Anyone heard of Ark networking switches???

[bullion416]

I was thinking about buying a ethernet switch and I saw a decent price on an Ark 5 port switch. Have you heard anything good or bad about this brand?

 

[Abzstrak]

you get what you pay for, they are pretty much the bottom rung of networking equipment. They even make linksys and dlink look like big boys ;-)

for home use its probably fine

 

[bullion416]

How are Compaq and HP network switches?

 

[bullion416]

Also, what about LanStar. So out of the following: HP, Compaq, LanStar, and Ark...........who makes the best network switch?

 

[cmetz]

Low end Ethernet switches are all made using switch-on-a-chip chips from various vendors, for example ADMTek. If you get an Ark switch, a Hawking switch, a D-Link switch, and a Linksys switch with the same specs (# ports, speeds, etc), and pop 'em open, you'll find they're nearly the same in every way, and the big chip inside is probably the same among several.

HP and Compaq are higher quality brands, but both have fiercely cost optimized everything lately, and frankly it's hard to be price competitive at the low end on switches, so they too probably have just gone to the same switch-on-a-chip vendors for the guts.