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

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debbient

New Member
Jan 15, 2019
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It is definitely a storage limitation. 6 drive zfs pool (spinners) connected to a LSI2008 passthrough to the freenas VM. All VM's boot drives are hosted on an NVME ssd for IO. Plex & file storage is on the ZFS pool. I'm going to have to play with those jails once I add a couple more drives to the pool because I would be hitting your 3gb/s limit pretty quickly.

As far as the VLANs go, I'm working on that today. My ISP (CLink Fiber) has you to PPPOE authenticate on VLAN 201. My current switch (Ubiquiti Edgeswitch) strips the 201 tag and allows the pfsense vm to connect on an untagged vlan. There was was a bug that affected pfsense 2.3.x which prevented it from authenticating correctly with pppoe on a vlan.

I'm trying to setup it up so the ONT plugs directly into switch port 0, then it brings that VLAN 201 as untagged on switch port 1. While not allowing anything else to the other ports.
 
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manxam

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Jul 25, 2015
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Speaking of, anybody interested in me taking the time to record a video that goes over the VLAN setup and such on this switch? It's not like a normal switch. You can not configure interfaces directly and instead have to create a profile and apply it to the interfaces. I am not sure why... It also is missing some other basic commands that I see in Aruba documentation for other models. I assume its the nature of this switch. I think it was made to be configured via a controller much more so than as a stand alone switch.
Absolutely! While I'm certain we can all figure it out eventually, having someone that has one in their hands to pave the way and document it would be greatly appreciated!
 
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mimino

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Nov 2, 2018
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Speaking of, anybody interested in me taking the time to record a video that goes over the VLAN setup and such on this switch?
Yes please, keep them coming! Really appreciate your work on this. Mine is scheduled to arrive this Friday and it's going to be my first venture into the world of enterprise class switches.
 

ViciousXUSMC

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Nov 27, 2016
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Ok, I'll see if I can get together enough content to make a decent video. Creating the VLAN itself is only a few seconds, the real work was changing my firewall, and DHCP, etc and that is pretty exclusive to PFSense.

Most people let the router/firewall do the routing but I chose to let the switch do it because I feel like it would be faster (especially as one vlan uses jumbo frames) and if my firewall goes down I will keep local connectivity and only lose the internet instead of all routing between my vlans.
 
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bjamm

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Jan 24, 2019
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Thanks for the posts and info

I just purchased a S2500-48P on ebay for $90. :D I dont need the POE but for $15 over the 48T I went ahead and got it in case I want to use it in the future for an AP or camera.

Any links to info for a fan mod? I know i'll be doing that for sure. I can hook it up to my killawatt meter if anyone is interested
 

ViciousXUSMC

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Nov 27, 2016
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I posted a video here in this thread on the fan mod.
I really do not think most people will need it, as its pretty quiet but I went that extra mile.
 

sic0048

Active Member
Dec 24, 2018
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I received my S2500-48p a couple of days ago and updated it to the latest firmware via the USB drive method described in this thread. Everything worked just fine.

I finally got around to installing it today. It replaces a Netgear ProSAFE JGS524E switch (a non-POE 24 port managed switch). Currently have 8 POE devices (a mix of cameras and ip phones) and I had been using a POE injector with them. It was great to simply be able to plug them into the switch and automatically have the switch power the items. All of the POE devices powered up without an issue after being plugged into the Aruba switch.

Managing this switch is easier than the Netgear switch it replaces too. I had to use some Netgear software (ProSAFE Plus Utility) to manage the old switch - simply pointing a internet browser to the switch's IP address never worked. Obviously with the Aruba switches I can simply use a browser to manage it (at least after updating the firmware).

So I'd like to say thank you Cheezehead for posting the initial deal and thank you Vicious for being a guinea pig and for all your time and effort in figuring out the switch and posting the different procedures to update and modify it.

I cannot be happier with my choice. In fact I bought a second switch (a S2500-24p) to use at my parents house.
 
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bug2th

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Jan 7, 2015
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I just received my S2500-48P - powered it on and after boot it is pretty quiet but does add some background noise. It uses about 65W at idle. I opened it up to see what kind of fans were stock - Delta FFB0412VHN - they max at 15K Rpm and use 1.92W vs the Noctua at 5K rpm and .6W. It looks like the pwm version has the same specs but runs 1200-5000rpm and is the same price on amazon - was there any reason not to use pwm (i would think as long as there is no error created that it could potentially run quieter at low temps)?

and thanks for all the information - it definitely makes getting gear on the cheap worthwhile when you can actually use it...

I posted a video here in this thread on the fan mod.
I really do not think most people will need it, as its pretty quiet but I went that extra mile.
 

ViciousXUSMC

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Nov 27, 2016
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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.

Temps are good for me with about an 76f ambient, the highest I have seen is 71C on the hottest part of the switch, with the other parts being very low, but this is the non PoE version and the switch is not fully loaded, so I expect a PoE switch will run hotter.

Thermal critical is 120c but I would not want to see anything higher than Mid 90's.
 

ArthurA

Member
Sep 26, 2018
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Spectacular thread, I picked up an S3500-48P for just over a bill.

Turns out it was an S3500-48PF and came with dual 1050W high output power supplies. Since delivering a full 30w to all 48 ports is overkill for any conceivable use I'd have it was unexpected and mildly annoying because the power supply sockets are IEC C-20. Fortunately they're auto ranging and will accept 120v (13A :-0) but I had to pick up unnerving Nema 5-15p to IEC C-20 cables.
 
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mimino

Active Member
Nov 2, 2018
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Got mine updated to the latest firmware and got two stacking ports converted to regular sfp+, so far so good. About the noise, either you guys have much more tolerance for it or something is wrong with my unit. It's louder than my beefy R620 :confused: Not sure how I feel about spending as much on a set of noctuas as I've spent on this yet...
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.
 

bjamm

New Member
Jan 24, 2019
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My S2500-48P arrived today. Got it for $90 shipped on ebay.

UPS is reporting 67 watts with about 6 items plugged in on gigabit. Going to mess with it a little bit and see how to configure the thing now.
 
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myrison

Member
Jan 26, 2011
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Thanks for the heads up and videos on these switches guys. Just ordered the S2500-48PoE version for $95 shipped. What a deal!

Looking forward to setting it up.

QQ: I don’t yet run any 10 GbE in my network, so can I just ignore the steps in the setup about converting the 2 stacking ports and use the rest once I factory reset and update the firmware ? Thanks!
 

bjamm

New Member
Jan 24, 2019
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Got it up and running and deleted the stack 10gb .. however still having issues connecting my server to the 10gb network.

I got these cables https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074NVH9QH here and they dont seem to be working. Any ideas?

This is listed but no connectivity.

GE0/1/0
-------
Vendor Name : OEM
Vendor Serial Number : CSS11IC1586
Vendor Part Number : SFP-H10GB-CU1M
Aruba Certified : NO
Cable Type : unknown
Connector Type : Copper Pigtail
Wave Length : 256 nm
Cable Length : 1m
GE0/1/1
-------
Vendor Name : OEM
Vendor Serial Number : CSS11IC1556
Vendor Part Number : SFP-H10GB-CU1M
Aruba Certified : NO
Cable Type : unknown
Connector Type : Copper Pigtail
Wave Length : 256 nm
Cable Length : 1m
GE0/1/2
-------
Vendor Name : CISCO-MOLEX
Vendor Serial Number : MOC162505MQ
Vendor Part Number : 74752-9520
Aruba Certified : NO
Cable Type : unknown
Connector Type : Copper Pigtail
Wave Length : 256 nm
Cable Length : 3m
 
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manxam

Active Member
Jul 25, 2015
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It looks as though SOME Aruba devices support the command "allow-unsupported-transceiver" in the config mode. Worth trying...

EDIT: Or maybe not :
This feature enables and disables the use of non-HPE Aruba transceivers on HPE Aruba switches. The allowunsupported-
transceiver command is an undocumented feature. It is only available on the 3810M, 5400R,
2920, 2930F, 2930M, 2540, and 2530. This feature is not available on any other ArubaOS-Switch switches.
This undocumented feature was included in releases numbered 16.02.0013 and later.
 

manxam

Active Member
Jul 25, 2015
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Anyone mind hosting ArubaOS_MAS_7.4.1.10_65516 firmware so that we don't have to create an HPE account?
Thanks!
 

ViciousXUSMC

Active Member
Nov 27, 2016
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Got it up and running and deleted the stack 10gb .. however still having issues connecting my server to the 10gb network.

I got these cables https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074NVH9QH here and they dont seem to be working. Any ideas?
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
 
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myrison

Member
Jan 26, 2011
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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.