Finally A Cheap 8

Jun 04, 2023

When we did The Ultimate Cheap Fanless 2.5GbE Switch Mega Round-Up we heard consistent feedback. People want cheap 10GbE switches. Not just the MikroTik CRS309-1G-8S+IN SFP+ switch, but specifically 10Gbase-T switches. Others ask not just for an unmanaged switch, but a managed one. Others ask for PoE. Today, we have all three in an 8-port 10Gbase-T managed PoE+ switch for a price of just $278. Let us get into the Hasivo S1100WP-8XGT-SE.

As a quick note, we are releasing a video with both the PoE and non-PoE versions of this switch.

The non-PoE version is $30-45 less expensive and is largely the same, except for the lack of PoE. Still, the video has more b-roll so you can see more angles and it has the noise of the switches as well. As always, we suggest opening the video in its own window, tab, or app for a better viewing experience.

The Hasivo S100WP-8XGT-SE is much larger than one might expect at the outset. We did not fully appreciate why this 8-port 10Gbase-T switch was so large until we opened it up.

Still, this follows a standard Hasivo design. The eight ports have a PoE status LED below the ports and a link status above them. We just want to note quickly that we tested the switch at 1GbE, 2.5GbE, 5GbE, and 10GbE speeds on Intel and Marvell Aquantia NICs across various platforms from Threadripper Pro and Xeon W workstations to servers, to mini PCs/ TinyMiniMicro nodes, and even the Apple Mac Studio M1 and Mac Mini M2 Pro. We were slightly concerned that we would not negotiate 2.5GbE speeds correctly as that has been an issue on some low-cost 10Gbase-T switches in the past. That is not the case here.

On the side of the switch we have mounting holes for rackmount ears, but we did not find the ears in the package. We did, however, find the rubber feet for a desktop solution.

The rear of the unit had the power input, power switch, fans, and label. We could not find the PoE capacity of the switch but the AC110V-240V 3.6A rating is more than enough to power the switch and the PoE+ ports. This label also has the management login IP and the admin/admin credentials.

What you will not find here are regulatory or safety ratings. That is probably why these are so inexpensive. On the other hand, a huge portion of the market cannot use these because of that. Still, we wanted to see what is possible and since there is nothing close to this switch at even three times the price, we wanted to investigate.

Now the big question: What is inside the system? Let us get inside next.

Inside the switch, we find fans and the power input in the rear. The Power supply is to one side. There is also a switching PCB and another board on top for PoE functionality.

Here is a look from the rear of the system to see how this is laid out.

The PSU we could not find specs on. It is an internal PSU that is not hot-swappable.

Here is another angle of the power supply.

The power supply is connected to the rear outlet and power switch as well as to the main switch board by an array of wires.

Sitting above the main switch board is this PoE+ board from Hasivo. Many companies build a base switch platform and then add PoE via an optional feature like this in order to deliver lower-cost PoE and non-PoE variants to the market.

Here is the side-by-side with this and the non-PoE version.

The main switch chip is the Realtek RTL9303 and 8-port 10GbE part.

It looks like that chip is connected to two other chips acting as PHYs. We could not find much information on these, but they are Realtek RTL8264 chips.

Next, let us take a look at PoE capabilities since that is not what we expected. We will also look at the management and performance.