On Standby permanently is a fire risk, apparently.

[Monkeh]

as soon as you go to gigabit you're looking at the 60-100W class immediately.

Only if you're looking at a layer 3 switch. A more ordinary switch will only pull around 30W for 24 ports, and even then that's only when all ports are transmitting.

 

[Donkmeister]

Oooh, tell me more!

I assumed the figures I looked at were constant power draws, I'd only be using 1 or 2 ports at a time periodically through the day at low-bandwidth, with maybe an hour or two of >100mb usage each evening as I watch a film and sporadic gigabit-ness as the servers synchronise.

I don't need managed or anything like that, I just need a dumb switch that can shift packets about to lots of ports.

Any thoughts?

 

[Monkeh]

Dumbness: http://netgear.com/business/products/switches/unmanaged-desktop-switches/default.aspx
http://netgear.com/business/products/switches/unmanaged-rackmount-switches/default.aspx

(partially) Managed: http://netgear.com/business/products/switches/smart-switches/default.aspx

In both cases, <30W for 24-port, <20W for 16-port.

A GS716T has been on my wishlist for a long time now.

 

[Donkmeister]

Hey, I like the sound of the JGS524... Automatically powers down unused ports, plus max power draw is 16W. 40dB noise sounds a lot, but I guess it is designed to be shut away in a server closet.

I'm sure I could fit some quieter fans if it was still an annoyance.

Cheers for the direction!

 

[Monkeh]

Should be easy enough to fit slower fans or reduce fan voltage. Just add some heatsinks to anything hot looking with thermal adhesive..

 

[Mickymoody]

Is the argument current flow in standby, or the risk of turning off equipment?

At the time that the Government said turn off TV's, to save energy, they also announced settop boxes, that are required to be on standby all the time (jeez!). Take with one hand...

One way of saving 'carbon', would be for a national shutdown of all TV, and Internet services, like was the norm in the '70's (less the internet!)..but that might result in a baby boom..urgh! My earlier comment, Take with one hand...please do that, no babies please!

 

[electronicsuk]

Finally (don't worry, last thing on the list) I'm looking to get a gigabit network switch, but I'm put off by the power draw (plus noise) of many of them - You can find a 24-port 100mb switch in the sub-10W category easily, but as soon as you go to gigabit you're looking at the 60-100W class immediately. So, I'm likely to compromise on a 100mb switch with a few gigabit ports for those few machines that actually need a gigabit link.

I think the manufacturers probably measure worst-case power consumption, i.e. when the switch is operating at or near the switch fabric capacity. I leave a 48 port gigabit PoE switch, 4-bay NAS, cable modem, router, CCTV DVR, CCTV PSU for 4 cameras and 4x rack cooling fans running 24/7 in my garage, and the whole lot consumer about 195w. I think the consumption of the switch alone is in the region of 55w, but then it does have 48 ports, and it is running a couple of APs over the PoE which consume 10w each.

As for the OP and the Fireman's comments, I think he's talking bull - reminds me of the Michael McIntyre sketch about not trusting appliances to be left turned on while you're away on holiday! There's no doubt that the V+ boxes put out a fair bit of heat, but they're only a fire risk when people don't allow adequate ventilation (such as sticking it in a small cabinet with the doors closed), and/or store combustible materials near or on top of it. If you do any of those things, you're asking for a fire, and it's no fault of the STB or anything to do with it being left on standby.

I'm sure the fire service will also tell you that it's unsafe to plug multiple extension leads into each other, or that a 12-way extension is unsafe, or that you can't use plug-in 2 and 3-way blocks, the latter being due to the fact that these used to be manufactured without a fuse many,many moons ago. They should stick to fighting fires and leaves electrical safety to electricians.