Best Small Home Switches to Deliver Wired Internet

November 2, 2020 Matt Mills Editor's Pick, Hardware 0

In new constructions, both flats, townhouses or chalets, the most normal thing is that all rooms have female RJ-45 network sockets, to connect equipment via cable, such as a computer, a Smart TV or directly a Wi-Fi access point. Fi. At the entrance of the house is where we will have all the network cables connected to a passive splitter that we must replace with an Ethernet switch, to provide all these sockets with Internet connection. Today in this article we are going to recommend the best switches to place them right here, at the entrance of the house where all the cables are, the most important requirement is that the equipment must be small.

If any of you have bought a new home, or have gone to the house of someone who has, you will have noticed that it has RJ-45 twisted-pair Ethernet network sockets in all rooms and rooms of the house, that is, we have network sockets in kitchen, living room and also in all rooms. If your house has a cellar or attic, in these two rooms you will also have connectivity. If you have been lucky enough to buy your home off-plan, you may have been offered the possibility of increasing the number of network connections per room, for a unit price per additional connection. The normal thing is that they have installed an RJ-45 network socket in each room, and two network sockets in the living room.

Best Small Home Switches

This means that in a house with two bedrooms, we have a total of 5 network outlets (kitchen, two outlets in the living room, and one outlet in each of the two bedrooms), so the four Gigabit Ethernet ports that usually have routers, makes it clearly insufficient to connect all network sockets. In this case, we will need a 5-port switch at least, in case of having a larger house with more rooms, you may need an 8-port switch to connect all the network sockets. Taking into account that we need switches between 5 and 8 ports, we are going to make a list of the best 5-port Gigabit switches and the best 8-port Gigabit switches, to buy the one that best suits your needs.

An important aspect of the switches is the support for IGMP Snooping. If you have an Internet operator like Movistar, and you have contracted the TV with Movistar TV, you will need a switch that incorporates the IGMP Snooping functionality. Nowadays, we can find unmanageable switches that come with IGMP Snooping activated by default, something very important to properly handle multicast traffic.

Small 5-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switches

The following switches that we will see below, have a very small size so that they fit without problems in the entrance of our house where all the wiring is, in addition, some of these 5-port switches that we recommend are manageable, and even some of them they incorporate PoE to power Wi-Fi access points or IP cameras. All the switches have in common that they are fanless, that is, they have passive cooling so they are totally silent.

D-Link DGS-105

This D-Link DGS-105 switch is one of the cheapest and complete to place in your new home, it is a non-manageable switch with 5 Gigabit ports that incorporates IGMP Snooping. If you don’t need a lot of Ethernet ports, this model is one of the best you can buy. We recommend you visit our analysis of the D-Link DGS-105 where you will find all the technical details and the real performance.

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 5
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: yes
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • Has PoE: no
  • Size: 100 x 98 x 28mm
  • Weight: 286 grams

D-Link DGS-1005P

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 5
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: no
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • It has PoE: yes, it has 4 ports with PoE + at 30W per port, with a PoE Budget of 60W maximum.
  • Size: 100 x 98 x 28mm
  • Weight: 0.2 Kg

D-Link DGS-1100-05

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 5
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: yes
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • It’s manageable: yes, lots of L2 features, VLANs, Link Aggregation and much more.
  • Has PoE: no
  • Size: 100 x 98 x 28mm
  • Weight: 0.2 Kg

NETGEAR GS305

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 5
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: no
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • Has PoE: no
  • Size: 101 x 94 x 29mm
  • Weight: 0.24 Kg

NETGEAR GS305P

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 5
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: no
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • It has PoE: yes, it has 4 ports with PoE at 15W per port, with a PoE Budget of 55W maximum.
  • Size: 158 x 101 x 29mm
  • Weight: 0.41 Kg

NETGEAR GS305E

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 5
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: yes
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • It is manageable: yes, it supports VLANs, QoS, bandwidth limiter per port and more.
  • Has PoE: no
  • Size: 158 x 101 x 29mm
  • Weight: 0.5 Kg

TP-Link TL-SG105

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 5
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: yes
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • Has PoE: no
  • Size: 99.8 x 98 x 25mm
  • Weight: N / A

TP-Link LS105G

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 5
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: no
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • Has PoE: no
  • Size: 99.8 x 98 x 25mm
  • Weight: N / A

TP-Link LS1005G

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 5
  • Housing: plastic
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: no
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • Has PoE: no
  • Size: 90 × 72 × 23mm
  • Weight: N / A

TP-Link TL-SG1005P

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 5
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: no
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • It has PoE: yes, it has 4 ports with PoE at 15W per port, with a PoE Budget of 55W maximum.
  • Size: 99.8 x 98 x 25mm
  • Weight: N / A

Small 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switches

These switches are somewhat larger (wider than the previous ones) because we have three more Gigabit Ethernet ports, however, it will fit without problems in the entrance of our house where all the wiring is, in addition, some of these 8-inch switches Ports that we recommend are manageable, and some of them even incorporate PoE to power Wi-Fi access points or IP cameras in our house.

D-Link DGS-108

This D-Link DGS-108 switch is the 8-port version of DGS-105, we have exactly the same technical characteristics, same performance, it also supports IGMP Snooping, and it is one of the best models you can buy if you need a switch with many Ethernet network ports for home.

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 8
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: yes
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • Has PoE: no
  • Size: 162 x 102 x 28mm
  • Weight: 440 grams

D-Link DGS-1008P

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 8
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: no
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • It has PoE: yes, it has 4 ports with PoE + at 30W per port, with a PoE Budget of 68W maximum.
  • Size: 190mm x 120mm x 38mm
  • Weight: 0.59 Kg

D-Link DGS-1100-08

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 8
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: yes
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • It’s manageable: yes, lots of L2 features, VLANs, Link Aggregation and much more.
  • Has PoE: no
  • Size: 14.5 x 8.2 x 2.8 cm
  • Weight: 0.34 Kg

D-Link DGS-1100-08P

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 8
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: yes
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • It’s manageable: yes, lots of L2 features, VLANs, Link Aggregation and much more.
  • It has PoE: yes, it has 4 ports with PoE + at 30W per port, with a PoE Budget of 68W maximum.
  • Size: 190mm x 120mm x 38mm
  • Weight: 0.59 Kg

NETGEAR GS608

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 8
  • Housing: plastic
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: no
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • Has PoE: no
  • Size: 165 x 93 x 30mm
  • Weight: 0.16 Kg

NETGEAR GS308

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 8
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: no
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • Has PoE: no
  • Size: 158 x 101 x 26mm
  • Weight: 0.38 Kg

NETGEAR GS308P

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 8
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: no
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • It has PoE: yes, it has 4 ports with PoE at 15W per port, with a PoE Budget of 53W maximum.
  • Size: 158 x 101 x 29mm
  • Weight: 0.46 Kg

NETGEAR GS308E

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 8
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: yes
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • It is manageable: yes, it supports VLANs, QoS, bandwidth limiter per port and more.
  • Has PoE: no
  • Size: 158 x 101 x 29mm
  • Weight: 0.5 Kg

TP-Link TL-SG108

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 8
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: yes
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • Has PoE: no
  • Size: 158 x 101 x 25mm
  • Weight: N / A

TP-Link LS108G

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 8
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: no
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • Has PoE: no
  • Size: 158 x 99.1x 25mm
  • Weight: N / A

TP-Link LS1008G

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 8
  • Housing: plastic
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: no
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • Has PoE: no
  • Size: 127 × 66.5 × 23mm
  • Weight: N / A

TP-Link TL-SG1008P

  • Number of Gigabit Ethernet ports: 8
  • Housing: metal
  • Supports IGMP Snooping: no
  • IEEE 802.1p QoS: yes
  • Is it manageable: no
  • It has PoE: yes, it has 4 ports with PoE at 15W per port, with a PoE Budget of 55W maximum.
  • Size: 171 x 98 x 27mm
  • Weight: N / A

As you have seen, we have a wide variety of switches to buy the one that best suits our needs, although most are unmanageable, there are some models that are to provide you with a greater number of configuration options.