Today we are going to look at something that we have wanted to find for some time, a seriously cheap 2.5GbE switch with more than 5 ports, a 10GbE uplink, silent, and low power. That is the holy grail of switches where they become commonplace. The MokerLink 2G08110GS is the first 8x 2.5GbE and 1x 10GbE (SFP+) switch that we are going to review in this mini-series. It is awesome.
For this switch, we actually have four different models, purchased from Amazon and AliExpress. We made a video because we want our readers to know there are options in this space:
Still, we wanted to give each its formal switch review. This switch came in a brown box with some basic branding. We previously looked at the MokerLink 2G041G, a cheap 5x 2.5GbE switch. Through some scheduling snafus and OCP content, that was supposed to publish a few weeks ago, but it ended up publishing the same week as this review.
In the video, we unbox two switches side-by-side to see how similar they are down to the packaging.
MokerLink 2G08110GS 8x 2.5GbE 1x 10GbE Switch Hardware Overview
The front of the switch is very basic. We get eight 2.5GbE ports which is fairly good. The standout is that we also get a SFP+ 10GbE port. We have seen other switches with four or five 2.5GbE ports and then two 10GbE ports. This is the same as the 4×2.5GbE plus 2x 10GbE units in terms of bandwidth, but it is exposed differently.
The switch itself is desktop mounting only, there are no rackmount ears.
Both sides only have vents. One interesting note is that the three different models that we purchased from Amazon have a QC PASS sticker over the screw hole. The one from AliExpress did not.
The back has the DC power input and a grounding point. Generally, we like all ports on these switches to be on the same side so that they can be placed against a wall. On higher-end switches, having ports on both sides can make more sense. In this class, it would be easier if they were all up front.
The bottom of the switch has two mounting points. It also has a MokerLink product label. This is an unmanaged switch, but this label is where the login information would be if it were a MokerLink managed switch. This might be the biggest thing to come out of Wuhan in years.
Inside the switch, we can see the ports and cages with two heatsinks behind them.
This is the internal view where we can see the two switch chip layout.
The switch appears to be using the RTL8373-CG and the RTL8224-CG switch chips. It is using a 10G uplink from the RTL8224-CG to the RTL8373-CG. Each has four 2.5GbE links downstream and the latter has a 10G SFP+ link as well.
This, like the other units we have tested, is a fanless design keeping noise low.
Next, let us get to the management, performance, power consumption, and our final thoughts.
Are we ever going to get a 2.5 switch that I can set vlans and LACP? Even a simple web interface works.
> we were able to get fairly normal 2.5GbE speeds from each of the five ports.
Eight not five. :-)
I don’t understand how one tests the speed of the 10GB port when there is only one of them. Where does it send the data? Don’t speed tests require a send and receive?
@Eric Olson:
> I don’t understand how one tests the speed of the 10GB port when there is only one of them.
It’s an upstream port, so that you don’t have a 2.5G bottleneck when using more than one port at max. speed.
@Eric Olson: You send multiple streams of data in parallel. One stream on each 2.5G port means you only need four streams across four ports to get 10G of bandwidth all up. Likewise if you send four streams in on the 10G port, with each stream destined to a device on a different port, the switch will split the data across multiple 2.5G ports.
In this case there would be eight 2.5G ports transferring 20 Gbps of data, so easily enough to saturate the single 10G link to find out its true top speed.
Out of curiosity(and since you guys seem like good people to ask, given that this very article rockets to the top of the search results, even vs. vendor part pages or product family marketing materials, if I try to chase either realtek part number); how much diversity is the maker of a switch like this even given to choose from in terms of suppliers of switching silicon?
Is this fast enough(albeit still relatively slow and unmanaged) that more or less everyone associated with switching silicon has some offering? Is it a literal handful of models from realtek and maybe something from Marvell?
From reading this review series the board shots show some different layouts, which leads me to believe that we aren’t seeing literally the same reference design shoved into different boxes with more or less penny pinching on power capacitors and ethernet magnetics; but the fact that all the switch chips are just toasty enough to require a heatsink makes it hard for me to tell how much difference lies beneath: Are these within ~3% of one another because there are a bunch of options but unmanaged switching at this speed is a mature and solved problem so there just aren’t any gotchas; or do they perform largely the same because they are mostly the same switch chips with slight variations depending on the production values of the supporting circuitry?
@fuzzyfuzzyfungus
The switch in this review, as well as the Horaco, the Nicgifa, and the sodola are all using the same switch chip inside them. They are all 8+1 unmanaged switches.
“This might be the biggest thing to come out of Wuhan in years.”
This switch might not be hot, but this writer sure is.
The English here – or at least within the first few paragraphs (I read no further) – is, sad to say, abysmal.
Of these cheap 2.5gbe switches, this is the first to actually catch my attention. Many homelabbers likely have a free sfp+ port, so switches like these are a cheap way to have uncorked 2.5gb ports for cheap
How does this switch handle lower link speeds? Namely plugging a 1Gbps device to one of the 2.5Gbps ports and saturating the 1Gbps link from the uplink port?
I have a bad experience with cheap 1Gbps switches (namely Cisco SG100D-08 V2) where a 100Mbps device would make the switch unusable when the 100Mbps device downloads data at speeds near 100 Mbps from a 1Gbps device in another port.
I assume these issues are buffer related and switches with larger buffers wouldn’t be affected by this?
Got the Mokerlink version just last week here in Germany. 139,- Euro (incl. VAT/Salestax +Shipping). From FS, i have a SFP+ RJ45 Nbase-T transceiver for 30m (suitable for Netgear), works flawlessy at 2.5G to desktops and 10G to an Intel X550. Did not test it at 5G (but have no need anyway for that).
I also checked with a DAC-Cable on a XS716T’s SFP+ Port, also working at 10G as it should.
Would love to see 2x 10G instead 1x in addition to the 8x 2.5G, but hey: cooling is passive, power draw very low and it’s good value for money
Nice little basic switch. Replaces an old simple DGS-1008D here.
The link to Amazon doesn’t bring up this switch? It brings to a 10 port poe switch.
does anyone know if the 10G port supports 1G and/or 2.5G SFP modules, would it autodetect the speed?
Also would it support the Magic SFP moca 2.5 module?
Robert – we did use a SFP 1G optic, but not 2.5G optic with these.
Any suggestions on SFP+ cabling to connect this to a netgear managed switch (L2+) 10G SFP+ port? (short run <2M)
Has anyone had any luck using an optical module on the 10G SFP+ port? I have two of these switches, one works great with a direct attach cable but the other one I can’t seem to get to work despite trying 2 different brands of optical module (one of them was a Brocade.) Just wondering if it might be picky about what brands it will work with.
Hello StH / Patrick. Please examine the newest (it’s user manual shows v1.0 from April 2023) Mokerlik 10G120GSM which is a 12 port SFP+ (those also support SFP) and says it can handle 240Gbps bandwidth, and it’s an L3 managed fiber switch… sells for about $270 USD on AMz currently.
I’ve not seen ANY reviews for it, but on paper it looks awesome for a homelab. I’m considering it over the Mikrotik CRS309-1G-8S+IN (8 SFP+) managed switch.
THANKS BRO!
Benny – we have the Sodola version of that already tested.
For me, I tried to make a LACP aka Trunk on the item and it does not work with a Synology… any idea ?
I came across information, firmware 1.9 for Xike Stor branded switch actually supports LACP. Anyone knows where to get this firmware version or the one from other brands?
@StH / @Patrick,
Managed versions of these are now available, and for very low prices, all things considered. For example, I got the Horaco version on Aliexpress for about $61. At least for the Mokerlink version, they just put an “M” on the end of the model number