So I've seen this discussion a few times now and I've thought about it myself. Let's ask the questions and see if we can get some testing/thoughts.
Overall question: Can we build an effective 10GbE switch out of cheap parts and have it work well?
- What are the limiting factors to make this work? CPU cores? Bus speed?
- Should I be able to slap in RouterOS or just turn on bridging in Linux and get this to work?
- How do I test saturation or performance? I don't even know how to generate enough traffic and to make sure my nodes are not the bottleneck.
- What are other problems or what else do I give up?
My goal would be quiet and relatively cheap with a low port count (6-8 ports). Power would be nice, but you can only get so much.
Here's a sample config:
MB: Supermicro X8DTL-i [$150]
CPU: L5520 [$20]
RAM: 3 x 4GB [$60]
SSD: 64GB [$35]
10GbE NIC: Brocade 1020 x 4 [$160]
Case/PS: Any.. [$100]
$525 for 8 ports so $65/port + dual GigE
If CPU power will be a factor, could double the CPUs and RAM (+$80).
This config is on my workbench right now (less the 10GbE NICs) and idles at 60W. Adding in a ConnectX3 makes it 65W at idle. I'd estimate full config at about 90W idle with case fans and all.
Don't know if I have time to build this to test, but would love to get the discussion started.
Overall question: Can we build an effective 10GbE switch out of cheap parts and have it work well?
- What are the limiting factors to make this work? CPU cores? Bus speed?
- Should I be able to slap in RouterOS or just turn on bridging in Linux and get this to work?
- How do I test saturation or performance? I don't even know how to generate enough traffic and to make sure my nodes are not the bottleneck.
- What are other problems or what else do I give up?
My goal would be quiet and relatively cheap with a low port count (6-8 ports). Power would be nice, but you can only get so much.
Here's a sample config:
MB: Supermicro X8DTL-i [$150]
CPU: L5520 [$20]
RAM: 3 x 4GB [$60]
SSD: 64GB [$35]
10GbE NIC: Brocade 1020 x 4 [$160]
Case/PS: Any.. [$100]
$525 for 8 ports so $65/port + dual GigE
If CPU power will be a factor, could double the CPUs and RAM (+$80).
This config is on my workbench right now (less the 10GbE NICs) and idles at 60W. Adding in a ConnectX3 makes it 65W at idle. I'd estimate full config at about 90W idle with case fans and all.
Don't know if I have time to build this to test, but would love to get the discussion started.