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

[koifish59]

My ICX 6450-24P draws 36w at idle, nothing plugged in. Datasheet says it should only pull 21w idle (first post from fohdeesha mentions 25w). That is almost 50% higher! Is this considered defective or are there that much variance between same models?

The main reason I got the 6450 is for the low power consumption because I have to sit next to this thing so I wanted to reduce heat and noise as much as possible. At this rate, I might as well add another 14w and get a 7250-48P to double all the ethernet and fiber ports.

 

[adman_c]

My ICX 6450-24P draws 36w at idle, nothing plugged in. Datasheet says it should only pull 21w idle (first post from fohdeesha mentions 25w). That is almost 50% higher! Is this considered defective or are there that much variance between same models?

The main reason I got the 6450 is for the low power consumption because I have to sit next to this thing so I wanted to reduce heat and noise as much as possible. At this rate, I might as well add another 14w and get a 7250-48P to double all the ethernet and fiber ports.


View attachment 16506

That’s not out of line. Mine idles at 32-33w after boot with nothing but the console cable plugged in.

 

[MrGuvernment]

Kill-A-Watts have been showing in the past to not always be very accurate with lower power draw devices on them. I can dig mine out and test my ICX 6450-24p i just got the other day and see.


Question for the ICX6450-24p. I am wanting to use the Layer 3 features to offload VLAN routing and such from my PFSense to the switch. Do I need the " ICX6450-PREM-LIC" license to do this, or can it do it already?

 

[koifish59]

That’s not out of line. Mine idles at 32-33w after boot with nothing but the console cable plugged in.

Bummer.

I remember playing the silicon lottery back in my CPU/GPU overclocking days, where some chips can overlock better or consume less power than another one of the same exact model. This now feels the same.

Kill-A-Watts have been showing in the past to not always be very accurate with lower power draw devices on them. I can dig mine out and test my ICX 6450-24p i just got the other day and see.

Yes that would be helpful to get another data point.

 

[fohdeesha]

Kill-A-Watts have been showing in the past to not always be very accurate with lower power draw devices on them. I can dig mine out and test my ICX 6450-24p i just got the other day and see.


Question for the ICX6450-24p. I am wanting to use the Layer 3 features to offload VLAN routing and such from my PFSense to the switch. Do I need the " ICX6450-PREM-LIC" license to do this, or can it do it already?

don't need the license for static routing but theyre free anyway just send me a PM. you will need aa license for half of the 10gb ports

 

[MrGuvernment]

Question

don't need the license for static routing but theyre free anyway just send me a PM. you will need aa license for half of the 10gb ports

I got the 10Gbps active (thank you very much) and fully patched as well, and have the R installed

#show flash
Stack unit 1:
Compressed Pri Code size = 9871112, Version:08.0.30uT313 (ICX64R08030u.bin)
Compressed Sec Code size = 9871112, Version:08.0.30uT313 (ICX64R08030u.bin)
Compressed Boot-Monitor Image size = 786944, Version:10.1.05T310

 

[BackupProphet]

PoE version draws more than the non PoE. I have the 24port non PoE and it idles around 20~25 watt without anything connected. You can also replace the fan with something more quiet too. I have been running mine for almost three years now with a super silent fan, no stability problems. I am using all of the 10GbE ports, where 2 of them run NVMe-oF traffic

 

[MoMeanMugs]

Does anyone have a part number for the PSU blanking panels for the 6650? I want to pull the redundant ones and put them on the shelf. I can't seem to find the part number anywhere - just seems to be mentioned as part of the base device. Anyone have any they don't need and want to get rid of?

Anyone able to help me out with finding the part number?

 

[kapone]

Anyone able to help me out with finding the part number?

*cough* foam block cut to size...

 

[gregsachs]

*cough* foam block cut to size...

Or can get thin aluminum sheet and cut to size. Cuts with sturdy scissors, and easy to punch holes in it too.

 

[kapone]

Or can get thin aluminum sheet and cut to size. Cuts with sturdy scissors, and easy to punch holes in it too.

Tomato...Tomaaahto

You get my point.

 

[MoMeanMugs]

But then my OCD will get the best of me! Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I'll end up with one of those two methods and just live with it since the backs can't be seen.

 

[infoMatt]

My ICX 6450-24P draws 36w at idle, nothing plugged in. Datasheet says it should only pull 21w idle (first post from fohdeesha mentions 25w). That is almost 50% higher! Is this considered defective or are there that much variance between same models?

I can confirm mine does it too. And I've tested with a BW-SHP6 and with a Eastron SDM120. Yea, ok, not lab grade by any means, but I think it's a little bit better than a random kill-a-watt. Oh, and it does so with a very poor power factor (0.55-0.6ish, can't remember at the moment, but I've written about it in the past).

Bummer, but oh-well.

 

[MrGuvernment]

Question for the experts, as this is my first layer 3 switch I am really digging into. I my ICX 6450-24p flashed with the R firmware. Now, do I have to use VLANS in a layer 3 sense? using virtual interfaces and such as per the docs I have found.

I am trying to set up my VLANS, using PFSense as my router and have the VLANS set up there. I am going from PFSense ---> 6450 via a single link. On the ICX6450, I have "tagged" the VLAN's I have in pfsense on the port 1/2/1 (10Gbps Fiber) with the default vlan 1 untagged.

However when I set say port 1/1/1 to VLAN 2 (wireless and tagged) as it goes to my Asus AP - no traffic appears to pass through at all and clioent can not get an DHCP address from PFSense. My last switch was an HP procurve and this set up worked.

Or do I need a DHCP / IP Helper set up on the ICX6450?

 

[ArmedAviator]

From experience, do not use pfSense as your router and DHCP server. Keep pfSense unaware of your VLANs. Use a point-to-point VLAN if pfSense is virtualized -OR- dedicate a port/lag to pfSense if it's a physical device.

Use your L3 switch as your internal router and pfSense as your edge router/firewall/NAT only so it will only receive internet-bound traffic.

With the ICX64R (L3) firmware, you will want to add a router-interface (ve) to each of the VLANs that need to be routed at all. Give each VE an IP address and appropriate subnet, and use that IP address as any connected device's Default Gateway (aka next-hop) address on each VLAN respectively.

Look up my post history and you'll find a good detailed post on how I have a similar setup with some good helpful info in this very thread.

 

[MrGuvernment]

Thank you @ArmedAviator for that info, never thought to do things that way at all! I presume I then also manage all of the ACL's with in the ICX also to limit access to systems between VLANS. I guess I was thinking as PFSense to manage all of this as it is very familiar and easy to do (spoiled by GUIs). On the other hand, i also do not want to be spending the next 2 weeks figuring our CLI syntax to create everything switch side. I also do a lot of IP reservations as well my home lab which is a lot of windows boxes and stuff. Managing it all from PfSense would be easier for me in the end with out needing to become a networking expert.

 

[tommybackeast]

From experience, do not use pfSense as your router and DHCP server. Keep pfSense unaware of your VLANs. Use a point-to-point VLAN if pfSense is virtualized -OR- dedicate a port/lag to pfSense if it's a physical device.

Use your L3 switch as your internal router and pfSense as your edge router/firewall/NAT only so it will only receive internet-bound traffic.

With the ICX64R (L3) firmware, you will want to add a router-interface (ve) to each of the VLANs that need to be routed at all. Give each VE an IP address and appropriate subnet, and use that IP address as any connected device's Default Gateway (aka next-hop) address on each VLAN respectively.

Look up my post history and you'll find a good detailed post on how I have a similar setup with some good helpful info in this very thread.

Gently asking: might you have a URL handy ? (of your prior detailed post you mentioned here), thank you

 

[dragonian]

Thank you @ArmedAviator for that info, never thought to do things that way at all! I presume I then also manage all of the ACL's with in the ICX also to limit access to systems between VLANS. I guess I was thinking as PFSense to manage all of this as it is very familiar and easy to do (spoiled by GUIs). On the other hand, i also do not want to be spending the next 2 weeks figuring our CLI syntax to create everything switch side. I also do a lot of IP reservations as well my home lab which is a lot of windows boxes and stuff. Managing it all from PfSense would be easier for me in the end with out needing to become a networking expert.

Using the ICX as the L3 router to handle all vlans and ACLs is the *proper* way, aka the way it's intended to be used. That being said, there are quite a few folks here that are simply using it as a L2 switch, and doing inter-VLAN routing on pfsense or whatever.

There are pros & cons of either approach. These are my opinions:

Approach	Pro	Con
L3 Routing	Wire speed between vlans Robust ACLs support	ICX DHCP server is not authoritative- need another box for DHCP Learning curve for CLI
L2 Switch with pfsense (etc)	fancy GUI lots of examples firewall/ DHCP/ DNS all in one place	not wire speed - can't do 10 GBit routing in SW

Personally I'm still using the L2 switch with OPNsense, as this was the way I had it setup before i acquired the ICX. It was easy to drop in the new switch and change some vlan tags, add some 10 Git DACs for servers and I'm off running. I have considered switching, but the DHCP sever challenge is my biggest hangup. I don't really want another box to "break the internet".

I don't know why your previous attempt didn't work, but it definitely can, and there are lot of working setups that do it that way.

 

[Vesalius]

Question for the experts, as this is my first layer 3 switch I am really digging into. I my ICX 6450-24p flashed with the R firmware. Now, do I have to use VLANS in a layer 3 sense? using virtual interfaces and such as per the docs I have found.

I am trying to set up my VLANS, using PFSense as my router and have the VLANS set up there. I am going from PFSense ---> 6450 via a single link. On the ICX6450, I have "tagged" the VLAN's I have in pfsense on the port 1/2/1 (10Gbps Fiber) with the default vlan 1 untagged.

However when I set say port 1/1/1 to VLAN 2 (wireless and tagged) as it goes to my Asus AP - no traffic appears to pass through at all and clioent can not get an DHCP address from PFSense. My last switch was an HP procurve and this set up worked.

Or do I need a DHCP / IP Helper set up on the ICX6450?

You almost certainly need to set 1/1/1 to untagged vlan2. The 6450 will then accept all untagged traffic coming into 1/1/1 and place it in Vlan2. That traffic will then go across your 1/2/1 port as tagged in vlan2. Would be shocked if the asus AP was smart enough to understand vlans and tag the traffic itself. As it stands now the 1/1/1 port is blocking traffic from your AP because it is not tagged vlan2 already. Try that first and your setup may just work as is. I ran mine as you described for quite some time.

Are you doing inter-VLAN routing that requires high speed? if not and things are simply segregated into vlans then there really is no need for you to go down the rabbit hole of setting up separate DHCP servers and ACLs for the 6450. You can just tag all the vlans on the 6450 switch interface connected to pfsense, then use the pfsense gui to set up everything.

 

[Vesalius]

Gently asking: might you have a URL handy ? (of your prior detailed post you mentioned here), thank you

The below should get you started.

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?posts/283978/

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?posts/285032/

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?posts/283781/