4-Port 2.5G Ethernet Switch with 2 x 10G SFP+ Uplink – TEROW VLAN Supported Network Switch, Compatible with Gigabit/2.5GbE/10GbE for Home Office, NAS, Gaming & Access Points

I've had this switch for well over a year now, and had zero problems with it. It's simple, and lets you plug 5 devices in from just a single ethernet run. This allowed me to run ethernet from my office to my living room for hardwired internet to my TV and game systems with extra room for expansion. It's small, cheap, seems solidly built, and comes with a power supply. My one complaint is that the housing is not metal - but for the price, you really can't ask for much more. Highly recommend if you're looking to expand the reach of your hardwired internet on the cheap!

One of the ports on an 8-port switch I owned stopped working, so I needed a replacement. I ordered this one, even though I had not heard of the brand before. The price was super reasonable compared to other switches, so I thought I'd test it out. I was immediately impressed to see the case for this switch is metal instead of cheap plastic like other switches in this price range. I also appreciated the size of this switch. It is half the depth of the switch it replaced. Both switches are about 6 inches long, but this new switch is less than 2 inches from front to back. My old switch was 4 inches from front to back and it barely fit In the limited space next to my AVR between the receiver and the wall. The new switch was up and running in the time it took me to disconnect the previous unit and plug everything in to the new one. All eight ports are working, as are all lights. Throughput is consistently in the 600-900 Mbps down and 375 Mbps up range, so I'm very pleased with that. I do wish the power cord was longer. The cord is hard wired to the plug and it's less than 24" long. I was able to get it plugged in, but I had to move several plugs to do so. I added a short one foot jumper cable to relieve some of the stress on the short cord. This is a really great value. When you look at the quality of the construction combined with the excellent functionality, this switch is a bargain. Most 8 port gigabit switches sell in the $20 - $80 range, with the lower priced units almost exclusively limited to plastic cases. At the time of this review, this switch is selling for less than $16. That is a deal, my friend.

I’m not sure the reasoning for distinguishing ports 9&10 as uplink ports because all the ports seem to work the same. The included manual was very scant with not much information regarding those ports. In fact, only this web page mentions that they are uplink ports. My understanding is that the uplink ports do two things differently: 1. It reverses the transmit and receive connectors 2. It may support more bandwidth However, most modern switches have dual purpose ports and can act as either an uplink or downlink depending on the device connected. From my cursory testing, that is how this switch works. So basically, this is just a 10 port switch which gives you two more ports than most other similar switches. One other feature that I like is that it uses a standard USB 2amp power adapter. The bad thing is that the USB charging cable uses a DC barrel power connector. So don’t lose that cable! The switch is plug & play and it just works.

This is an unmanaged 5-port Gigabit Ethernet switch that checks the boxes I’m looking for in a switch like this. It’s not based on some unknown switch IC (eventually revealed as the Realtek RTL8367S), it has a metal case, and the included power supply is something resembling some kind of standard (DC 5V/1A, 5.5mm x 2.1mm, center-positive, which is all extremely common). Because mass-market switch ICs are such commodity hardware these days I expected not to have any complaints regarding its performance or functionality, and indeed I did not. With respect to its build and manufacturing quality, I noted that the chassis material is ordinary soft sheet metal. My unit actually came with a bend in one side that I had to bend back into place with my fingers after opening the chassis (which thankfully came apart easily). Once reassembled, the chassis felt quite solid. The experience reminded me of unfolding a properly designed cardboard box. While the chassis was open I noticed that the heatsink on the switch IC was off-center, leading to about 20-25% of the chip lacking heatsink coverage altogether. The cured thermal epoxy between the IC and the heatsink was pretty thick and I’m all about doing probably-pointless things because I can, so I carefully cut through the epoxy, cleaned off the mating surfaces, and reattached the heatsink with thermal tape. Along the way I discovered that the switch IC is the Realtek RTL8367S. According to its datasheet, it dissipates less than 2W fully loaded, which means it exists in a narrow middle ground where it does just barely require a heatsink, but it also doesn’t produce enough heat for something like the improperly installed heatsink on my unit to matter. This QC oversight, in combination with the non-certified and cheap-feeling DC power adapter and the fact that I achieved in the low 930Mbps range on iperf3 throughput tests (within spec, but cf. 940+ when directly connecting two high-quality gigabit NICs), leads to the entirely unsurprising conclusion that some concessions were made during manufacturing in the name of cost-cutting. With that said, I will not apply a penalty to my product rating because I consider these concessions acceptable at the price point and you would find these sorts of minor issues that don’t meaningfully affect functionality in most products on the low end if you looked hard enough. For practical purposes this switch works fine and doesn’t perform any better or worse than other gigabit switches, so I’d still prefer it over one with a plastic chassis.

works great