10 Gbe ethernet copper switch with more than 2 ports ?

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madbrain

Active Member
Jan 5, 2019
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I recently upgraded 2 machines in my home office to 10 Gb ethernet using Aquantia NICs. I bought a Netgear GS110MX for $160 recently (looks like price has gone back up to $199 now).
I have one more machine in another room that I would like to upgrade to 10 Gbe also.
This presents a problem since the switch I have only has two 10 Gbe ports.

Is there any inexpensive 10 Gbe switch with at least 3 copper ports ? Ideally a few more, of course.
The QNAP and Buffalo are all at least $400 which seems too steep still. I haven't even seen anything used on ebay that's suitable so far for less than that price. Does it exist yet ?

Ideally 4 10 Gbe ports plus at least one 1 Gb port for $200 is what I'm looking for. Ie, same as the GS110MX but with 4 ports rather than just 2.
 

psannz

Member
Jun 15, 2016
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If you can live with an unmanaged switch the Netgear XS505M-100 should work for you. It's around 260€ excl. VAT new.

Next step up are Netgear XS708Ev2 or HP 1850 6XGT (JL169A). Both give you basic L2 functionality with RTSP, VLANs, LAGs, QoS and IGMP Snooping. Pricing (new) is around 440€ excl. VAT.
 

madbrain

Active Member
Jan 5, 2019
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Can be rack mounted?
SFP+ with RJ-45 SFPs is ok? Like this one: MikroTik
SFPs are for around 65$ each:
MikroTik
Not opposed to rackmounted.

This still adds up to $149 + 4 x $65 = $409 . I was hoping for less than that, especially if buying something used.

I also have read those Microtik SFPs aren't the most reliable. Not sure if they would be a problem or not with my Aquantia NICs.
 

madbrain

Active Member
Jan 5, 2019
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If you can live with an unmanaged switch the Netgear XS505M-100 should work for you. It's around 260€ excl. VAT new.
Thanks. I don't need managed switch. Feature wise, I think this switch would work. I'm not seeing it for the price you list, though. Cheapest listing on ebay right now is $421 which is still beyond what I was hoping. New only, no used ones at the moment. Amazon doesn't even list this model, which is surprising.

Next step up are Netgear XS708Ev2 or HP 1850 6XGT (JL169A). Both give you basic L2 functionality with RTSP, VLANs, LAGs, QoS and IGMP Snooping. Pricing (new) is around 440€ excl. VAT.
I don'need those extra features, and the price is beyond what I'm looking for.
 

madbrain

Active Member
Jan 5, 2019
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Thanks. Looks like the Amazon reviews of this switch are quite mixed.
Apparently some serial numbers don't support jumbo frames. I'm using jumbo frames on my LAN now.
Several users complained about unit failures. And some about the noise.
Makes it a tough sale.

And of course it's still $400. which is $100 more than the 260 euros another person quoted. However, it doesn't seem the european sellers will ship to the US. Given the reported problems with the switch, I probably wouldn't order abroad at this point. I may not order it at all and just wait until something with a better track record and/or cheaper comes along ...

 

ecosse

Active Member
Jul 2, 2013
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I recently upgraded 2 machines in my home office to 10 Gb ethernet using Aquantia NICs. I bought a Netgear GS110MX for $160 recently (looks like price has gone back up to $199 now).
I have one more machine in another room that I would like to upgrade to 10 Gbe also.
This presents a problem since the switch I have only has two 10 Gbe ports.

Is there any inexpensive 10 Gbe switch with at least 3 copper ports ? Ideally a few more, of course.
The QNAP and Buffalo are all at least $400 which seems too steep still. I haven't even seen anything used on ebay that's suitable so far for less than that price. Does it exist yet ?

Ideally 4 10 Gbe ports plus at least one 1 Gb port for $200 is what I'm looking for. Ie, same as the GS110MX but with 4 ports rather than just 2.
You could keep an eye out for dell n1500 range e.g. n1524 / n1524p on ebay. I can't see any at $200 at the moment but I've bought one cheaper than that in the UK.
 

madbrain

Active Member
Jan 5, 2019
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I bit the bullet and bought the Trendnet TEG-7080ES, which recently dropped to $539 on Amazon. This is an 8-port switch. It is managed. It does have two fans. They aren't completely silent unfortunately, but once any of the 4 machines in my home office are turned on, the noise is not significant. I can live with it located about 6ft away from my ears.

One word of warning - jumbo frames are disabled by default. You have to enable them in the admin UI. The Aquantia driver for Linux apparently has a bug where the system goes down if the NIC has jumbo frames enabled in the system config (which mine did), but not on the switch, and another machine sends traffic with jumbo. I am about to report this bug to Aquantia. I now have 4 machines all running AQN-107 . I can max the 10Gbe link in iperf3 from all machines, but my NAS disks aren't that fast. I'm happy with 3-5 Gbps backups to ZFS, though.

10Gb seems to work fine with CAT5e or even CAT5. I have one link going from my home office to home theater that is like this :
TEG-7080ES switch
35ft CAT6a patch cable
old plastic RJ45 jack on the wall in home office
unknown cable type running through the wall and near HVAC ducts . about 25ft worth. Probably either CAT5e or CAT6. Not CAT6A for sure.
old plastic RJ45 jack on the wall in home theater
10ft CAT6a cable
Netgear GS110MX switch

I kept the Netgear switch as it fits perfectly in the home theater, being fully silent.
I also have 16-port Trendet 1Gbe switches in each room, both almost fully populated .

Now, I just need to figure out how to run CAT6a wire from the downstairs home office to the master bedroom upstairs . I have another HTPC there and another AQN-107 card ready for it. The most logical paths I can think of will probably push that distance to 200ft. I may need another 10Gbe switch in the attic at some point if I want to run to more rooms.
 

Agrikk

Member
Sep 6, 2013
39
3
8
Oakland, CA
Dell PowerConnect 6248 switches have 48 ports of GigE plus 4 ports SFP GigE, and they also have stacking modules that come with 2 port 10-gig fiber ports.

search ebay for:

Dell PowerConnect 6248 (~$60)
and
Dell PowerConnect Dual Port 10Gb CX4 Stacking Module (~$15 each)

For $90 you'll get 48 ports of Layer 3 switched gigE plus four ports of L3 switch 10-gig.

Plus console and web management and SNMP/Syslog monitoring.
 

madbrain

Active Member
Jan 5, 2019
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Agrikk,
Thanks for your reply.

How loud are the fans on the 6248 switches ?

I specifically asked for 10gig copper ports, though, not fiber. I would presumably have to add 4 SFP+ to copper transceivers, which would bring the price up to >$350 most likely.
 

Agrikk

Member
Sep 6, 2013
39
3
8
Oakland, CA
Agrikk,
Thanks for your reply.

How loud are the fans on the 6248 switches ?

I specifically asked for 10gig copper ports, though, not fiber. I would presumably have to add 4 SFP+ to copper transceivers, which would bring the price up to >$350 most likely.
Sorry, I sent mixed messages. The CX4 is a copper interface and the CX4Stacking module has a pair of CX4 interfaces (also called Amphenol cables) but I saw when you say copper you mean cat6a. The stacking module also accepts fiber transceivers that will allow 10g over fiber.

The stock fans are data center loud, but I've swapped mine out with aftermarket 40mm fans that are a LOT quieter. But their lower RPM set off the fan alarm, so I have to filter out fan alerts on my Syslog server or I get spammed with warnings.
 

madbrain

Active Member
Jan 5, 2019
212
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28
Sorry, I sent mixed messages. The CX4 is a copper interface and the CX4Stacking module has a pair of CX4 interfaces (also called Amphenol cables) but I saw when you say copper you mean cat6a. The stacking module also accepts fiber transceivers that will allow 10g over fiber.

The stock fans are data center loud, but I've swapped mine out with aftermarket 40mm fans that are a LOT quieter. But their lower RPM set off the fan alarm, so I have to filter out fan alerts on my Syslog server or I get spammed with warnings.
Thanks. I wasn't aware that there were multiple types of copper interfaces for 10gig ethernet. I meant CAT6 indeed, or more precisely 10GBASE-T . Looks like I would still need to buy some converters to go between CX4 and 10GBASE-T . I don't have have much time to mod hardware as I used to re: swapping fans.
I think I'm well served by the TEG-7080ES. Now I await the release of a USB 3.0 5Gb ethernet NICs for one of my single-board computers, an Odroid XU4, which would make it my 5th computer capable of >1Gb ethernet.