Dell N2224X-ON Power-Switch 24x 2.5GbE 4x SFP28 25GbE 2x QSFP+ ($257.99)

[tech789357]

I'm tempted to get one of these, but am concerned about noise and power usage. (Someone posted an inquire here: https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...4x-on-switch-how-loud-and-power-hungry.47166/)

I wish there was a review of them on STH.

Does anyone have experience with these? Looks like they have 550W power supplies. I'm not sure if you have to purchase licenses
for the OS or not.

Pardon Our Interruption...

I thought this was a phenomenal price, but it looks like they are being sold refurbished from $330-$389.

I've mostly been looking at Mikrotik switches for my homelab. A switch with similar ports (Minus the SFP28 ports) such as the Mikrotik CRS326-4C+20G+2Q+RM
retails for $865 at Multilink.us.

I think this is the correct spec sheet, BUT please double check:

https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments/Shared-Content_data-Sheets_Documents/en/us/dell-networking-n2200-powerswitch-specsheet.pdf

 

[Bjorn Smith]

Probably noisy, but power hungy depends on what you put in it - it seems to have POE capabilities which is most likely why it has such "big" power supplies.

Its 40mm fans industrial, so it will be noisy.

The fans in the power supplies might be the least noisy of the bunch, since there are fan modules you also install:



These are most likely about as noisy as "yo mamma"

But naturally I am guessing based on pictures and general knowledge about how noisy "enterprise" switches are.

Edit: Source for pictures: Download Dell EMC PowerSwitch N2200-ON Series Installation Manual | ManualsLib

 

[Bjorn Smith]

I'm not sure if you have to purchase licenses
for the OS or not.

I think you can install whatever you want on it, since manual show ONIE - so you should be able to install whatever as far as I understand - provided you can find an OS that works on that switch

 

[ChicagoFire]

I bought this switch from the same seller 2 months ago. I can answer any questions folks have.
Some initial thoughts:

• The stacking ports can be used as 40GbE ports or 4x10G ports as long as they're configured properly through the web interface or command line
• The power supplies vary depending on what model you get, mine doesn't have PoE so the wattage is lower
• The 4x25GbE ports seem to share a phy, they all must run at the same speed. No mix and match.
• The fans are definitely loud, looking to find a quieter replacement soon.
• Idle power is about 40-60 watts for me depending on what I have connected
• The switch I received was new in box, and as such needed to have first time setup. This required local serial console access FYI.
• I've had trouble getting 10G Base-T transceivers to work, switch seems to be picky about dell transceivers but doesn't care about cables

For me this switch is really great as an all in one solution for ~$300. All the 2.5GbE ports are fantastic for my low speed client devices running over RJ45 through the wall, and the 40GbE ports work well for connecting my NAS and compute box within the rack. While I'd prefer lower idle power and something a bit quieter this is still neat in my opinion.

 

[seany]

The N2224PX-ON is the poe version. They seem hilariously expensive on ebay at the moment unfortunately. Not a lot of good options for 4-10 2.5 PoE with 10g and VLANs.

 

[rsprinkle]

In addition to noise, if they are a POE switch they are a lot deeper than a non-POE switch. The ones I have investigated will not fit in my 16 inch deep wall rack.

 

[Jeggs101]

Sorry to necro this thread. @ChicagoFire how has yours been and how bad is the setup? I can see needing something like this soon

 

[ChicagoFire]

@Jeggs101
It's been running totally smooth! I actually haven't needed to touch it since the first day or two of owning it. Been running as my main/only switch 24/7 since then.

I have 10 2.5Gb ports used, 1 25Gb port used (in 10Gb mode), and both 40Gb ports used in the back.

Setup involves using a serial cable (mine came with one supplied) with something like putty during first time bootup. The exact produce is documented online, but you should see a prompt appear asking you to initialize first time setup. From there you create an admin account and can optionally choose an ip for it to host it's login/webpage at.

Once that is done you can configure it to your hearts desire either through the web interface, or through the command line through SSH using it's ip you set.

Keep in mind you have to run Dell's own switch OS on this, it does not support SONiC.

I'll also again note that it is quite loud, and uses about 40W-60W at idle for me. I haven't personally used any VLAN features yet but from what I understand it can route fairly high bandwidth traffic well.

 

[foureight84]

@Jeggs101
It's been running totally smooth! I actually haven't needed to touch it since the first day or two of owning it. Been running as my main/only switch 24/7 since then.

I have 10 2.5Gb ports used, 1 25Gb port used (in 10Gb mode), and both 40Gb ports used in the back.

Setup involves using a serial cable (mine came with one supplied) with something like putty during first time bootup. The exact produce is documented online, but you should see a prompt appear asking you to initialize first time setup. From there you create an admin account and can optionally choose an ip for it to host it's login/webpage at.

Once that is done you can configure it to your hearts desire either through the web interface, or through the command line through SSH using it's ip you set.

Keep in mind you have to run Dell's own switch OS on this, it does not support SONiC.

I'll also again note that it is quite loud, and uses about 40W-60W at idle for me. I haven't personally used any VLAN features yet but from what I understand it can route fairly high bandwidth traffic well.

Are the LC Fiber cable used for the QSFP+ port the same as the ones used for SFP+? I have a 100m spool of this and I was thinking about getting two of these switches and connecting my back house with the front house via one of the QSFP+ (or maybe both).

 

[seany]

Are the LC Fiber cable used for the QSFP+ port the same as the ones used for SFP+? I have a 100m spool of this and I was thinking about getting two of these switches and connecting my back house with the front house via one of the QSFP+ (or maybe both).

You would want LR4 for SMF, or SR4 BiDi for MMF. Otherwise you'll end up getting transceivers with MTP connectors.

 

[foureight84]

DELL N2224X-ON-RA 24PORT 2.5G BASE-T RJ45 WITH 4X25G SFP28 & 2X40G QSFP+ zj | eBay I bought two of these, seller accepted my offer for $180/ per unit.

 

[dead_man]

I actually have a N2224PX-ON in my network at home. i dont run much POE with it but unless the room gets warm its not to noisy and can sleep with it going.
when its warmer it does ramp up though

 

[foureight84]

I actually have a N2224PX-ON in my network at home. i dont run much POE with it but unless the room gets warm its not to noisy and can sleep with it going.
when its warmer it does ramp up though

I bought this switch from the same seller 2 months ago. I can answer any questions folks have.
Some initial thoughts:

• The stacking ports can be used as 40GbE ports or 4x10G ports as long as they're configured properly through the web interface or command line
• The power supplies vary depending on what model you get, mine doesn't have PoE so the wattage is lower
• The 4x25GbE ports seem to share a phy, they all must run at the same speed. No mix and match.
• The fans are definitely loud, looking to find a quieter replacement soon.
• Idle power is about 40-60 watts for me depending on what I have connected
• The switch I received was new in box, and as such needed to have first time setup. This required local serial console access FYI.
• I've had trouble getting 10G Base-T transceivers to work, switch seems to be picky about dell transceivers but doesn't care about cables

For me this switch is really great as an all in one solution for ~$300. All the 2.5GbE ports are fantastic for my low speed client devices running over RJ45 through the wall, and the 40GbE ports work well for connecting my NAS and compute box within the rack. While I'd prefer lower idle power and something a bit quieter this is still neat in my opinion.

Do you use both of the 40GbE ports for stacking? I bought 4 Finisar QSFP+ LR4 connectors, hopefully they're compatible with Dell. I didn't bother asking the seller since they were fairly cheap $7.99 each.

 

[MountainBofh]

Snagged one for $200. Any suggestions on which firmware to upgrade it to ? 6.8.1.9 ?

 

[Patrick]

Just put this one up on the main site: https://www.servethehome.com/dell-n2224x-on-review-24-port-2-5gbe-4-port-25gbe-2-port-40gbe-switch/

Managed to get CyPerf running through a pair of the 25Gbps ports running in full duplex mode.

 

[turbo]

The N2224PX-ON is the poe version. They seem hilariously expensive on ebay at the moment unfortunately. Not a lot of good options for 4-10 2.5 PoE with 10g and VLANs.

FYI I had this list of requirements and went with a cisco WS-C3650-8X24UQ-S. 4 10G SFP+ ports, 8 multi-gig 1/2.5/5/10, POE+ it draws about 80W idle, but the fans ramp down significantly after it boots it's very reasonable noise-wise compared to my other 1U gear

 

[klui]

These switches are really strange and have a mix of old and new ethernet technologies. Maybe the designers have to stay within the ASIC's maximum switching capacity?

The N2200-ONs have 4 SFP+/SFP28 fiber ports in the front, and 2 QSFP+ stacking/ethernet in the rear.
The N3200-ONs have 4 SFP+ fiber ports in the front, and 2 QSFP28 stacking/ethernet in the rear. The QSFP28 cannot be used as 1x40 or 4x10 G ports (but can be used as 4x25G, 2x50G, 1x100G). The OS 6.8 manual states "inserting a QSFP (sic) transceiver" into the QSFP28 port may damage the switch!

Firmware not behind a paywall/service account.

Some of these are so inexpensive on eBay. Open Box N3224T-ON (10/100/1000 Base-T only) for $90; in unopened box $150.

 

[ks94]

I actually have a N2224PX-ON in my network at home. i dont run much POE with it but unless the room gets warm its not to noisy and can sleep with it going.
when its warmer it does ramp up though

Do you have any power consumption figures?

I couldn't find any idle power consumption figures online for the POE version. Wonder how much more power it uses in a "not much POE" scenario compared to the non-POE version (which got reviewed in the main site)

From the specs if this is the correct one, the non-POE version consumes 115 W typical and the POE version consumes 168 W typical. I really hope that there won't be such a great difference at idle.

 

[MountainBofh]

Do you have any power consumption figures?

I couldn't find any idle power consumption figures online for the POE version. Wonder how much more power it uses in a "not much POE" scenario compared to the non-POE version (which got reviewed in the main site)

From the specs if this is the correct one, the non-POE version consumes 115 W typical and the POE version consumes 168 W typical. I really hope that there won't be such a great difference at idle.

I just got the NON POE version of this switch. Idling with nothing plugged into, it pulls about 40 watts per my Killawatt.

 

[ks94]

I just got the NON POE version of this switch. Idling with nothing plugged into, it pulls about 40 watts per my Killawatt.

Hey thanks for the info, but the idle power consumption for the NON POE version (Dell N2224X-ON) has been known to be ~40-60W. It was covered in the main site article too which STH tested the power consumption for that to be 48-55W.

What is missing is the idle power consumption for the POE version (Dell N2224PX-ON). Strangely I'm able to find a POE version locally to be cheaper than a non-POE version (around ~30USD cheaper). Wonder if it is worth buying the POE one over the non-POE one provided that I have ZERO POE-capable devices now.