midBit Technologies, LLC SharkTap Gigabit Network Sniffer

-- MAR 21 -- midBit Technologies located & remedied a couple issues that may have led to previous problems (ie. see below). I was given the opportunity to test the newer version and found it to be quite good, as one should expect. I found it to be dependable and reliable under extensive testing. At this price-point, the gigabit network sniffer is a remarkable product. It operates on high-speed Ethernet links to permit monitoring of bi-directional communications. When one compares this unit with products costing many times more, there are 2 features that seem to not be on this device. 1-When power is removed from this tap, the through-communication stops. Many pricier taps will establish a data-pass-through when power fails. 2-Some expensive taps are categorized as aggregating, which is to say that they can buffer frames destined for the tap port when through-data flows are higher than the tap data port can handle. These overflow events are usually short-lived, but if not supported sufficiently, can lead to the tap port missing some of the through-data frames. I suspect that a buffer does exist in this device, but that it is not deep enough to consider this device as aggregating. I truly believe that this 10/100/1G product, as well as midBit's 10/100 product, are fine devices and worthy of being part of any serious network analyzer's tool kit. -- FEB 17 -- Great Idea! But bad implementation. I had previously bought 1 of the 10/100 taps and remain pleased with its performance. At the time I bought it, the 10/100 was the only model available. With the introduction of the 10/100/1G model late in 2015, I bought 2 in February, since it would allow our wired network to run at full speed. I was wary, though, as one of the two reviews (at that time) indicated that the device breaks after a few hours. However, I rationalized that this negative review came from either a single bad event or from someone with an axe to grind. Not so. In our setup we put one tap on the connection between our ISP and our router/UTM, and installed the other tap on the internal side of our router/UTM. Both units failed to act as taps after a small number of hours and one of the two units lost its ability to support the highest throughput speed of 1G. I hope the manufacturer is able to produce a product with the features advertised for this tap, but until a fix is released, it is best to use the earlier model 10/100. Praise to Amazon for its return policies.

I bought one as soon as it came on the market. I also had issues with the device slowing the overall network traffic. I worked with the developer and after the problem was identified, it was immediately corrected. As of 12/2015 these issues were corrected and the issues related to the device negatively down-throttling traffic was fixed and should no longer be an issue. Besides making a good product I would also like to say that midBit Technologies, LLC was more than willing to work through the initial problem and is a great company. I was pleasantly surprised with the company's quick response and professionalism. This device is great and works 100% as intended. This is not intended to replace or function as a $500+ network tap does. If you know this and understand what this device is and its intended use-cases, then I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

This has become a permanant part of my networking road kit. It's one of those things you don't need very often, but when you do there isn't anything that is as fast to deploy, works perfectly and can even be run off a battery pack when in a spot. I used it with Wireshark and it's worked perfectly, every time. The unit is small and light so it doesn't take up much room in your kit. Highly recommended.

Purchased a little over a month ago. Had problems getting started until I realized that I was not actually shutting down my laptop's firewall properly. I have used it several times now. Paid for itself in saved time the first time I used on an actual case of trouble. It does exactly what I need it to do. Not having to mirror ports is very convenient. I will recommend it to co-workers. While I am not really bothered by the need to power it via a USB cable, having the ability to also power it from PoE would be cool. Most of our edge devices provide PoE. It would be nice to be able to put the Tap further than the length of my USB cord from my laptop once in a while. But this does not really impact my satisfaction.

Works great.

I have been running this thing solid with traffic for over four years with no reportable loss or issues at all. It doesn't get hot and works right out of the box.

1/1/2016 Ordered this in order to setup a dedicated tcpdump pcap capture system. - First 24 hours worked well. - Second 24 hours my internet speeds dropped to < 1/10 of normal. I thought that maybe the pcap system was causing the problems (not able to keep up with traffic) so I stopped the tcpdump pcap capture system. Still getting less than 1/10 normal internet speeds. My internal network speeds were still operating at full-throttle (1gb). I removed the tap from between my switch and cable modem and internet speeds returned to normal. When I put the tap back into the network, speeds degraded to 1/10 of normal. I removed the tap from the network and speeds returned to normal. Put tcpdump pcap system on a mirrored port and restarted the capturing. Everything still blowing and going at full internal and external speeds. I was only wanting to capture traffic between internal network and external internet, not wanting the capture all of the traffic between internal systems (file shares, printers, etc). I can do a tcpdump_excluded file to exclude the internal to internal network, but figured the tap would work easier, guess not. --------------------------- Ran pcap system off mirrored port for a week without any network performance issues. Attempt to place the SharkTap back into the network setup and capture internet traffice only between the switch and cable modem. Immediatedly my internet speeds dropped to 1/10 of my normal bandwidth, 1.5mb. Because I am in a small office building I have a "commercial" connection and can only afford a 15mb down/5mb up. Remove the tap from the setup and Internet speeds return to normal. Internal network speeds between systems in the office never degrade, they remain at 1gb speeds. Lights on the SharkTap indicate that the connections are at "1gb" speeds, but actual speeds through the SharkTap are not.

This tool works very well to analyze Network traffic.