Im about to setup a VLAN across multiple Netgear smart switches and a Draytek 2860 router.

Im concerned that the VLAN with physically be fragile for instance if someone swaps over one of the LAN cables on the switch and replaces it into port 17 rather than the original 16 the port tagging wont work.

Is there another way of setting up the VLANs by basing them on MAC addresses rather than on ports ?

VLAN based on MAC address would be a switch function, it might be available as a sub-menu of the VLAN section if the switch can do it?

The router itself can't do MAC based VLAN tagging, but you can achieve similar using the Bind IP to MAC function, simply bind the IP/MAC addresses on the correct subnet, connecting into a different port (or using a different VLAN tag) would result in no connectivity because the given IP address would not match the router's IP for that MAC address.

For what it is worth Netgear sell a few product ranges that can VLAN tag based on the MAC addresses.

This article links to the ones. Not sure other companies do it but seems sensible that they would.

https://kb.netgear.com/21586/What-is-a-MAC-based-VLAN-and-how-does-it-work-with-my-managed-switch