FS Switch Reliability

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cmmh

Member
Feb 26, 2021
36
19
8
Recently, we purchased a number of mid-level FS switches for an update to our infrastructure. Two weeks ago we deployed a switch as a temporary stand-in while while re-wiring was done. The switch should have been past its "infant mortality" stage as it had been burned in for a couple months before we did this. Within a few days of being put into a "production," role, it failed.

The failure was interesting in that the power supplies (redundant) both were working. The switch itself was not booting up (nor fans, nor any LEDs at all). Measuring with a voltmeter, the 12V was getting out of the power supplies and secondary voltages were there.

Called FS support and they told us since the switch is past the 90 return period, we'd have to return it for repair -- which would be 2-3-4 months. Clearly it would be sent back to mainland China for repair. I guess this is a lesson in a switch with a 5 year warranty versus lifetime, and other lessons on "getting what you paid for." Since the switch was loaded with some configuration information we consider sensitive, we really don't want to send it back without a factory reset/memory overwrite, which obviously we can not do.

I was just curious to survey the sth community to see if I just happened to get a lemon or if this sort of thing is more typical with lower price switches.

Thanks for any insights.
 

oneplane

Well-Known Member
Jul 23, 2021
877
533
93
Never had this happen (neither with FS.com nor with other switches), the network gear where we did have this a bunch of times was mostly SFPs, I/O modules for blade systems, and firewall/gateway appliances like Palo Alto and F5. The selection of FS.com switches that we deploy when required are of the Broadcom fabric variety, so maybe that's a difference considering the non-broadcom stuff they have for sale.

What is strange is that we often had defects either really early on, or years into operation, but almost never in between.

As for what devices have been working way past their lifetime, we still have a bunch of really old HPE, Cisco and even those unmanaged NetGear ProSafe switches that work fine even 15+ years down the line, mostly in use in industrial and retail locations where there is never time or money to modernise those tiny networks. Also often located in sub-standard locations like a rack in an enclosed and non-airconditioned room that only has a single exhaust fan. There is probably a 3Com switch somewhere around there as well, but they usually start dropping frames after they have been in use for 8 to 10 years. Usually the fans fail before that.
 

altmind

Active Member
Sep 23, 2018
288
105
43
what is the model and what you got on a serial console of the failing switch?