Cisco SG250-08 Smart Switch | 8 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) Ports | 8 Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 Ports | Limited Lifetime Protection (SG250-08-K9-NA)

Let me start off to say this is an awesome little Cisco switch. I bought three of them (model SG250-08HP-K9-NA).I was initially turned off by the GUI and the CLI. The GUI seemed complicated, and the CLI was not a complete IOS. I was thinking of returning my purchases, but after watching a YouTube video on how to set up VLANs and doing a little reading on the capabilities, I gave it another go.About the hardware: It’s build solid. The case seems to be all metal and is heavy. Roughly the same height & width of other small 8-port switches, but has an extra inch or so of depth. Typical Cisco-included USB port on the front for firmware upgrades. There’s no serial console port but it’s not really needed. The switch is fanless with front-to-back honeycomb vent holes on both sides for passive cooling. I have one of these switches inside a closed hallway cabinet and its web dashboard temperature status is well into the green.About the GUI: I think I read somewhere there were over 100 pages in the menus. By comparison, another smart switch I bought here on Amazon has about 8 pages. There's a lot of features you have access to: interface stats, VLANs, SNMP, external sysloging, individual logins, etc, etc, etc. This is really a small-business switch. The GUI very fast. It did take some getting used to finding things, but after watching YouTube and taking a lot of notes as I changed things, I’m a lot more comfortable with it. Every switch has a learning curve and I’m glad I stuck with it.About the CLI: When I first turned the SSH Service on, the switch had a very clean config (not much changed at the GUI). Doing a “show run” command gave a very short output (as compared to a regular IOS-based switch). But...after I customized the switch(es) on the GUI, I found that a “show run” had a bit more information (appparently the CLI doesn’t hides default info). There are many commands (like “show interface status”, “show cdp nei”, “show lldp nei”, “show log”, “conf t”, “copy run start”) that do work. Not enough for practicing for a CCNA certification, but enough to do some quick configuration or checking. I’ve found the GUI to be fast now that I’ve gotten used to it so I’m not bothering with the CLI.Summary: This is a very capable home/small business switch. Compact, fanless (no noise), POE+. It’s biggest downside is that it’s twice the cost of the cheapie managed switch I first purchased. But...you absolutely do get what you pay for. You want a solid home switch with all the bells and whistles, then this is it.

Can't go wrong with Cisco. Former Switch technician for AT&T Wireless. Cisco supplies much of their networking equipment and for good reason. Durability and reliability is a must. I needed a switch for my home network which is attached to my Google fiber router. I tried other non managed switches but wanted the ability to tweak performance. I opted for Cisco because the software is highly flexible. My experience with AT&T was managing Ericsson and Nortel switches in every aspect, which I did for nearly a decade. From my perspective configuring this little Cisco box is like going from college down to middle school. Compared to Telecom, IT is child's play. For anyone not familiar with configuring routers I recommend reading the manual before changing any settings. And f your like me you'd read the manual anyways just for fun. Their is also the option to not change any settings because this little switch is also plug and play. Overall I'm very satisfied. It's a very nice little switch, the software is nicely written, and the quality is outstanding.

This switch is replacing a 10+ years old Linksys switch with a similar hardware config (8 + 2 ports, PoE, wall mounted using the same screws as the previous switch) but the similarities stop there: I was so used to the fan noise coming from the old switch that now I need to turn around to see if the switch is actually up as it has no fan and makes absolutely zero noise. I haven't noticed that most devices in my network are GbE capable as the old switch was 10/100, needless to say the response time has imprved greatly.Finally, the biggest difference comes from the software capabilities, there's a lot of value packed in there: the web browser supports SSL or plain http connections (if you want to avoid an invalid certificate warning), the GUI is pretty easy and efficiente but I guess CLI users should feel at home as well. The included Smart Netowrk Admin utility doesn't require any installation and is very usefull. I hope this switch will last at least another 7-10 years.

It is a switch, it needs to route packets from one port to another based on the MAC address and pre-set rules - not a rocket science. It seems to be doing just that and I also could finally setup static LAG between RV router and LACP for NAS.As of 2.5.0.92, it still uses the old management GUI, compared to the rest of the Cisco SMB lineup (RV, WAP). Which I don't care about, as I don't need to fiddle with it on a daily basis, but none the less - it would be nice to have a common user interface across all devices, as I don't have a gazillion of them to resort to CLI.It also takes forever (about a minute) to boot, which compared to unmanaged switches that are pretty much "instant-on", is a significant down side. I understand if it's a 48-port rack-mounted switch it might be considered okay as it's pretty much a network appliance at that point, but for an 8-port desktop switch in 21-st century - it is a little bit too much, if you ask me. Maybe if you configure it over the top with deep packet inspection and stuff, then it is reasonable, but I barely use anything beyond trunking and it's ridiculous how long it takes from powering on to getting basic switching capabilities to work.

Unless you’re going to do anything more than just plug things in and power on than this is what you want. The feature set on this small switch is incredible for the money. And in case you’re wondering. Yes - the SG250-08 can be powered remotely. I have mine powered by a SG350. Both are Highly recommended. Don’t let the feature set scare you if your not a CCNA - setup can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. And if you are a CCNA then you’re going to be very happy with this little thing.

Its been around 2 years for this switch online, the current up time is 600 days. AMAZING

Replaced older 8 port switches of an earlier generation, nice and compact for home use with features an advanced network admin will appreciate.

From my recent blog post about it: This unit is super stable and reliable and I bought it because it provides the following features: [8 ports] [fanless quietness] [gigabit switching] [dot1q trunking vlans] [poe.af] and able to use [IOS] over SSH!