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Brocade ICX Series (cheap & powerful 10gbE/40gbE switching)

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Dreece

Active Member
Jan 22, 2019
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A wise man never ignores a real bargain starring right in his face, well done Churchill! :D
 

Churchill

Admiral
Jan 6, 2016
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What seller did you get your 6650 from? I bought 5 off ebay, 2 of the 5 came damaged and had broken ports.

3 of them were packed nice, 2 of them were packed pretty crappy, makes me scratch my head.

G-Electronic: Brocade ICX6650 56-Port 10/40 Gigabit Ethernet Top-of-Rack Switch 42111395699 | eBay

Took $250 in make an offer. Whom did you buy yours from?


EDIT: Depends on the broken part I'm OK with a few things being busticated. As long as the QSFP's are working I'm happy. If 10 of the SFP ports are working I'm happy.

Anything beyond that I'm gonna be ticked.
 
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Churchill

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Jan 6, 2016
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A wise man never ignores a real bargain starring right in his face, well done Churchill! :D

I've been going round and round on this all weekend trying to figure out if this is feasable. For the total price it was totally worth it to upgrade from my 10GBE network to 40GBE and consolidate
 

Dreece

Active Member
Jan 22, 2019
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I bought from them as well...hopefully they pack yours better then they did mine.
That is the nightmare with ebay... I always do my best to keep my bridges solid across the board, I tend to source more important items directly from businesses... fleabay is great for nics and cables though.

Out of interest, did they offer to compensate/replace or has it become a postal service argument?
 

Churchill

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Jan 6, 2016
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I'm willing to take the hit through ebay for this. Seller will take the item back if things go south. I'm OK with that, there's risks here with anything. If worse comes to worse I don't NEED the switch as I can connect the servers directly to each other via the SAS cables.

This will limit the amount of systems I have connected but I'll survive.
 

Lambdariver

New Member
Mar 24, 2019
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That's what you call no pain no gain, some may say it cant be resold, personally I think it has gone up in value :D
I almost posted a picture of my bleeding finger, but thought better of it :)

Got it for 175 shipped as a bunch of ports were crushed and the ears were missing, but nothing a pair of pliers couldn't fix. I wonder what the ebay seller would say if I tried to return it now hehe
 

Lambdariver

New Member
Mar 24, 2019
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@Lambdariver are those 10GBT gbics? IF so which ones and how good are they working? Did you get any 1GB gbics as well? Same question
They're only 1gbit SFPs and haven't had a chance to test them yet, but they are recognized on the switch and don't throw the ports into an error state.
Brocade 57-1000042-02 ~$3.50/ea
CDW Proline 855-933-3223 ~$2.30/ea

I'm not sure of the long-term quality of copper SFPs as I don't run any in production. We use Cisco FEX for 1gbit copper, with multimode fiber & twinax handling 10gbit duties.
 

Dreece

Active Member
Jan 22, 2019
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I've ordered some bits to do my mod on the 6610, though I've taken the non-invasive approach... hopefully get onto it coming weekend.
 

Churchill

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Jan 6, 2016
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I'm on the hunt for solid 10GBT SFP+'s that will work with the 6650's. Anyone have any ideas?

Good lord these are 60-80 on ebay....
 

Dreece

Active Member
Jan 22, 2019
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The 10GB converter transceivers are definitely going to come at a premium, considering they are rarely used by enterprise, hardly surprising. I don't believe we will see any hitting the used scene at sensible prices anytime soon or even at all, not enough out there in public circulation from what I've gathered.
 

Churchill

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Jan 6, 2016
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I have too much infrastructure already built to swap out to all mellanox. Will have to bite the bullet and buy one to see if those cables work.

Bought a dozen Brocade 57-1000042-02 just to get me going.
 
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Dreece

Active Member
Jan 22, 2019
503
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I have too much infrastructure already built to swap out to all mellanox. Will have to bite the bullet and buy one to see if those cables work.

Bought a dozen Brocade 57-1000042-02 just to get me going.
We get by with what is sensible... the best way is to never allow yourself to be pressured into getting everything done overnight... walk away from it for a couple of days and you'll be better for it. You have the foundation, that's what matters.
 

itronin

Well-Known Member
Nov 24, 2018
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Denver, Colorado
Almost done with my fan mod for the ICX6650. Might not win any beauty pageants, but she's so much quieter now.

Dunno. the blue paint job looks pretty cool. Really cool overall actually! Harkens back to the day when google and symantec painted their chassis' yellow. did you connect these fans to the interior sensors? Mine's in the basement so I honestly don't care. I have to say though add a le mans racing strip and you're all set! nice job!
 

Churchill

Admiral
Jan 6, 2016
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We get by with what is sensible... the best way is to never allow yourself to be pressured into getting everything done overnight... walk away from it for a couple of days and you'll be better for it. You have the foundation, that's what matters.

I'm a HUGE proponent of getting all the parts ready for install and then deploying at once. I've got a laundry list of equipment that I have to replace and upgrade in my cabinet. I have next weekend set aside for this so I'll have most everything ready to go. Time is the one thing I do NOT have allot of and need to plan accordingly.

I already know that I have to:

1. Upgrade the switch to the latest firmware
2. Flash 3 cards
3. Install SFP's into the switch, verify all ports active.
4. Pray

Cabinet rebuild:

1. Remove old hardware and cables: 2 switches and a old desktop converted to server.
2. Rack TOR Brocade switch
3. Install/Upgrade Servers (New backup system, increase RAM in main system )
4. Cable everything up.
5. Turn devices on one at a time
6. Pray
 
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Dreece

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Jan 22, 2019
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I have to say though add a le mans racing strip and you're all set! nice job!
LOL... I thought for a sec you were going to flesh out the upgrade path to a "put it on 22s, and throw in an rgb strip while you're at it".... :D

If I was going to go for beauty I'd take the front front off and take it in for rose gold electro plating, chamaeleon powder coat the rest of the shell and possibly even replace the port leds with blues and shove a small tft screen with a switch to hook into the console port... now we have functional bling. :cool: