I wanted to upgrade my gigabit network to 2.5 GBE, So I could take advantage of the extra bandwidth that I am receiving, but not able to use
Since I need POE, For access points, I chose the following switch:
It may look like a non-name brand, but I chose to switch for the quite impressive power budget, At a relatively cheap price. It is unmanaged yet Support Vlan tagging. I do not use that feature, however, I guess it would likely work
For the ethernet adapters, I went for a real tek based adapter here:
I would usually go fully unifi, however, the switch that I would need to use to achieve the same would be over ÂŁ400
Looking at the local iPerf’s a reviewer did, the throughput isn’t an issue, They achieved 2.4gb/s constant
My Synology has drivers (all be it third party) for Realtek chips - I am yet to see if this is compatible, but my windows machine will be happy either way
Until I can whack in an intermediary switch, my upstairs PCs can only get 2.5Gb rather than 10Gb due to the length of the cable run. This is finr with me as I already have a couple with 2.5Gb chips built on to the motherboard. For the others, I got these PCIe cards -
Price was right and they work as advertised. Plug and play.
I cou’d’ve gone 10G tbh, but the 10Gbe switches seem to take up a lot of power and for me, I think 2.5gbe will be plenty for the forseeable future, I mean. I’ve been on 1gbe for the last 15 years
It doesn’t void the warranty - you just take off the outer shell - it is user serviceable, I just have bad eye sight, not so steady hands and I don’t want to risk breaking it, as it has a lifetime of family data on it
The NAS will be connected to a gatway, not a switch and the gateway ports unfortunately can’t LAG. it did cross my mind
" All UniFi Switchessupport aggregation, except USW-Flex, USW-Flex-Mini and USW-Ultra.
Port aggregation is not supported on UniFi Gateways. Because of this, you should not aggregate two ports connected from a UniFi Switch to a UniFi Gateway."
You can get the drivers on GitHub. I will link it.
The PCie card that would still be better, And I may ultimately end up doing that because on my PC for some reason the 2.5 GB ethernet adapter does the USB disconnect sound and they’re losing Internet for like a second and then it comes back
I didn’t take my screwdriver, so I was unable to unscrew the old switch however I just blocked the new one on top using Command strip. It shouldn’t get hot to the point where it will melt the glue, hopefully
All in all, it totaled about £130, I didn’t include the router upgrade price, as some may be using Yayzi’s router as that has the 2.5G ports already
If you total in my UCG Ultra → UCG Max upgrade, it’s closer to £400, as the router was £280, but it does allow me (If I wish) to get rid of my Hikvision CCTV and go to Unifi Protect
edit: I dont think these support vlan tagging. Theres a switch on the front and I think all it does is isolate the ports, except for one which is the uplink, which on mine are the SFP slots. You probably want one of the managed ones for real vlan.
It is weird why they call it VLAN, If it is indeed just port isolation. I have not tried it as I have no need for it.
I did try separate off the network with proper VLANS with the gigabit Ubiquiti switch you see underneath, But I ran into communication issues with HomeKit and the devices within HomeKit so I gave up.
They are unreliable at the best of times, even if it’s on the same network.
I can see the smart switches and lightbulbs are working on Wi-Fi, But HomeKit says “no response”
I know I should have gotten a managed switch but a managed switch with 2.5 gig. POE would’ve been about £40 more. Plus, as I said, I’m not really using the management features anyway
