Anker USB C to 2.5 Gbps Ethernet Adapter Review

I recently upgraded a segment of my home network to 2.5 GB ethernet.  I keep a huge folder on my laptop called “Archive” that has basically every manual for everything I own in it.  Also there’s other junk in there too.  It’s huge, and it takes forever to back up.  In the interest of backing everything up quicker once every week or so I decided to get a 2.5GB ethernet dongle to move those files to my snazzy 2.5GB NAS.  After a bit of research I settled on the Anker USB C to 2.5 Gbps Ethernet Adapter.

Sorry.  Every time I see the word “Anker” my mind wanders to the SpongeBob episode where he bought inflatable Anchor Arms.  The goal was to get ripped like Larry Lobster.

And such as it is with me and my network.  I’m trying to get ripped backing up that huge folder quickly somehow or another.

Anyway, here’s the real “Anker”

It Doesn’t Work!

That’s right.  When I first plugged it in it would not connect to my MacBookAir M1. My MacBookAir has two USB -C ports.  I tried them both.  It simply would not connect and only pulled a private IP address.   Then in order to hunker down to figure this out I UNPLUGGED THE POWER BRICK FROM MY LAPTOP and my ethernet connection went green.

So then I plugged the brick back in, because, you know, this is going to take a while. And my connection died again.   So I unplugged it again.  Ethernet started working again.

Well, ain’t this some shit.

The device has a Realtek RTL8156 chipset in it and I confirmed via some serious googling that it would work with my M1 MacBookAir before buying it.

And again, it DOES WORK.

But not once have I seen my issue mentioned anywhere.  Even went to the Realtek website to look for updated drivers.  While they do have Mac drivers they are for MacOS 10.  I’m on 13 (Ventura).

Here’s a demonstration of what happens.

It Does Work!

While I haven’t run iperf on the interface yet it does light my Netgear MS108EUP switch up with a green light indicating 2.5 GB speeds are being obtained.  Yeah, I know.  I need to test the speed.  And I will, but from what I’ve read most folks are getting proper speeds.

It’s interesting to me that I seem to be the first one to discover this simultaneous charging issue.  But that’s what I do here at John’s Tech Blog.  I buy stuff, I use that stuff, and I tell you what happens to that stuff.  Good or bad.

UPDATE 2 APRIL 2023

I contacted Anker support who assured me this is not normal behavior.  They asked me to do a few things (which I had already done) and then agreed to send me a new adapter.  It arrived a couple of days ago.  I can confirm that this one works perfectly and will work when a charging brick is also connected to the laptop.

My thanks to Anker Support for resolving this quickly.

Should You Buy One?

I dunno.  Sounds like I just got a bad one initially.  It happens.   I may buy a couple more of these.  That will allow me to hook my 2 Mac Mini’s up to my new 2.5GHz network.   But realistically I don’t care if those mac minis are talking fast or not.  If I create a gigantic video file I can just hook the adapter up as needed.