This is a no-frills switch with all the right specs for someone looking to take their network into multigig/10G territory. It has a total of 24 (non-PoE) ports, all multigig up to 10G, with two of these offering the option of SFP+ connections for fiber/twinax runs. That's a solid 10G foundation for most environments. On the software side, there's a clean GUI with easy-to-configure VLAN tagging, Link Aggregation and other features that can support more pro-grade networking setups—although you'll need to look elsewhere for Layer 3 features.
Where this switch falls short is with basic visibility into its status and control over common hardware components, specifically cooling. There's absolutely no way to conveniently view temperature info, which is a huge drawback in (hot!) 10G environments. There's also no way to manually adjust the fan speed for more aggressive cooling. According to Netgear engineers, the fixed fan profile is designed to prioritize noise reduction—yet this results in a case that's as hot as a griddle and will likely minimize the lifespan of the device. That kind of defeats the point of future proofing.
A little more granular control over basic operating parameters (cooling in particular) and more visibility into essential stats like CPU load, flash storage capacity, RAM, temperature, fan RPM, etc would have made this a four- or even five-star device. Hopefully Netgear will add those features in a forthcoming firmware update.
