What brand of switches for small business use?

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Pete.S.

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Feb 6, 2019
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Hi guys,

What brand of switches do you recommend when buying used gear for a small business?

I want to be able to download user manuals, firmware etc without support contract and also use the switch features without a gazzillion of license requirements. Also nice if it's possible to find spare parts, for instance like fans.

I'm currently looking at 10GbE SFP+ or possibly 40GbE QSFP+ switches for a server rack.
 

WeekendWarrior

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Apr 2, 2015
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Pete,

Welcome to STH. Your question is so broad that it does not lend itself to an answer without understanding your needs better.

The couple things that would facilitate someone offering a meaningful response would be:
1. what are the business needs that the switch would support?
a. number of devices on your expected network
b. any specific communication or reliability features that you know you need; e.g., MLAG
c. reason for SFP+ or QSFP+
2. what is your budget?
3. will you have a knowledgeable person to configure and support the switch (can be an issue with value-priced switches)

Regards,
WW
 
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Pete.S.

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Feb 6, 2019
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Pete,
Welcome to STH. Your question is so broad that it does not lend itself to an answer without understanding your needs better.

The couple things that would facilitate someone offering a meaningful response would be:
1. what are the business needs that the switch would support?
a. number of devices on your expected network
b. any specific communication or reliability features that you know you need; e.g., MLAG
c. reason for SFP+ or QSFP+
2. what is your budget?
3. will you have a knowledgeable person to configure and support the switch (can be an issue with value-priced switches)

Regards,
WW
Thanks WW.

I don't have specifics except that I'm looking for switches with SFP+ 10Gbit or QSFP+ 40Gbit that I can use. That I can find manuals and firmware for when buying used. Used is always lower cost than new and these switches are usually very expensive new. Many datacenters are upgrading to 25 & 100Gbit or just replacing their gear after X years so I imagine that there should be used switches on the market that would work.

The reason I'm mentioning small business is that I can't buy something with no manuals online, no downloadable firmware or something that only enthusiast could afford to spend weeks on getting to work. It need to work and it need to be reasonably reliable straight out of the gate. I mean I could upgrade the firmware on the switch and do minor stuff like that but don't have time to play with hacked firmware or anything like that.

So what should I be looking for, or perhaps avoid? Arista, Brocade, Cisco, Dell, Mellanox, HP or ????

I've had a look at Dell like 8132F, 8024F for instance. Arista have some stuff but I know nothing about them as a brand. Brocade have a lot of fiberchannel switches but I don't know if those work with standard ethernet as well. Mellanox have infiniband switches but I don't know if they can do ethernet too.

My question was vague because I'm not sure what I'm looking for but it would help a lot if I could narrow it down to at least a few brands. Having lurked on this site for years I know you guys have a lot of knowledge on hand.
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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How many ports ? Lots of off lease switches but they may well be massive overkilll for what you want, something like a couple Cisco nexus 9372PX makes a nice option if your using SFP+ but if you only need a few ports rather than 48 and want software updates maybe even buying a new HP Aruba, dell, or Cisco small business may be a better option. Keep in mind these used enterprise switches will use more power than a server so if you only have 3 servers say just go for the option with a few 10G or faster ports.

Most high end 1u switches supporting big bandwidth draw anywhere from 200-350w, but that’s needed if you want proper layer 3 performance
 
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Pete.S.

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How many ports ? Lots of off lease switches but they may well be massive overkilll for what you want, something like a couple Cisco nexus 9372PX makes a nice option if your using SFP+ but if you only need a few ports rather than 48 and want software updates maybe even buying a new HP Aruba, dell, or Cisco small business may be a better option. Keep in mind these used enterprise switches will use more power than a server so if you only have 3 servers say just go for the option with a few 10G or faster ports.

Most high end 1u switches supporting big bandwidth draw anywhere from 200-350w, but that’s needed if you want proper layer 3 performance
For what I have in mind right now I need to have 20 SFP+ ports, to be used with DACs. And maybe a few more ports for future expansion.

It's going to be used for large file transfers, backups, VM transfers and such between servers but I don't need much features on this switch. Maybe port isolation but no layer 3 features I can think of. Some of the servers will be powered down when not in use because they are for lab use so average bandwidth requirements are low.

Will high end switches idle at those power draws as well or is it just under load?
 

Evan

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Cisco certainly at idle are close to 200w
Broadcom trident based switches idle 150+ for most as I know.

The Mellanox SN2000 series have some really higher speed but lower power units but $$$ for the right ones.

If you don’t need layer3 functions there is smaller names and things like UBNT and Mikrotik switches which are both cheap and low power but I would hesitate to use them in business production.

Maybe somebody else here has some hints on 20+ SFP+ ports that would work. If you have a rack full of equipment using 20 ports then a pair of 150w switches is probably not that big a % of power consumption.
 
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Pete.S.

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At an absolutely minimum I have 8 servers running and some of them idle at 40W and some of them at 80W. So 60W on average, that's about 500W minimum. I've had power consumption in mind when building this.

I checked on some switch specs and found numbers for Arista 7050S-53. It says 103W @ 50% load, 185W @ 100% load. So I'm guessing it will probably idle at something like 60-70W.

I don't know much about that Arista switch though but the power draw seems very reasonable.
 

Evan

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Mellanox SN2010 has 18 x 10/25G ports and 4 x 40G ports. 50 or so watts. But not the kind of switch that is normally seem cheap , just not that common. Common is all the big 48 port enterprise Cisco etc coming off lease.
 
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Terry Kennedy

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What brand of switches do you recommend when buying used gear for a small business?

I want to be able to download user manuals, firmware etc without support contract and also use the switch features without a gazzillion of license requirements. Also nice if it's possible to find spare parts, for instance like fans.
The Cisco stuff is nice, but you need to pay $$$ for a support contract in order to download software. It is possible to find some of the software on non-Cisco sites (Cisco conveniently publishes MD5/SHA1 so you can be pretty sure it hasn't been tampered with), but that's not guaranteed to work at any time in the future. Manuals (both hardware and software) are available from the Cisco site without needing a support contract. If you register for an account (free), you can see some more things like bug details. Also, any recent Cisco products have "universal" software images, where additional features are extra-cost options. Switches either come with lanbase (full switching, no routing) or ipbase (full switching, enough routing for most users) by default. If you need an advanced feature set, have the seller send you the "show license" output to confirm the license(s) you need are installed. For example, here's a 4500X with an enterprise ("everything including the kitchen sink") license:
Code:
core1.nycsnyoo#sh license summ
Index 0   Feature: entservices
          Period left: Life time
          License Type: Permanent
          License State: Active, In Use
          License Count: Non-Counted
          License Priority: Medium
Index 1   Feature: ipbase
          Period left: 8 weeks 4 days
          License Type: Evaluation
          License State: Active, Not in Use, EULA not accepted
          License Count: Non-Counted
          License Priority: None
Index 2   Feature: lanbase
          Period left: 1513 weeks 1 day
          License State: Active, Not in Use, EULA not accepted
          License Count: Non-Counted
Index 3   Feature: internal_service
          Period left: 0 seconds
The above example also shows something unpleasant that Cisco has started doing - the lanbase license that this switch ships with by default isn't perpetual - it is a 30-year license (if I calculated that right). The extra-cost ($4620, yikes!) entservices license is perpetual. This probably doesn't matter as it is unlikely you will still want to be running the switch in 30 years, but...

However, the Cisco stuff is neither quiet nor energy-efficient. Even current-production products like the 4500X are quite loud.

The best time to buy Cisco stuff is when it is just starting to go End-of-Life. As a (router, not switch) example, the bottom fell out of the 3945 market last month when it no longer became possible to add 3945s to a support contract. Cisco will continue to release software updates for another 2 years. There are hundreds of 3945s on eBay that came from Gap stores and are selling for $150-ish. Given that the PoE power supply in those costs $85 on eBay, that's a pretty good deal for the whole router.

If you like the Cisco CLI (some people like it, some hate it), a number of vendors sell switches that run the "Fastpath" software. The Dell 8024 family uses it, as do some Netgear switches. It use to be only slightly compatible, but it has gotten better at looking like the Cisco CLI. I've heard that Arista was also Cisco-like (enough that Cisco sued them) but have never used those.
 
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Pete.S.

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Thanks guys.

The Cisco alternative I have been looking at is the Nexus 3064PQ-10GX, 48 port SFP+. It's EOL and I can live with the price but it's more high end than I need and uses more power.

It has to be switches I can find so right now it's between
  • Dell 8132F - the "low" power alternative 24 port SFP+
  • Arista 7050S-53 - the in between alternative, 48 port SFP+
  • Cisco 3064PQ - the datacenter alternative, 48 port SFP+
Price is in the range 700-900 GBP (1000-1200 USD).
 
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SGN

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Oct 3, 2016
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First define what does small business mean for you.
Those top players gears are expensive and not every SMB can afford to get them.
 

maze

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Apr 27, 2013
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Aruba 3810M will give you Lots of sfp+ ports and optional 40g expansion module..

And it comes with Limited lifetime warranty aswell as firmware upgrades for free.
 

Dreece

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Jan 22, 2019
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If you're a small business considering buying used equipment and you have not detailed any L2/L3/L4 requirements... I would normally just suggest picking up a DLink, their top tier equipment is well priced and pretty much does everything a small business would need.

If you want to tinker on a low-budget then get whatever the gents above have listed but remember many of these switches really don't provide anything 'better' above what an ordinary small business requires. I have walked into medium size business coldrooms and seen just a handful of Netgear switches.

40G and 100G really is something you need to have a solid use-case for, I can't imagine a small business needing that, just probably a techie or two who likes to play with numbers and moving fat files around here and there, but most businesses will rarely gain from anything above a well configured 1G network... 10G comes into play when working with large storage arrays and 40G+ comes into play when working with VERY fast storage arrays such as NVME setups.

I know it's boring, but reality has shown that many companies are jumping into 10G+ when their networks are not even being saturated close to 1G levels... often their issues are relative to poor network topology. However industrial capitalism has its own agenda and the above argument becomes mute.

My 2 pence.

ps. Brocade are sweet! I managed to swag one for silly pennies, but damn thing is locked left right and centre. (ie licensing costs)

pss. moving VM files around is one of the most common justifications behind 10G+ networks... I always say just shove a 10G RDMA card in the source and one in the target, or even just set up a small ring network just for that one requirement... but if the network is huge and plenty nodes are involved then of course it would be wiser to 10G+ switch all the relevant nodes. My 3 pence.
 
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BoredSysadmin

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Highjacking this thread since OP's question was IMHO ridiculous and too vague.
Dear networking gurus: I'm looking for a switch for a home lab/private media cloud, need at the least 4x 10gbe ports (sfp+).
Nice things in order of importance:
  • cheap
  • 8x 10gbe ports
  • Lower power
  • some gig ports
  • managed layer3 [not important, could be unmanaged layer2]
How cheap? Hope to stay under $100 for a used switch. Was looking at Quanta LB6M, but they are up in prices and fairly rare at the moment.
Same for Brocade ICX6450.

Suggestions?
 

BoredSysadmin

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Juniper EX4200 seems to a decent match? Any opinions about it? I'm not a networking guru, but I could probably figure out the basic CLI commands based on very little experience with IOS and NX CLIs.
 

BoredSysadmin

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the ex4200 draws 3x the power of an icx6450, and only has up to 2x 10gb ports, it is an ancient switch
thanks! didn't notice the power draw, but eventually, I did see only 2 10g ports on ex4200.
No cheap 6450s on eBay atm, except one with bad PSU. Now I'm wondering if $70 + parts plus a good amount of luck trying to fix it is worth it if it was selling in working state for $125...
 

Ouraing

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Dec 31, 2018
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Dear networking gurus: I'm looking for a switch for a home lab/private media cloud, need at the least 4x 10gbe ports (sfp+).
You can get an Aruba S3500 I often see them for under $60, try to stay away from the ones with the 1050 watt power supplies because they are pretty damn loud, but the other power supply options are more or less the same as the ICX6610. 48 Gig ports, 4 SFP+ ports (make sure to get one that has the 4xSFP+ module), full layer 3 functionality - no additional licenses required.

The S2500 is also an option that has 24 or 48 ports and 4x SFP+ ports but tends to be a bit pricier for some reason and makes about the same amount of noise as my ICX6450, but you can still frequently find them for under $100.
 
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