2.5G Switch with Link Aggregation?

[bdub76]

I’m shopping for switches now, and I have the requirement of link aggregation on the switch. I have a Synology NAS that supports it, but they’re only 1G ports. However, I’m moving over slowly to 2.5G for my wired connections.

What’s a good switch they will cover both of these requirements: 2.5G plus link aggregation?

I need 8+ ports.

 

[Tech Junky]

Zyxel 8-Port 2.5G Multi-Gigabit Unmanaged Switch for Home Entertainment or SOHO Network [MG-108] https://a.co/d/3iVoXjf

There's also a 12 port but it's several 1ge ports with 3 that can be bundled.

 

[jea101]

Zyxel 8-Port 2.5G Multi-Gigabit Unmanaged Switch for Home Entertainment or SOHO Network [MG-108] https://a.co/d/3iVoXjf

There's also a 12 port but it's several 1ge ports with 3 that can be bundled.

I don’t believe the Zyxel MG-108 that you linked (or any other “dumb” switch) supports link aggregation.
You need a smart/managed switch.
The Zyxel XGS1250-12 supports link aggregation.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TC3VJ61/?tag=snbforums-20

If you need more then 3 2.5gig/multigig ports you could add a dumb 2.5 gig switch such as the MG-108

 

[follower]

I’m shopping for switches now, and I have the requirement of link aggregation on the switch. I have a Synology NAS that supports it, but they’re only 1G ports. However, I’m moving over slowly to 2.5G for my wired connections.

What’s a good switch they will cover both of these requirements: 2.5G plus link aggregation?

I need 8+ ports.

You need a Managed Switch which supports LACP. CISCO, Netgear, TP-Link and more. It's up to your budget.
QNAP fanboys will be here soon.

 

[bdub76]

You need a Managed Switch which supports LACP. CISCO, Netgear, TP-Link and more. It's up to your budget.
QNAP fanboys will be here soon.

QNAPs security record recently isn’t great. The last piece of gear I want to worry about security is my switch.

I’m pretty brand agnostic unless they’ve dropped the ball. It’s really the hardware behind the scenes and ease to configure. I’m good with either a web gui or cli via ssh.

I would like to keep the price under $300. I might have to wait a year or two to get what I want.

 

[Tech Junky]

@bdub76 there's not really much out there to choose from when it comes to 2.5/5ge switches. It's kind of a build your own from a PC or pay through the nosr for a few ports on the managed side. I suspect in a couple of years there might be more since we're starting to see more cpe equipment with 2.5 ports and ISPs going up to 5ge speeds. Most of this affects routers though to have those ports but, to take advantage of them you need the switched behind them. It's kind of like Intel releasing 6e WiFi adapters when there isn't much to connect them to.

 

[bdub76]

@bdub76 there's not really much out there to choose from when it comes to 2.5/5ge switches. It's kind of a build your own from a PC or pay through the nosr for a few ports on the managed side. I suspect in a couple of years there might be more since we're starting to see more cpe equipment with 2.5 ports and ISPs going up to 5ge speeds. Most of this affects routers though to have those ports but, to take advantage of them you need the switched behind them. It's kind of like Intel releasing 6e WiFi adapters when there isn't much to connect them to.

The other concern is power usage. I expect my network gear to have low power requirements since they’re headless.

The other bit is that I’m still limited by my read and write speeds on my NAS. I can get a router that can process faster speeds now with 2.5 nics, but that doesn’t make sense until I can get a switch.

I upgraded my AP to WIFI 6 as I’m adding more ax devices. The challenge now is lots of client connections. I now have over 20.

 

[Tech Junky]

Horse / cart situation is the pain when things are released in a staggered pattern. Sure low power is a factor if you have a lot of gear. In a consumer setting though it won't be felt as much when you consider it's similar to adding some light bulbs to the bill. It doesn't need to be as powerful as a gaming or workstation setup to move packets. You can also roll the NAS function into the same box and eliminate use that way to compensate for the increased load. For increasing the write speeds use raid 10 to double the speed per pair of disks or since you're moving to a PC case add SATA/NVME M2 drives to cascade the data to the spinners. There are ways to make things work to what you want and not what's given to you off the shelf.