Two choices of switches are available: one with 16 10/100Mbps ports, the other with 24 10/100Mbps ports. These ports detect the network speed and autonegotiate between 100BASE-TX and 10BASE-T, as well as full- and half-duplex.

 

All 10/100Mbps ports auto-adjust MDI/MDIX twistedpair cable cross-over, eliminating the need for crossover cables or uplink buttons. You simply plug any port to a server, a workstation or a hub, using the usual straight-through twisted-pair cable. The port will autosense the attached device type and adjust the Tx, Rx pin assignments accordingly before transmitting and receiving data.

 

An open slot is provided on the front panel to let you install an optional Fast Ethernet fiber module. This module provides 2 100Mbps fiber ports for 2 server connections or switch-to-switch cascading over the reliable fiber cables, which can be up to 2km long.

 

Using flow control (in full duplex and applicable to all 10/100Mbps ports), the switch monitors the buffer status of each port. During peak usage, if the buffer fills to capacity, the switch detects this and signals to the attached node to delay sending new data until the switch can accept it. This operation minimizes the chance of any buffer overrun where incoming data overwrites the current data that has not been completely flushed out of the buffer. This function works with flow control supported Fast Ethernet adapters (installed in servers) connected to the switch in dedicated bandwidth configuration. It can also be applied to switch-to-switch cascading.