TESTING METHODOLOGY

   Network switches are pretty much identical to routers so we’ll be using roughly the same testing methodology. So aside the usual networking benchmark by Passmark (v8.0) this time we will start our tests with the latest versions of ATTO (v3.05), Crystal Disk Mark (v5.1.2) something which we couldn’t do in the past since these versions have updated testing methodologies and thus are not compatible with the results we’ve gathered over the years. Also as you’ve already noticed we decided to replace the QCheck by Ixia with Crystal Disk Mark since we feel it’s a more complete choice. To test all network switches we are using two of our desktop systems outfitted with two Kingston HyperX Predator 480GB PCIe SSDs (these SSDs combined with two XT540-AT2 PCIe cards will enable us to also fully test 10GbE network switches). Our systems are placed 15m away (connected with CAT7 cables) from the switch in hand and each test is repeated a total of 6 times after which the average scores are recorded into our charts. Both systems have Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 installed with all the updates until the 25th of April 2016.

   Also just like with Modem/Routers we will also be recording power consumption is these reviews during all our tests and both the lowest and highest numbers will be available in our charts. Finally when testing network switches with built-in fans (like the XJ712T) we will also record noise levels using our high precision ExTech HD600 Decibel Meter placed about 5-10cm away.

TEST RESULTS