Mellanox SX6036, Rail Kit

[DRW]

I'm not sure if these are particular amazing deals, but they seemed pretty decent to me.

SX6036 (real Mellanox, not EMC), $120

Mellanox SX6036 36 Port QSFP Managed InfiniBand Switch 2xPsu - Same Day Shipping | eBay

How do we refurbish items at our facility?.

www.ebay.com

I offered 117 and they accepted (I know, I really lowballed them there).
It comes with a 1 yr Allstate warranty, for whatever that's worth (probably not much).
Arrived pretty well packaged, but the rack ears were bent up (I straightened them again with a pair of channel-locks and very little effort).
Had some extremely sticky tape residue on it in a couple places, but it cleaned off just fine with solvent.
Overall very clean inside and not dented or anything.
I haven't gotten around to booting it up because my serial console usb cable decided to die on me and I'm waiting for a replacement.

MSX60-SKIT (Mellanox rail kit), $40 (or less if you are ordering more)

*NEW* Mellanox MSX60-SKIT, rev: A1, 1U Rails for SX60xx (Contact for Bulk Buy) | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for *NEW* Mellanox MSX60-SKIT, rev: A1, 1U Rails for SX60xx (Contact for Bulk Buy) at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

It looks like this guy has a ton of these and wants to get rid of them.
I ordered one set. I can't imagine that I'd need more as I'd probably go to 100G before I max out the 6036.

 

[ribroc]

It's still tough to say no to the 6036, right? Even with low-watt 100G like that tiny mikrotik on the market I struggle a bit on the value proposition for something that's really nice but also really quiet. Spending 3x as much for 100G vs 40G, and 1/2 the power draw is very tempting if you don't need all the ports especially when breakout cables are an option.

I still think the 6036 is the best option for most people, 40G/56G is still hard enough to saturate in a home setting, and the 30-40W consumption with a quiet fan mod means you're out the door for about $200 and a weekend.

 

[DRW]

Yeah that's pretty much it. I really don't need 100G for anything atm. By the time I do, it will be even cheaper (and maybe we will be talking about 200G being tempting). Either way, I will probably still want a lot of 10G. I don't really envision this leaving my rack anytime in the next 5 years.

 

[GhettoSuperstar]

My question for everyone, do I need this? I have a desktop and a workstation.

Both are powerful but the workstation is really overkill. I want to use the workstation for AI training and such. I tried to use a Bluefield ConnectX-5 100G cards but the desktop used the card without issue. The workstation didn't (don't know why but it's a server board, go figure). Nothing I could do, could get the Bluefield ConnectX-5 cards recognized by the motherboard (Gigabyte MZ32-AR0 rev.1).

So i sold the Bluefield cards and bought ConnectX-4 cards PCIe 16x. Both computers recognize the cards without issue, took the firmware without issue. But for the life of me, I can't get OpenSM working so that I can have computer to computer direct infiniband connection. I could buy this and rely on 40/56g infiniband speeds without relying on OpenSM. Or I could just settle for 100g Ethernet direct communications. I already have all the 100g ethenet fiber tranceivers and it just works. Sorry for the epic story.

 

[jbv1982]

I just got mine today. The ears were bent (I imagine people sitting the switch on its side) but I bought the rail kit too so I can replace them. Now to get it unlocked to ethernet mode.

 

[DRW]

I just got mine today. The ears were bent (I imagine people sitting the switch on its side) but I bought the rail kit too so I can replace them. Now to get it unlocked to ethernet mode.

Keep all the little screws from the ears. The new rail kit doesn't seem to include those (or at least mine didn't). Just fyi, in case you haven't received the rails yet.

My switch was on v3.4.2008 btw.

 

[jbv1982]

Mine did come with screws for the ears. They were in a tiny bag in either the big screw bag or the cage nut bag, I can't remember which.

 

[DRW]

I just checked again, just in case. I didn't get any. My rail box was fairly beat-up so it's possible the bag fell out on the way here (rails were fine though).

 

[Digital Spaceport]

It's incredibly hard to saturate 100gbe connections with single stream eth based traffic. 25gbe is rather expensive. 10gbe is not fast enough. 40gbe is still a really sweet spot on performance/price.

 

[NablaSquaredG]

I just checked again, just in case. I didn't get any. My rail box was fairly beat-up so it's possible the bag fell out on the way here (rails were fine though).

Screws are simply UNC 6-32, but as far as I remember with a 100° countersink angle, not the standard 82°