Ultimate CHEAP 2.5GbE Switch Guide

if you're like me finding a two and a half gig ethernet switch that's inexpensive has been an absolutely gargantuan task but what advantage I have is that I have the sth team and we can go buy a bunch of these switches and tell you what are the best options out there so we went out and bought 15 different two and a half gig ethernet switches to finally answer that question like what is worth it but hold on let's back up for a second hey guys this from sth and today we're answer the question what is the best inexpensive two and a half gig ethernet switch out there we have options that range from the five port two and a half gig ethernet switches to the eight Port models we have some with 10 gigabit Ethernet some that are managed some that have Poe and we've basically canvassed whatever we can find and our methodology was pretty simple we've already reviewed five of these units on the sth main site but I just went and we looked at the amazon.com we just looked at you know two and a half giggy through the unmanaged switches like what's the least expensive out there and we bought all the ones that we didn't have and then there were a couple from AliExpress that I thought were just interesting and I just wanted to know more about so those also got added in there and they're actually definitely pretty interesting and so with that we came up with a set of 15 different low-cost unmanaged two and a half gig switches and I just want to say thank you real quick to the sth YouTube members for really making this possible your support allows us to go and buy these units so if you do want to join and help out the channel so we can do more projects like this you can go find the link to join down below it's always appreciated if you can help out we'll also have some affiliate links if you do want to go buy one of these you don't feel any pressure to but you could use those if you want we gotta pay for this somehow guys so the basic game plan today is we're going to take a look at the first the five port switches then the eight Port switches then ones that have 10 gigabit and Poe and we're going to tell you which ones are managed out of that the vast majority of them are not managed because these are low-cost switches but at the same time I just want to kind of show you what's out there and what we found with that let's get to the hardware okay the first switch that we have that is the qnap qsw11055t this is a small 5 Port two and a half gig ethernet unit it's uh you know you can see it's fanless like all of these units are actually fanless we also got a little tiny uh tiny power adapter so uh you know there's one of those as well and this is an unmanaged switch so it doesn't have any management features so if you want to go in and like go to the switch and set up vlans that's not that's not the right switch for you there are other options out there this is just your basic low-cost switch we paid 110 dollars for the switch which is like 22 dollars a port this switch used about four Watts at idle using the included power adapter and then about another one watt per two and a half gig Port that we lit up which makes this one of the least expensive and lowest power units that we have now a lot of folks are gonna say hey one gig is cheaper than 22 dollars a port so why is this more expensive I don't know guys that's just kind of where we are I want to bring awareness to that with this series and just kind to show you what's out there okay for our next feature we're going to look at the Netgear options so there is the Netgear Ms 305 and ms105 they come with the same exact little power adapter and as I was looking at these units on Amazon I could not figure out what the difference was between the two units I mean if you look at these it's only the color that's really different but that's not exactly the case they are priced differently so the ms305 is about 135 dollars the ms-105 that one's 150 dollars and I just I couldn't figure out what the difference was between the two of them and so we started testing them and we saw that they both used about four watts in terms of their base power and then they would add like 4.4 to 4.7 watts per uh two and a half gig ethernet port that you plug in so they have the same power adapters they have the same power consumption they have the same poor count I mean these things look almost exactly and they were exactly identical the difference however is that the ms105 has a lifetime warranty whereas the m Ms 305 has a three year warranty even though it's a higher model number it's actually the lower end unit I mean how confusing can that possibly be but at the same time neither of these are managed and they are also much more expensive than the 110 qnap that we looked at first now the next unit that we're looking at is this one over here which is the trendnet teg S 350. now this is one that we actually reviewed back when sth was still in California years ago and it has gone through some price reduction since then it's now about 145 dollars but you can tell it's age a bit it still idles right around that 4 watt range which we've seen with other ones however the big difference is that the power consumption when you plug something in here goes up by about about 1.2 Watts or something like that so it's a little higher than some of the other systems that we've or other switches that we've looked at but it's still a fanless unit I do think though in this category you're really competing on price more than anything else so I think that this one probably needs to come down and price a bit now the third one that we have is the zycel unit now this is one that uh by the way we've gotten a ton of folks that always ask like hey can you look at this one this is the mg105 it's another fanless unit it's also the lowest price unit at only 100 so it's about ten dollars less than the qnap the flip side of it though is that it is using more power I think it was about 4.7 Watts looking at the notes here it's about 4.7 Watts at the you know just completely idle and then once we started plugging things in we're seeing like 1.4 Watts or so additional power consumption for each of the incremental two and a half gig ports so this one has the lowest entry cost but it probably has a little bit more operational costs than the other units that we've seen now if you fancy yourself to be an international man-woman child of mystery well you might need something that's a little bit more International and that is what Asus store has for you this is the ASW 205t and it comes in at around 120 dollars it's uh it's actually the lowest idle power one that we've seen so this is the 3.7 watch we saw on this one at completely idle and then it added about one watt per Port that we added in there so it actually has like one of the lowest uh Power consumptions that we've seen and at 120 it's not too bad but what it comes with is special little feature is this little adapter now we have the US plug that's on here but it also comes with a variety of international plugs now if you fancy yourself to be an international being of mystery you can always go and put this in your suitcase along with a couple international travel adapters and no matter where your next adventure takes you you will be able to power this unit as long as it's one of the options that they have next up we have the moker link five port switch this is called the 2G 041g if you've never heard of Poker link I don't blame you I had never heard of mochrolink either however what I did notice is that this switch looked a lot like another switch that we had purchased and so I was like I wonder if that's like the same OEM or something but it's just on Amazon to take advantage of switch is that it was 106 dollars which makes it the third least expensive switch in our Roundup the idle power consumption was about five watts and we saw just a little over 0.4 watts per Port that we attached so it wasn't too too bad and we got a nice little uh you know little power adapter as well okay so that was seven just plain vanilla five port two and a half gig ethernet switches but what happens if you need a little bit more than five ports because you're gonna lose one to an Uplink Port most likely anyway right so let's talk about the eight Port switches that are just kind of the basic ones the first one we're gonna look at is the trendnet teg S 380. this is the larger cousin to the teg S350 and it uses just a little bit more power at about 5 Watts when it's idle and then about one watt for every port that's plugged in the price of this one though when we checked to go do this Roundup was only 149 or about four dollars more than the five port version so frankly to me I would always get the eight Port version over the five port version for an extra four dollars that is like you gotta go do it right and if you want to learn more about that when we already have the review on the sth main site now the other unit we have is another one that we've reviewed previously and that is this tp-link 8 Port unit frankly it feels much more solid this is a metal case uh it's definitely it's definitely pretty pretty decent but it's the TLs h1008 now this not only feels a lot more solid than that Trend net unit but it's also a lot less expensive it's somewhere between uh like 100 and 200 102 and about a hundred and ten dollars and you know discounts and stuff kind of push it in that range but it is significantly less expensive that is also pretty much the same price as a lot of the low-cost five port options so if you're looking for something that is in that five port range but has an extra one you can totally get this one power consumption is also pretty good with about a 4.4 watt idle and then adding about 1.2 Watts for every additional Port that you plug in now at this point you might be saying hey why does everyone not get this one and one of the big reasons is that this is one of those special ones we've looked at only units from Amazon this was one that we had to procure from AliExpress tp-link has a number of switches that they sell only in China or not in the US and uh this is one of them it is an unmanaged switch there's no management or anything like that in it we also took a look at the 24 Port two and a half gig and a port 10 gig version uh that is really really cool that you should definitely go check out again we'll link that in description but this might be the lowest cost eight Port option out there hey let's face it if you only have two and a half gig ethernet ports then what do you do about Uplink right your Uplink is only going to be two and a half gig ethernet so you're always going to be over subscribing your uplinks or you know what if you have a Nas that you want to serve down so it's kind of like what can you do what do you need a 10 gig ethernet if you need 10 gig ethernet well there are some options out there one of them is this trend net unit which I'm going to show you right here this is the trendnet teg s 762 and it's a four port two and a half gig ethernet unit with two 10 gig ports and these ports are not just SFP plus ports these are actually 10 gbase T ports now the power on this switch is actually quite a bit higher for example just a two and a half gig ethernet ports it's about 4.4 Watts at idle but then it adds about 1.2 watts per two and a half gig ethernet port and even more for the 10gbase T ports so if you want you can still run these at two and a half gig Ethernet or you can run them at you know one gig like all these ports but you can also run them all the way up to 10g base t-speeds it does not support 5G base T though on the switch pricing is also at the higher end of our Spectrum It's 190 dollars the advantage though is that this is a metal case and it's also a fanless one as well so it's not going to be super loud or anything like that and plus you also get an extra report versus some of the five port options it's also the only one in a Roundup that came with 10g base T but 10g base T is very divisive if you look at our comments some folks love 10g base team because they use the same cable other folks want the flexibility of using Dax or Fiber and so they prefer SFP plus cages if you are one of those folks well we have another switch for you and that is this one right here this is the qnap qsw 2104 25A and something you will immediately notice is that we have another one where we have four two and a half gig ethernet ports plus two SFP plus ports that gives us the same four two and a half gig plus two 10 gig Port configuration just different types of 10 gig now if you do have a mixed environment where maybe you need one SFP plus and you need one 10g base T well you can always use one of these little adapters and you can get a 10g base T port from a switch like this we did test it with this and uh it's certainly possible although these things tend to cost a lot compared to the cost of the switch so it's kind of more like a last resort option in this price range for higher end switches I think these adapters make sense and one of the benefits of of this qf switch is that it's only one hundred and thirty dollars which puts it in the price range of a lot of just the ones that are like five port two and a half gig ethernet I mean this has two 10 gig and four port two and a half for about the same price I mean this is literally less than the five port Trend net unit that we looked at the idle power on this was also super low it was only a three watt idle making it the lowest power one that we saw and adding a two and a half gig port to this or you know the plugging into an epic thing was only like 0.3 Watts now going to SFP side you're gonna have more usually more than a watt but it will depend on if you're using you know a high-end optic if you're using a 10gbase adapter anything like that you're definitely going to have some variants but uh you know is very cool that you get the s p cages because you can actually do a lot of things with the s p plus but again that only has four two and a half gig Ethan airports and it's unmanaged so that is why we have this next one which is another mocher link unit this is the 2g05210g SM what an amazing product name that is this is a five two and a half gig ethernet port switch plus you get two SFP plus 10 gigs but there's something else in this switch that I think is absolutely amazing and it sets it apart from all of the other switches that we've looked at so far and that is I don't know if you can see this right here we have the login information because this is a manage switch and so Brian and I were like no there's no way this is really a managed switch at this price now this is the hasvo uh s 600 WP 5gt 2s plus SE or maybe just 2s plus whatever it is but this is pretty much let me just kind of show you this real quick because if you see this compared to the mochrolink unit you might think that this is almost exactly the same because uh the the ports are almost exactly the same the uh you know sides of this everything looks almost exactly identical right so these have to be the exact same switches right you'd be wrong on a couple of counts there the first one is that the Hat Seville unit is only 100 and sixty five dollars making it much less expensive than the mochrolink and sometime between by the way between when we purchased these units and then we're recording this um the moker link is now off of Amazon so I don't I don't really know what to tell you on that one but other than that you can still get the hasvo one but you can't get it on Amazon you have to get it on AliExpress but one of the advantages of the hazovo unit is that you again get that same sticker with admin admin login credentials it's actually a different IP address but it looks like it's almost the exact same management interface so this is a five port two and a half gig ethernet switch plus two SFP plus 10 gig ports power consumption was the highest at 7.1 Watts at idle and then you know adding about another one watt for the two and a half gig ports and then whatever for the SFP as well it's still a fanless manage switch but there was one other secret hiding inside one of the other big differences that I've been kind of hiding from you this is the wokerlink power adapter which is uh you know kind of dainty and stuff and this is the hasvo power adapter so you might be wondering why this is a 7.1 watt idle switch need a 130 ish watt power supply for well that's because this thing actually has Poe as well so yeah not only is this only 165 dollars but it's also managed and it also has Poe and of course it wouldn't be a awesome AliExpress switch if there weren't at least a couple of quirks the uh the biggest Quirk is how that Poe Works perhaps because um there are different options here we tested the different ports and Port 1 is a 13 watt class 3 device but if you look at ports 2 3 and 4 those are the 25.5 watt class 4 devices so they're like Peewee plus and then Port 5 over here it's not Peewee at all so that's absolutely crazy right now if hesbo sounds familiar that's because we have previously looked at this switch this is a hazovo s 1100 p8 GT and this is an 8 Port 2.5 gig ethernet switch except for the fact that it has Poe in fact it uses the exact same like 130 ish watt adapter and if you saw the video on this one or read the sdh mainsite article you will know that this is the one that does uh 2.5 gdps instead of gbps so it's kind of fun um but you know this is by far the least expensive a port Poe switch that we could find that's two and a half gig ethernet as well this is only 123 124 dollars somewhere in there the power consumption is actually not too bad with I think about like 6.5 Watts at idle uh while we're doing this exercise and then goes up by about points 1.7 Watts or so per one that you add but you have to remember also that we have like Pue ports as well so it's got a little different uh types of ports but for a lot of people Poe and Poe plus are just frankly not enough and so you might be asking like are there options for higher end Peewee and uh and the answer to that is is yes uh we have this switch over here that we reviewed and like look at this power adapter right this thing this power adapter like almost the size of the switch it's insane this is the Netgear ms108up and this is a Poe plus plus so it goes up to 60 watt ports and you also have some Poe plus ports it's also an eight Port two and a half gig ethernet switch so you get about half and half so four four of each of the poe ports so you can see nicely labeled and you also get uh you know just the normal Netgear package this is not a managed switch so this is an unmanaged option pricing for it comes in at 230 dollars and this uses slightly more power at idle with about 6.8 Watts with anything attached and then it goes up by about 1.4 Watts so it ends up being with one one port attached about the same as that has the full unit that we just looked at okay so summing this all up let's get to what I think are the five best ones kind of like each different category right first one is just what's the best low-cost switch this was a very very tight race but I I actually kind of like the qnap one um and the reason I like the qnap one is 110 it was a little bit more than the zeisel unit but on the other hand it used a little bit less power so I kind of feel like maybe I would go for this one instead but again the 542 and a half gig ethernet Market is definitely saturated and also uh if you're willing to go on to things like AliExpress there are other options now the next one especially if you're willing to go on AliExpress I think is this has a bow unit with the eight ports having Poe on board I think is super awesome and it's like 123 224 which makes it like really pretty darn reasonable now you could say that the tp-link one that is you know less expensive at like 102 for eight ports that could be a better deal but frankly I mean you know if I'm deploying a switch an extra 20 to have some Peewee capabilities I just kind of feel like is is worth it because you may not need it right away but the second that you need it is just way way less expensive and easier to have it already built in for 20 bucks then I have to go get another switch or figure it out later so I would be the kind of person that I think that this is a better deal just because of that and if you do need Poe plus plus this is the only one that we looked at that had Poe plus plus the 60 watt power delivery that is needed for a lot of the newer devices like higher end Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E APS are starting to use more power and also have two and a half gig back calls so that would be a good example of like something that you'd want to power off of these I wish that there were more ports that were Poe plus plus um but but this is what we have I think if you need 10g base t as well as a couple two and a half gig ethernet ports and that's kind of what your network configuration is I actually think this little Trend net unit was a really good one it was on the pricier side at 190 but there's some level of it which is just it's way easier just to go buy a switch that has 10g base T ports already built in that's fanless you plug it in and it just starts working I really like that kind of model and so if uh if that's what you need this is probably the right option but I don't know I feel like if you do need the two and a half gig ethernet portal you know you get an extra one with hasvo unit you also have the SFP Plus for 10 gigabit Ethernet and let's not forget that this one is managed and it also has Poe I mean to me this is probably worth the extra money this is like 165 dollars so probably in the midpoint really of all these switches and it kind of has every feature it has two and a half gig ethernet it has 10 gigabit Ethernet it also has Poe I mean you know it's not perfect on any of those counts but I also think that it's uh you know it's pretty darn good that's definitely an option for folks if you're willing to go on AliExpress if you're not willing to go on AliExpress then this really isn't an option for you so hey guys I hope you like this Roundup we'll have full reviews on uh the other 10 units that we have not reviewed on the sth main site you're gonna be able to find those soon and if you did like this video remember it does take a lot of resources to be able to go and you know get all these things test them all that kind of stuff so if you can support us either by joining the sth YouTube channel or using the affiliate links below that would be super appreciated and if you did like this video another thing you can do to show your appreciation is give this video a like click subscribe and turn on those notifications so you can see whenever we come out with great new videos as always thanks for watching and have an awesome day

Channel: ServeTheHome

Views: 100,044

Keywords: servethehome, serve the home, 2.5gbe switch, buyers guide, switch buyers guide, 10gbe, 2.5gbe, 2.5g, 10g, sfp+, 10gbase-t, switch, qnap, zyxel, trendnet, hasivo, mokerlink, netgear, netgear switch, multi gig switch, poe, poe switch, tp-link, ubiquiti, mikrotik, network switch, unmanaged, managed vs unmanaged switch, homelab, poe+, 10gbe switch, tp-link switch, tp-link 2.5gbe, cheap switch, cheap 10gbe switch, cheap 2.5gbe switch, cheap 10gbe, cheapest switch, cheap 2.5gbe, 2.5gbe poe switch

Id: brQUwucJLtg

Length: 21min 4sec (1264 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 23 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/ohgodimnotgoodatthis]

If you don’t care about noise and don’t mind tinkering those brocades on serve the home are pretty neat.

[u/TiL_sth]

I wish the cheapest 2.5g switch was only 2.5X the price of the cheapest 1g switch. Right now it's more like 10X.

[u/CheetahReasonable275]

I know it is not the same and should not be compared, but USB is at like 40 Gbs now?