Rosewill RGS-1016 16-Port Gigabit Switch Review

Introduction & Pricing, Availability and Specifications

Not everyone has the need for a massive 24 or 48 Port switch; luckily, switches come in many shapes and sizes. If you're one that is building up a network and you don't have too many PCs, then something simple like a five, eight, or twelve port switch would do the job and give you room for expanding later on.

In the lab today, we have the Rosewill RGS-1016 16-port unmanaged gigabit switch. Unmanaged switches have maintained their popularity by offering simplicity in design, and plug-and-play operation. The Rosewill RGS 1016 is a non-blocking switch design, which means we have a full 32 Gbps switching fabric. Additionally, the switch conforms to 802.1p QoS and 802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet and houses 16 Auto-MDIX sensing ports.

Additionally, the RGS-1016 carries an 8K MAC address table, with a 2MB Data RAM buffer and supports 9K Jumbo Frames. The Rosewill uses a store and forward architecture, which keeps traffic flow efficient and consistent

Pricing, Availability and Specifications

The Rosewill RGS-1016 carries an MSRP of $109.99. Also included is a three-year one to one replacement warranty. Availability of the switch is high at the moment, as many retailers having the unit in stock ready to ship.

PRICING: You can find the Rosewill RGS-1016 for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing, but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

United States: The Rosewill RGS-1016 retails for $79.99 at Amazon.

Canada: The Rosewill RGS-1016 retails for CDN$142.30 at Amazon Canada.

Rosewill RGS-1016 Gigabit Switch

The RGS-1016 was delivered in a standard brown box; a slight amount of branding covers the front.

Scope of delivery includes the switch, power cord, and rack mounting hardware.

The center of the switch houses all 16 ports. To the left, we find the array of LED indicators.

The back of the unit houses the power connection.

Internally, there isn't too much to see that isn't covered by a heat sink.

Test System Setup

To test network switches, we utilize all sixteen ports available through our Hot Lava Shasta Six-Port adapters.

Running the high performance throughput script via IXChariot, we start with one connection and ramp up to sixteen connections, noting down the throughput and response time results as we go along. To test the Transaction rates of switches, we utilize 16 gigabit connections to the switch running the appropriate script via IXChariot.

Benchmarks - Peak Throughput and Average Latency

In the throughput test, the RGS-1016 did quite well. Ramping up through the scale with a close 1:1 ratio. Peak throughput came in around 15.4 Gbps.

Average response time started out near 0.15ms and ended up touching 0.43ms with all sixteen ports full.

Benchmarks - Workload Transaction Rates

In our SMTP and POP3 SSL testing, the Rosewill did quite well. While the previous two switches we tested were 24 port, the 16 port Rosewill stands on its own. POP3 came in at 169 TPS, and SMTP touched 181 TPS.

Moving over to HTTP and FTP, the Rosewill came in at 3967 TPS for HTTPs and 1783 TPS for FTP.

Final Thoughts

Unmanaged switches are a great option for expanding home networks or even for those that run a home office. Small businesses can also find value in the ease of use and plug-and-play capabilities of unmanaged switches.

The Rosewill RGS-1016 has a lot going for it. The build quality of the unit was solid with steel construction and rack mounting capabilities. For those that don't have a rack, there is the option for desktop placement, as well. Performance of the RGS-1016 was quite good; the unit scaled throughout our throughput testing and the workload testing showed the unit was able to keep up with much larger switches.

Overall, as an unmanaged solution, the Rosewill is a great option if you are in the market for a switch between 8 and 16 ports. The non-blocking switch fabric allows excellent connection rates, and the slim footprint of the device makes it a great desktop option as well.

MSRP of the Rosewill RGS-1016 is set at $109.99 with a three-year 1 to 1 replacement warranty. Current market pricing of the 16-port gigabit switch from Rosewill can be found below.

PRICING: You can find the Rosewill RGS-1016 for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing, but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

United States: The Rosewill RGS-1016 retails for $79.99 at Amazon.

Canada: The Rosewill RGS-1016 retails for CDN$142.30 at Amazon Canada.