Ubiquiti UniFi USW-Pro-XG-8-PoE Review A 10Gbase-T Standout Product

Ubiquiti UniFi USW-Pro-XG-8-PoE Internal Hardware Overview

Getting inside this switch was not too bad. Here you can see the main part with the fans.

The bottom part is a PoE board with Realtek chips.

Here is a better look at the board.

Here is a look at the other side of the PoE board.

Here is a view of the switch without the PoE board installed. If you saw our recent Cisco Catalyst C1300-8FP-2G Review, you will notice that Cisco did not use a PoE daughterboard like Ubiquiti is, but we will quickly note that it is very common to see this design in PoE switches.

Next, we have two AVC fans.

This is how far we got into the switch before we started getting worried that further disassembly would jeopardize future test results with it. Still, we found online that it is using the Realtek RTL9313, which makes sense. We saw the MIPS-based management processor which aligns with the RTL9313.

We have reviewed switches, including the Sodola SL-SWTG3C12F 12-Port 10G SFP+ managed switch and the recent Sodola 10Gbase-T and SFP+ 12-port managed switch, that use the same chip. Although this costs more than twice as much, Ubiquiti’s hardware engineering around that switch chip appears to be a step above, and it supports PoE++ and more 10GBase-T ports. That RTL9313 just seems to be the low-cost option and we have seen it perform quite well.

Here are the fans if you want to see them. Actually, Ubiquiti did a great job picking these as the unit is generally very quiet when in operation after it boots. While we recognize some folks read our reviews, looking at switches and think of fan swap opportunities, we would not recommend that with these fans.

Next, let us get to the management.

Ubiquiti UniFi USW-Pro-XG-8-PoE Management

We are not going to go into depth on Ubiquiti UniFi here. You can read about that overall solution online. When we plugged this switch in, our UniFi controller immediately recognized it and asked us to adopt it.

Once it is adopted, you have many common options, including VLAN management. One really nice feature is that the PoE++ can also be set to “Off” in the interface, so you can remotely power cycle APs, cameras, or other devices directly from the UniFi interface.

You can also take a look at the different ports here like other Ubiquiti switches.

Here is perhaps the neatest feature. You can set the Etherlighting to color based on speed or based on the network to which it is attached. This helps quickly identify network links. Also, it just looks cool. Meta has had RGB QSFP cages for some time in some of its OCP switches. This is like a more practical use of that for copper connections. Is this a “must have”? No. It is still really neat.

Next, let us get to the performance.