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GS724T - Is there a rear port alternative
The GS724Tv4 is a front port switch. Is there an alternative similar switch with rear ports?
JohnC_V it would be something to considered for Netgear for specifying all coming-up new switch model enclosures so the rack mount wings could be mounted in the front and in the back. Don't task the designer of the BR500 router - that one is interestingly a rear port only device 8-)
The ears will always be mounted on the opposite side from the power input. There would be no logical reason to allow the ears to mount on both sides.
In many racks though, all wiriing connections happen in the rear with the front just being lights, LEDs, power cut off, etc. A very nice clean rack look. Wire it once (and adjust as necessary from rear access), and then monitor from the clean front.
schumaku wrote:JohnC_V it would be something to considered for Netgear for specifying all coming-up new switch model enclosures so the rack mount wings could be mounted in the front and in the back. Don't task the designer of the BR500 router - that one is interestingly a rear port only device 8-)
RAmeeti wrote:The ears will always be mounted on the opposite side from the power input.
It can be disputed why the power input and the network ports must be on the opposite side. The only one is the space on high port density switches.
RAmeeti wrote:There would be no logical reason to allow the ears to mount on both sides.
I can provide you many examples where it would be nice to have the networking cables in the back (and also the power).
The key problem in dense rack mounts is the air flow - and here Netgear's and many other vendor OEM switches are not using a clearly front to back or back to front airflow system. In modern data centers cold is always on the front, warm/hot on the back. In very dense installations we had switches installed reverted. The problem is that fat server racks are in the range of 110...130 cm deep (front to back rail) making it very unpractical to have the device mouned on the front rails, buit the cables to the back. That's were one often does install rack-top switches on the back side... Cisco has some model lines intended for metropolitan Ethernet installations in road cabinets btw. - but here all connectors and the LEDs are on the same side - simply because the back is unreachable in these installations.
As I said before, the Netgear BR500 router is such a design beast - nice front wth a power/status LED, everything else is in the back (very unhandy in most racks - but that's another story). Last but not least, no vendor does the effort having the (many!) LEDs on the front and the matching connectors in the back.
But pure design is never the key in my opinion... heat dissipation and usability are the decision factors.
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