Nicgiga NIC-S250402 Management
This is an unmanaged switch, so it does not have a management interface. The VLAN ON/OFF switch we do not consider as management.
Nicgiga NIC-S250402 Performance
In terms of performance, this seems to be a decent but not top-tier performer.
Performance is what we would expect. Part of why we are doing this is also to subject the switches to load and our Wireshark network for an extended period of time.
Nicgiga NIC-S250402 Power Consumption
Here, we can see the 1.5A 12V power supply. The 18W unit is one of the larger ones we have seen on a 4+2 switch. It is also a different power supply situation than we saw on the PoE version of a 4+2 from the company which you can see in our Nicgiga S25-0402P PoE 2.5GbE and 10GbE Switch Review.
That 18W power supply led to slightly higher idle power at 1.6W.
With a single 2.5GbE port plugged in, we added 0.7W for a total of 2.3W. We often see 0.3W per 2.5GbE port.
We used a 10Gbase-T SFP+ pluggable to add a good amount of power consumption in a SFP+ port. Here, we saw an increase of 1.7W to 3.3W.
Overall, this is one of the more power-hungry switches, especially for a non-PoE model.
Final Words
We purchased the switch for $49. For $49, it feels a bit expensive compared to switches like the Mokerlink 2G040210GS. The Mokerlink does not have the VLAN ON/OFF switch, but it is lower power so it would probably get our nod over this Nicgiga. However, it seems like Nicgiga is running specials right now with a 20% off and a 10% off discount bringing the price to $35. We have seen these discounts on other switches deplete quickly after we publish these reviews, but often they get replenished making them a decent deal.
Perhaps this is one where it becomes more interesting the more it is discounted. At $49, there are other options, and the Gigaplus GP-S25-0802 8-port 2.5GbE and 2-port 10G Review is often $69, which puts a lot of downward price pressure on a switch like this. We focused a lot on pricing here because that is the main area where this switch needs to compete. We are going to start our 10GbE switch series next, and some will want a switch like this to provide 2.5GbE connectivity.
Where to Buy
We purchased our unit on Amazon. Here is the affiliate link for this model.
Ultimate Fanless 2.5GbE Switch Buyer’s Guide 2024
You may have seen that we published the Ultimate Cheap Fanless 2.5GbE Switch Buyer’s Guide now with around 60 switches. We also recently published our Mega Round-up 2024 edition, in which we tested 21 new switches, including this one.
We decided to do the round-up first and will be filling in with reviews that we had not published at that point, including this one. We are trying to keep everything in a single resource for folks there.
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.