Aruba MAS series SFP+ & POE+ switches sub-$100

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ViciousXUSMC

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Nov 27, 2016
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@ViciousXUSMC - your videos are really well done. Thank you for posting them.

In the videos you mention they’re part of a series on adding 10GbE, but I wasn’t able to find the series on YouTube as a group. Could you point me (us) to the relevant videos please ? Thanks again.
Yeah I have a couple of videos that I have not put up yet, the screen cap stuff is not hard but when I need to film I need a day of quiet around the house. It's just a vlog series going over the how/why/what of the upgrade. I need to do the first opening video before I put the middle/end videos up.
 

myrison

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Jan 26, 2011
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Yeah I have a couple of videos that I have not put up yet, the screen cap stuff is not hard but when I need to film I need a day of quiet around the house. It's just a vlog series going over the how/why/what of the upgrade. I need to do the first opening video before I put the middle/end videos up.
Cool thanks. I’ve subscribed so I should see them when they are posted.
 

Ouraing

Member
Dec 31, 2018
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Those are 10Gbase-SR, I'll be picking up a few of those (or equivalent from fs.com) but I need at least 1 10Gbase-T SFP+ but I'm not finding any reported as compatible with the MAS models.
 

ttabbal

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Mar 10, 2016
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Those are 10Gbase-SR, I'll be picking up a few of those (or equivalent from fs.com) but I need at least 1 10Gbase-T SFP+ but I'm not finding any reported as compatible with the MAS models.

From what I've found looking around, there are only a few companies that make them and they aren't really used by enterprise customers much. So there's almost no surplus supply of them available and low supply keeps the prices up. On top of that, the module locking nonsense makes compatibility an issue. I suspect my current DAC is going to have issues when I get one of these.

I recently had a need for POE, so I ordered one of the S2500-48P units. Hopefully it's a little easier to work with than the LB4M I have now. If there's a reference for documentation, I'd love a link to it. The LB4M I have to just search around and piece together what I need. I don't have any really complex needs, just a few VLANS and now POE.
 

ArthurA

Member
Sep 26, 2018
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S3500 Update:

One of the 1050w PS that arrived with mine was faulty, the three LEDs on the PS would just blink at a steady rate, the seller replied very promptly and indicates a replacement will be forthcoming. Still waiting on that to shake out.

S3500-48PF with one working 1050w PS, idle with no clients connected draws 130w.

Stacking ports removed without issue, however the S3500 doesn't support allow-unsupported-transceiver so my DACs are useless and now I need to dig up some spare 10G LR optics.
 

cheezehead

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Sep 23, 2012
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I recently had a need for POE, so I ordered one of the S2500-48P units. Hopefully it's a little easier to work with than the LB4M I have now. If there's a reference for documentation, I'd love a link to it. The LB4M I have to just search around and piece together what I need. I don't have any really complex needs, just a few VLANS and now POE.
CLI User Guide
https://community.arubanetworks.com...renceguides/84/1/arubaos 7.4.x user guide.pdf

With those wondering about 10G-BaseT adapters, early switches didn't have the power budget available for these adapters. If you have an adapter laying around, try it and see what happens. Aruba/HPE didn't officially start adding this capability until very recent switches either in the 3810M or 83xx series.
 
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manxam

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Jul 25, 2015
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Reading the docs and can't figure out if there's a way to backup or restore the config from USB w/o first logging into the GUI and setting a password and then SSH'ing in.
Was hoping that the "Update config" menu option on the LCD would load a config from USB similar to the "Update firmware" option.
Just trying to save time configuring 6 devices and make them all identical if possible.

I'd rather not get into TFTP servers and stuff...
 

ViciousXUSMC

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Nov 27, 2016
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I would image you can, but I have not tried.
Much like how the OS image must be in a folder called "arubaimage" the configuration file may be similar.

Also you can probably out of box stack the switches and manage them all as one just to push config.
 

manxam

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Jul 25, 2015
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Meh.. not a big deal, only 5 more left to do. Just trying to "work smart, not hard" (read: be lazy)
 

sic0048

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Dec 24, 2018
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Also, can someone explain what "oversubscribed poe+" is? Do you guys know if disabling ports or just POE helps with energy consumption? I really only need 2 POE+ ports, 4 regular Ethernet and 2 SFP's at the moment.
In a newbie, but my understanding is that the power supply is under powered. This means that while you have 24 or 48 ports that can support POE, if every port is needing to send out full POE power (like 30 watts for example), the switch won't be able to do it and will cut power to some ports in order to power the rest. You can specify a hierarchy of devices so critical devices are powered off last.

However, many POE devices are not that power hungry. For example, I have a fix of POE CCTV cameras, wireless APs, and IP phones hooked up to my switch and none of them draw more than about 5v. Many draw considerably less than that (2.5v or even less than 1 v). No perhaps those devices were in a low power state when I checked the power consumption levels and they will draw more power under certain circumstances. But long story short, even with my plans to add a few more POE devices, I should have plenty of power available with this switch.
 
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bug2th

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Jan 7, 2015
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Looks like Im having the same issue and will have to get a few optic cables - so for the transceiver you listed I was going to get something like this (any reason not to get the OM4? - for what I need overall cost would only be a few $$):

OM4 50/125 LC-LC Multimode Fiber Optic Cable Duplex 3m (10ft) - Aqua

You may be out of luck. I do recall that some switches are particularly picky about Direct Attach Copper cables, and while it is cheaper than buying SFP modules and fiber, the fiber modules seem to be much more flexible as far as compatibility.

I only paid $7.50 each for the modules and like $7 for 3m of Fiber, so it was not terribly expensive and offers me the ability to expand easier by just buying longer fiber.

The modules I purchased were on the Aurba compatibility chart.
FTLX8571D3BNL-E5 - Genuine Finisar 10GB 850nm LC Duplex Base-SR GBIC | eBay
 

bug2th

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Jan 7, 2015
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Thanks - that looks like a good price too. So I have a chelsio t440 quad port that im using twinax cable directly to a couple other servers and was hoping i can connect that to the s2500 but that wont work with existing cables - does anyone know if these finisar transceivers will be ok - i know the chelsio doc says only chelsio modules but have seen some comments about other brands working but not specifically these. worst case Ill just buy some and see...

OM3 is good, no reason to not get OM4 unless it cost a lot more.
This is what I used: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016W12W4C/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01__o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 

fake-name

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Feb 28, 2017
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However, many POE devices are not that power hungry. For example, I have a fix of POE CCTV cameras, wireless APs, and IP phones hooked up to my switch and none of them draw more than about 5v. Many draw considerably less than that (2.5v or even less than 1 v).
Did you mean "W" (or maybe "A")?

PoE is fixed voltage. Power draw is a function of current (power is voltage * current).

------

I picked one of these up as well. I'll probably take it apart and post pictures when it gets here.
 

cheezehead

Active Member
Sep 23, 2012
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In a newbie, but my understanding is that the power supply is under powered. This means that while you have 24 or 48 ports that can support POE, if every port is needing to send out full POE power (like 30 watts for example), the switch won't be able to do it and will cut power to some ports in order to power the rest. You can specify a hierarchy of devices so critical devices are powered off last.

However, many POE devices are not that power hungry. For example, I have a fix of POE CCTV cameras, wireless APs, and IP phones hooked up to my switch and none of them draw more than about 5v. Many draw considerably less than that (2.5v or even less than 1 v). No perhaps those devices were in a low power state when I checked the power consumption levels and they will draw more power under certain circumstances. But long story short, even with my plans to add a few more POE devices, I should have plenty of power available with this switch.
Is the POE budget oversubscribed, yes it is. There's 400w available for use and the switches are advanced enough than you could potentially stagger the POE activation upon boot to prevent inrush issues. The docs show 13 max POE+ or 25 POE devices connect but depending on draw you main gain more.

The AP's I'm running off of it now are POE+ rated (30w/each) but once up and running they are only drawing 7w/each. If your peak POE load with all devices is 8w or less, then technically you could have 48 POE devices. Phones draw a range, when the ringer kicks off they spike and if you have a multi-line phone with a large lcd display the draw will be higher then a real basic device.

As you add POE devices, the switch can report what the available POE budget so if you add the PTZ IP Cam than draws 30w down the road you'll know if you can or can't given your setup.
 

myrison

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Jan 26, 2011
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Being that the CFM was less than 1/3 and the stock fans were running about 1/3 speed. It made sense to me to use the 3 pin fans and run them at full speed all the time just in case the 4 pin fans did not preform as expected.

If they ran full speed all the time they would preform equal. And the Noctuas are so silent that you cant even hear them so no reason to not have them going 100% all the time IMO.
I saw in your video (thank you) that you had to Dremel off parts of the Noctua fan connector. Was this because you chose a 3 vs 4 pin or would someone have to modify the connector either way?

Re: noise since some others have asked, IMHO it is fairly quiet, just on the edge of too much background noise for me, so I'm going to let it run for a week or so and see if I get used to it. Now that it's in my rack and connected... The effort to modify is a lot higher so I suspect I might just let it go.
 

ViciousXUSMC

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Nov 27, 2016
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I saw in your video (thank you) that you had to Dremel off parts of the Noctua fan connector. Was this because you chose a 3 vs 4 pin or would someone have to modify the connector either way?

Re: noise since some others have asked, IMHO it is fairly quiet, just on the edge of too much background noise for me, so I'm going to let it run for a week or so and see if I get used to it. Now that it's in my rack and connected... The effort to modify is a lot higher so I suspect I might just let it go.
Yes 3 or 4 pin will both need modification, for some reason the fans header has a non standard alignment tab.

I'll probably modify my PoE Switch also since it was not hard to do and I know exactly what to expect but I want to see about tracking down good fans cheaper than the Noctuas.

But with the cost of these switches being what they are, even with the added fan expense, they are a steal. I sold my Ubiquiti US-24 for $150 and that alone almost paid for both of my switches and these are way nicer than the Ubiquiti I got rid of.

The next closest switch is those Mikrotik Cloud switches and they are about $130ish and only have 2x SFP+ ports, again less powerful and less feature rich, with the added fan expense to mod the S2500 I still find it a better switch/deal IMO.
 
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ttabbal

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Mar 10, 2016
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I got my 48 POE running. Had a little scare on the firmware upgrade. I didn't factory reset it and it stalled booting. I was able to get the bootloader to stop and boot from partition 1. Then factory reset from the front panel and the reboot was able to boot the new version. The mini USB worked better in the bootloader, not sure why. The console cable worked fine in the main OS, but the bootloader had trouble with it.

The web interface is much nicer than the LB4M and easy enough to set up for basic VLANs etc.. Combined with the 4 SFP+, it's a win. Not sure about my DAC, so I might have to replace that with fiber, but that's not a big deal.