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Fan Noise GS324P
Looking for 24 port switch with at least 8 POE+ ports. But I see that many units have fans. Can anyone confirm that the fan on the GS324P or other switch in this series - including managed like G...
Welcome to the community!
The GS324P has an acoustic noise level of 31 dB given that the switch operates at 25°C in which it is generally considered to be quiet. The same thing goes as well for the GS324TP which has an acoustic noise level at 32.8 dB.
Regards,
JeraldM
NETGEAR Community Team
The GS324PP does consume 10...400W and dissipates the equivalent of heat the two fans must be able to push put of the box in any operational state and mounting situation. Noise is always relative to the personal sensitivity. These two fans are undoubted audible, the way the noise is reflected and sometimes amplified (vibrations) by the environment are big factors.
It's true that the device does use some power, and that the power is converted into heat. However, when the device has nothing plugged into it - there should be barely any work going on.
When you say it uses 10 - 400w, that's kind of true, but not quite. It can "draw" up to that amount, but the power isn't actually used on the device. The PoE is the reason for the higher-end usage and it will deliver that power away from the device.
If we assume that the power supply is efficient, there should be very little power loss that would be converted into heat at the PSU.
If we assume that the unit uses maximum power at full load, which would be something on the order of 12* 10Gbit of traffic (24 ports, worst case switching packets 2 ways I believe). What should be a reasonable consumption when nothing is plugged in?
Anyway, I'm new to this scene, building a home server for the first time, but I've been building PCs for over 20 years, and I can say that I'm shocked by the degree of noise in this equipment. If you find it acceptable for office/home setting - I think you're suffering from a Stockholm syndrome, you deserve better. Is this noise okay for a data center? - maybe, though I prefer quieter equipment even there.
I bought the non managed, non PoE version of this switch. GS324 on shopgoodwill for cheap a couple months back. No fan so quiet running. Something you might check into if you don't need any PoE or extra features. I also got a GS524 from same place, also has fan and is a bit noisy the electronic closet. That's probably going to get replaced with the GS324.
An standby GS324 does draw about 8.5W, while the standby GS324PP does draw about 10W. Easy to find looking at the heat dissipation specs. Figure... 0 fans vs. 2 fans, and much bigger power supply to provide up to 400W for switch -and- PoE.
That's really cool to know, thanks for that.
What document states the heat dissipation? I was looking for a repair manual or a schematic, but couldn't find anything. Was looking to replace the fans.
As for 10w draw. I get that the power supply for 400W is not small, but a PC powersupply of the same wattage will be pretty much silent, I know because I have an 800W PSU in my PC and that's making no audible noise. Of course it depends on PSU efficiency, but again - this is a premium product so I can't imagine it being this bad as needing two fans to keep it cool at 10W draw. Most of the laptop CPUs draw several times this amount and we can keep them silent in a much smaller case with less air flow.
My guess is that NETGEAR simply doesn't care. That is, not to say it in a hissy fit while stomping a foot. They prioritize certain metrics when making a product and noise profile seems to be an irrelevance to them.
It's funny, but I now believe that it's better to get 2 smaller and much cheaper switches instead of getting this thing, pretty much for every use case. For PoE you generally are not after high transfer rates or low latencies, so you don't care if it takes an extra bit of time to route a packet, and for home usage the extra power draw and the awful fans are a huge red flag.
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