on the cable port side of the switch.
Good value simple but quality switch
If all you need are extra LAN ports then the GS308E is terrific. Just plug it into your existing LAN and everything works. If you want to manage the switch (set up vlans etc) you have two options. The App or a simple web interface. For me the Web interface is easiest. The switch will take a local IP address from whatever gives those out on your network and you have to find that address (Angry IP Scanner is the simplest choice for finding that). The switch will be one of the devices which support port 80 (the webserver). Browse to that address, change the default password and off you go. If you don’t know what vlans are you probably shouldn’t be managing the switch, but even if you muck it up, theres a simple reset button. I cannot fault this switch and for the price, it’s a steal. If you need to provide connectivity between vlans then your upstream router needs to be able to do that. (This is after all a Layer 2 switch only). If you need a Netgear product to provide local inter vlan routing (Layer 3), then you need at least a 716 (which is more complicated to set up because it can do a whole lot more.
I’m looking forward to finding a firewall aimed at the home market for people with fibre to the home with a price which recognizes it is for the home !!
It is a nice switch which works well, but having a cheap 12V power supply “plug” attached is its weekness. Power supply broke after under one year – Amazon points to Netgear who insist on using costly telephone line and say they do not replace power supplies. In theory my statutory support should be with Amazon, who is the retailer, so I chatted with one of their Customer Reps (Neelam P), and they replaced the switch. So five stars fro him, but only 4* overall.
I was having issues with steaming apps on one of our televisions in the house hogging all the bandwidth when playing online games.
We have a decent 60/15 connection with a decent ping however, Brit box being the specific app was causing battlefield to loose packets and a huge variable ping. Maybe brit box is coded poorly on our LG TV? Who knows.
Anyway this little beauty solved that as I have hooked it up to my router, plugged the TV into one port and my pc into the other and then used a very useful feature on the Web interface called “rate limit” this limits that particular port to a bandwidth limit of some selective choices. I have it on 8/16.
Its very easy to do so I can amend this on the fly when I want to.
Solved the issue, solved it for 20 that no expensive router could do…looking at you qos!
Setting up is straightforward enough, and if you wanted you could just connect this to your network and do nothing else with it. But if you’re going to do that, I’d strongly recommend you go for a cheaper unmanaged one as you’re basically paying for things you’re not using with this. As I like to keep a close eye on my network setup and plan to extend to using the VLAN functions at some point (mainly to segregate my home automation system), this was pretty much the best solution.
They’re great switches, but they aren’t the easiest to work with. One of the issues I’ve noted is that they don’t grab IP addresses from DHCP quickly enough, so they tend to go with their default IP address, which is 192.168.0.239. I don’t use a subnet which this address falls into, so it’s not a big issue, but if your network does then you may well find you’ve got an address conflict. Not ideal. And if you buy more than one, you could end up with issues. Again, I believe the unmanaged switches don’t have this issue as there’s no need for them to have an IP address, so if you’re not planning on doing anything to these then look for something else.
There is an inbuilt web interface which is used to change the various settings, from the password (hint: change this straight away!), to per-port VLAN, QoS, mirroring and a multitude of other options. The interface looks like it was designed in the mid 1990s, but it’s pretty clean and agile, so it’s not a chore to work with and once set up, you’re probably never going to look at it again. On the downside, it does miss out on some of the enhanced features of its bigger brothers (the ones with 16 or more ports), but a 5 port edge switch is hardly going to be the backbone of a complex network purely because there’s not enough ports, so this shouldn’t be a problem.
The switch is made of metal and is very sturdy. It’s finished in a deep grey colour and looks very understated and unobtrusive, with the sole exception of the oversize Netgear logo on the top. It is fanless, so it is silent in operation and it generates very little heat, being barely warmer than room temperature. It throws network packets around with aplomb and despite being three hops from the router, there’s virtually no slowing down of the data rate.
The only problem I have with this switch is that I should probably have got the 8 port one instead, as I’ve filled this one already. But aside from my own lack of foresight, this was a very worthwhile purchase.
The Netgear switch interface using a Web browser is very simple and easy to use and I can change the rate limit very easily with my phone without interrupting the connection at all. One thing to note is that BT TV won’t work for rate limits under 16Mbps. This switch has been a revelation.