We are releasing our Nicgiga NIC-S250402 today because it is currently the cheapest 4+2 switch that we have tested with today’s discounts (bringing the $49 price down to $35 with the stacked discounts.) With four 2.5GbE ports, two SFP+ 10G ports, and low power consumption, this can be a useful switch, if you can get around the name that is a combination of NIC and Giga as in Gigabit. Still, it has a feature that makes it a bit more unique than some of the other basic offerings we have seen.
If you want to check the current pricing, we purchased this from Amazon. Here is an affiliate link to the one we bought.
Nicgiga NIC-S250402 Overview
We first covered this switch in our 2024 Mega round-up, which you can find here:
We have also added this switch to the Ultimate Cheap Fanless 2.5GbE Switch Buyer’s Guide, which lists 40+ models. Bookmark that page to get the latest. We will like all of these reviews from that page.
Many of these switches are similar, so we figured we would cover this one today as it is around 30% off. Those discounts seem to be depleted and replenished from time to time so prices can change. Still, at $35 this is certainly cheap for what you get, putting it on par with a $10 8-port 1GbE switch on a per 1Gbps basis.
Nicgiga NIC-S250402 Hardware Overview
On the front of the switch, we have almost everything. There are four 2.5GbE ports and two SFP+ 10GbE ports. One of the more unique features is that this has a VLAN OFF/ON switch. We have seen several switches with that toggle, and turns on port isolation.
The power input is also on the front of the switch. Some of our readers prefer everything on the front, while others prefer the power to be on the rear. This is one of the front options.
On both sides, there are vents.
The rear is a piece of sheet metal.
On the bottom, we get a standard label and wall mounting points.
Inside the switch, we can see one of the larger 4+2 boards and that the case is just slightly larger than the PCB.
Here is a view of the simple board inside the switch. These 4+2 switches are single-chip solutions, which makes them pretty simple.
This is a fanless switch, with a heatsink on the switch chip is really tiny and it seems like whoever put it on with thermal glue left a lot of glue on the side.
Next, let us get to management, performance, and power consumption.
It took a sec to find the 10% redeem button but for $35 I’m joining the Nic giga party. Sorry if I’m using the discount up for everyone else.
I’m looking forward to some of the 16+ port 2.5gbps switch reviews, there seems to be a fair amount of these larger switches popping up on Ali and Amazon lately. Perhaps they will motivate some of the other makers (cough, Ubiquiti) to start making real 2.5gbps switches and not ones with only 25% of the ports higher speed.