TP-Link TL-SG105-M2 | 5 Port Multi-Gigabit Unmanaged Network Switch, Ethernet Splitter | 2.5G Bandwidth | Plug & Play | Desktop/Wall-Mount | Fanless Metal Design | Limited Lifetime Protection

As advertised

No frills router that simply works. Nice that you can see via indicator lights, which patch cable is connecting at 1gb or 2.5gb speeds.

Out with the 1Gb ethernet switch, in with the 2.5Gb switch. Very simple. I think it might be a little overpriced. There are some similar switches from China for about half the price... if you feel like living a little on the dangerous side. I didn't, so I went with this one. It works.

It's quiet, plug and play, easy to use, a little larger than other 4-port switches, but overall smaller than most. It's quiet and doesn't get too hot. The switch did fail within a year, but it was under warranty, and the process to get a replacement was easy.

Upgraded my home Internet to 2 gigabit fiber, and home fileserver with SSD storage, so I bought the TP-Link 8-port TL-SG108-M2 and 5-port TL-SG105-M2 to upgrade my home network to multi-gigabit speed. It was easy to swap my old gigabit switches with these TP-Link 2.5 giggers, using my existing ethernet cables. Per-port lights made it obvious which ports run at 2.5 gigabit, 1 gigabit, and 100 megabit. I loved the fan-less design - zero noise coming from these TP-Link switches. I will never buy a fan-based switch again - they collect dust, and eventually die unless kept clean. Speed: Tested throughput extensively using iperf3 on the local network, and speedtest.net for Internet speed. LAN (local network) bandwidth tests reliably 2.3 gigabit average between two computers. Same speed when 2 computers are on the same switch, and when they are connected switch-to-switch. This was a HUGE improvement over a gigabit network which maxed out at about 0.95 gigabits. Was worried whether my investment would actually get close to 2.5 gigabit, especially switch-to-switch, but they did! Two TP-Link switches are linked with a 40-foot in-wall Cat-6 cable, and computers can get 2.3 gigabit between the two switches. Internet speed tested at 2.0 gigabit download and 910 megabit upload with Google Fiber 2 Gig! The TP-Links were fully backward compatible with 1 gigabit and 100 megabit devices and switches. Connected various slower devices including a gigabit switch (1gig), a Ubiquiti AC Lite AP (1gig), a printer (100meg), and voice-over-IP box (100meg). Heat: These TP-Link switches get slightly warm but never hot. Ethernet Adapters: Using Sabrent 2.5 Gigabit NT-S25G USB 3.0 adapters on all my computers, since none of my computers came with 2.5 gigabit as of mid-2021. I had some auto-negotiation issues on bootup, where the adapter would sync at 100 mbit or 1 gbit (not 2.5gig) when the adapter powered on. After boot, I would manually adjust the driver's speed setting from auto-negotiate to 2.5 gigabit, or 2.5 gigabit to auto-negotiate, which would re-sync at 2.5-gig with the switch. Contacted Sabrent support who also believed the issue was with the latest Realtek driver, a fix may be coming soon. Another reviewer here believed the TP-Links are responsible for auto-negotiate issues, it may be a TP-Link issue but I'm not sure. When I connected my TP-Link 2.5 gig switches to each other, they always synced at 2.5 gig. Same with the Google Fiber router's 1/2.5/5/10 port which always auto-negotiated at 2.5 gig. Only my Realtek-chip adapters would sync at lower speed on initial power-on. I figured out that by plugging my 2.5gig adapters into always-on USB 3.0 ports via USB 3.0 hub, kept the adapters locked at 2.5 gigabit even after the PC rebooted. When my adapters did sync at lower speed, a quick re-sync of the driver would fix it. On Windows, Network Connections (Control Panel), double-click the adapter, Configure, Advanced tab, Speed & Duplex, switch it to "2.5 gig full" or "auto-negotiate", either will trigger the adapter to re-try its link to the TP-Link. On Linux, after boot, run: ethtool -s enx002341234567 autoneg on advertise 0x80000000002f (replacing the enx002... with your device name) Ethernet Cables: My rooms have Jadaol flat Cat-6 cables that range in length from 1-foot to 25-feet, all worked with 2.5 gigabit. My home had professionally-installed Cat-6 in-wall cabling, with some cable lengths up to 40 feet long, all worked with 2.5 gigabit. Is this worth the price: If your Internet speed is more than 1 gigabit, then yes! If you transfer files between computers that have SSDs capable of more than 125 megabytes per second, then yes! Otherwise, no. One gigabit is plenty fast for nearly everyone's needs. If you do buy one, you can keep your existing 1 gig switch for your gigabit devices, and plug your multi-gigabit devices into one of these TP-Link 2.5 giggers.