So these are our choices:
- Zyxel XMG1915-10E(P) alt. XGS1210-12 with too few 2.5g ports
- Tplink TL-SG3210XHP-M2
- Ubiqiti USW-Enterprise-8-PoE
- MikroTik CRS310-8G+2S+IN
- Qnap QSW-M2108-2C
I've got
Zyxel XMG1915-10EP in the end. Couldn't stand Ubiqiti consumption or Tplink helicopter noise. So here are the impressions: device is tiny. Device is dead silent. Not extraordinary hot. Connected two 25gbit machines to it and it delivers nice
9.7Gbit between them. Also connected 6 2.5gbit devices, and the total consumption is 15W. Not like 21W on Ubiqiti when disconnected. Better than Mikrotik which starts at 10W disconnected. But still, it's generally a high base, so if you want to reduce consumption, consider no PoE or nonmanaged model. There you can drop to very low levels (e.g.
XMG-108 1.56W min 9.12W max). Device shows port status in a LED matrix instead of hiding LEDs under ports which is a great idea - you cannot miss the status. The software has a good chunk of functionality, slightly above XMG1930 model (without subscription). I like DHCP, IGMP, VLAN and port pollicing. Auto power off shows power reduction on my meter by just unplugging devices. Nebula nonsense can be turned off and then it no longer calls anywhere on internet. There are two boot/config slots just like on WRT routers. You can use Juniper language in SSH. The UI is nice but it's an old classic style of showing tons of pages with minimal interconnection and no refresh. Not even showing your port names on pages. Login session can fail due to "double login" sometimes. Minimal firmware updates exist. Boot is not very fast.
So half price of Ubiqity, PoE++ on whopping 8 ports, ideal density, low profile, short, great performance, and one of the best power consumptions on the market.
Calling home analysis
NTP was localized. The only remaining connection was made to d.nebula.zyxel.com after boot when "NCC discovery" was on. That's the first thing to turn off to avoid any telemetry. It's on by default. Remember to "Save" the settings.