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The unit is configured 4X4 which is a good average size for home or small business applications.
Also it improved my Internet speed on all my PC's. Many other brands are so big they would have needed to mount elsewhere with 6 ft cables or longer. After running out of ports on my Netgear 4 Port 10 Mbs that has been a solid performer for 10 years. It is still small and compact enough to mount it inside my phone company's cabinet in the basement so the connections from the router to it, and to my built in home lines only need 12" Cat 5 cables. What a mess that would have been. There was no doubt in my choice for an upgrade. Not only did it improve my ability to move files across my Lan, but it improved my Lan Multiplayer games.
When you have a bunch of cables plugged in it has a better chance of staying in place and I think it is more durable. Speaking of case - this unit has a metal case which gives it a little heft. Seems to me when a unmanaged desktop switch works well, it's just what you want. This is the case here.
After some periods of time, and possibly under occasional heavy use, these switches begin to not function properly and need to be reset. This is an otherwise solid unit except it cannot be left unattended and operate reliably in my experience. I have several of these switches in place and every few months I start seeing huge amounts of latency and dropped packets in my Internet connection. Once they're reset, they work fine. Unfortunately, that's what these switches should do. After going back and forth with various ISPs and checking everything else, I realized the problem was in these switches. Unplugging the FS108, waiting a second and plugging it in, the problem instantly disappears.
This router works fine with all of the hardware including a Brother Laser Printer, an Apple iMac, and a Windows Desktop Machine. Excellent. This switch will give you your best bang for your buck, guaranteed. Netgear provides an excellent, durable, professional network switch. And Amazon offers it at an UNBEATABLE low price.
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