As with most networking gear, the key to understanding the feature set of this unit is to know what chipset is lurking inside. Netgear has chosen to base the FS728TS around Marvell's Link Street SOHO switch line.

Figure 1: FS728TS inside look
(click image to enlarge)

Figure 1 shows an inside view of the blue metal enclosure of the 728TS, which is thankfully devoid of fans - a plus for home and small office use. Instead, heatsinks are used to keep the switch chips cool. These include three 88E6092 8-Port FE + 3-Port GE Smart/Unmanaged Switches for the 24 10/100 ports, and four 88E1112 Alaska Single Port Gigabit Ethernet Transceivers, which handle the two gigabit Ethernet uplink and two gigabit uplink / stacking ports. Note that the gigabit ports do not support Jumbo Frames, due to the mixture of 10/100 and gigabit ports, according to Netgear.

The main controller is a Link Street 88E6218 SOHO Gateway Router, equipped with an ARM9E and 6-port QoS Switch. The 728TS does not provide any routing capabilities, so the 88E6218 is used only as a switch controller.

The remainder of the chips include RAM, flash memory, a Lattice ispMACH LC4128V CPLD, and a mystery chip tying the three 88E6092's together - most likely another switch chip. The integrated power supply is a 100-240VAC/50-60 Hz universal input design, with no power switch.