Gigabit + 10Gb Switches under $550

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Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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Hey folks,

Check out -> MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+IN | CRS | Mikrotik | EuroDK

I see some references to this switch in this thread when it was much more expensive... but at $117 that's a hard price to beat for a silent home-lab switch. Anyone have any experience with it?
Wow it’s finally available, the hype died 8 months ago hahaha
No experience with this unit at all but it’s likely just fine as a layer 2 switch in home lab environment. I assume like really all other mikrotik gear you can forget any usable layer 3 routing performance.
 

bateau

Member
Jan 22, 2017
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+1 i too, would like to know if anyone has tried this one out yet...
It does a good job for me. L2 use only of course. Been using with various SFP+ modules. Does jumbo frames (but not with the S+RJ10 of course) No surprises, behaves just like the other CRS3xx switches. Just smaller. A bit of a shame the leds are at the side.
 

Deslok

Well-Known Member
Jul 15, 2015
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deslok.dyndns.org
Does the CRS317-1G-16S+RM make this list? or does the single gigabit uplink exclude it. I'm using two with SFP+ DA as a data network in a small hyper-v cluster and although a bit slower than a cisco 10Gig(in iperf at least we're only seeing ~9.x Gbit ) at 370 on amazon they seem like a steal.
 

saivert

Member
Nov 2, 2015
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Mikrotik seem to announce new products a year+ ahead of the actual store availability. Most people forget all about it by the time they can buy it so they need to drump up interest all over again.

The routing performance is good enough depending on the model. They have routers and they have switches. They allow you to use RouterOS on their switches but that doesn't mean that making use of any of the layer 3 features make sense. Other vendors would probably have just disabled layer 3 features altogether below a certain performance class.

Months go by but still no consumer class many port 10GBASE-T switch to be seen other than a few token 2 port ones. It is almost as if including 10Gb ethernet on high end gaming motherboards is just for marketing purposes. Sure some may have that one single 10Gb NAS but seriously... Many vendors probably have designs ready but on the fence about whether it makes economical sense to launch products. How many will they sell?

Including second hand 10GBASE-SR is still the cheapest option if you don't mind a fiber run.
 

EffrafaxOfWug

Radioactive Member
Feb 12, 2015
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IgniteNet - has anyone heard of these guys?

In looking for affordable gig switches with a few 10GbE ports I came across the following switches on a UK reseller:
FusionSwitch™ PoE | IgniteNet
FusionSwitch™ Fiber | IgniteNet

The managed version with VLAN support is around the £600 mark and the PoE version (no VLAN support as far as I can tell but they don't seem to provide any manuals) at £500, both with 4x10Gb SFP+ ports each. I assume they're out of some badge-engineering shop in Shenzen but I've not really seen any chatter about this brand in the forums. I'm not really considering them as I can't find a detailed spec sheet or manual anywhere but I'm curious if anyone else on the forums has any experiences.

Edit: eventually found the manual pages here User Manuals and Quick Start Guides (All Products) but they're apparently stored on google drive >_<
 

cuco

Member
Feb 13, 2018
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Hello,
i am searching a switch like the Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch 16 XG but with rj45 ports that support 2.5g, 5g and 10g. 8 or more sfp+ ports. Any idea?
or does the 16 xg support 2,5g and 5g?
Or are there cooper transceivers that support 2,5g, 5g and 10g?
thx for the help
 

Deslok

Well-Known Member
Jul 15, 2015
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deslok.dyndns.org
Hello,
i am searching a switch like the Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch 16 XG but with rj45 ports that support 2.5g, 5g and 10g. 8 or more sfp+ ports. Any idea?
or does the 16 xg support 2,5g and 5g?
Or are there cooper transceivers that support 2,5g, 5g and 10g?
thx for the help

Mikrotik makes this switch
MikroTik

And these transceivers are 10mb through 10Gb with support for 2.5 and 5
MikroTik

I haven't tried the transceivers myself but I do have a pair of those switches in production and they've been solid for months
 

saivert

Member
Nov 2, 2015
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Interesting thread. Especially interesting seeing the Mikrotik rep didn't understand the problem fully and just made a "oh but Cisco isn't perfect either" kindergarten argument. Yes there are certain restrictions in hardware and software design that require careful tuning but in this case there shouldn't be.
 

Deslok

Well-Known Member
Jul 15, 2015
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deslok.dyndns.org
Hi!

Dont trust the Mikrotik specs data!

They produce many "fake swicthes" (shared bus within the PHY and CPU bus).
They beign to produce the "true switches" based on Marvell 98DX chips, but it seems, suffering serious software bugs (10G to 1G traffic):
CRS328-24P-4S+RM speed problem - MikroTik
As with any manufacturer, the spec data is in an ideal scenario, I do have that CRS317 and a CRS328 and haven't had any issues with them(Although I did adjust the framesize on the 317 to speed up the 10GB performance) but i'm also not trying to cram 10gb of data down to a 1gb port(this week, if I ever get a 328 for home I might) I wouldn't inherently call their switches "fake" but you're right they don't perform as well as cisco in my experience but I'll take them over a cheap netgear or linksys.
 

CJRoss

Member
May 31, 2017
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Any suggestions for a quiet 4+ 10G Copper switch? I'd prefer something that has some 1G Copper ports as well but the quiet 10G Copper is the important part.

Additionally, how does the Buffalo Multi-Gigabit 8 Port Business Switch (BS-MP2008) look?
 
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tkr

New Member
Nov 21, 2018
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@CJRoss:
I am not sure if this has been posted yet, but the Dell N1100 series might be promising. N1124T-ON and N1148T-ON have 4x 10G SFP+ and 24/48x 1G and cooling is passive! The N1124P-ON and N1148P-ON are not passively cooled but provide PoE.

The series claims to support ONIE - does that mean Cumulus Linux? I have ordered a N1124T for my homelab with 1 server and 2 workstations, to provide 10G connectivity.

Regards
 

IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
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@CJRoss:
I am not sure if this has been posted yet, but the Dell N1100 series might be promising. N1124T-ON and N1148T-ON have 4x 10G SFP+ and 24/48x 1G and cooling is passive! The N1124P-ON and N1148P-ON are not passively cooled but provide PoE.

The series claims to support ONIE - does that mean Cumulus Linux? I have ordered a N1124T for my homelab with 1 server and 2 workstations, to provide 10G connectivity.

Regards
Are you seeing these for under $550 somewhere?
 

tkr

New Member
Nov 21, 2018
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New in Europe starting from 400 EUR, but I got lucky with a refurbished from UK for 220 GBP incl. shipping. Should arrive on Thursday, I am curious.

Regards
 

CJRoss

Member
May 31, 2017
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@CJRoss:
I am not sure if this has been posted yet, but the Dell N1100 series might be promising. N1124T-ON and N1148T-ON have 4x 10G SFP+ and 24/48x 1G and cooling is passive! The N1124P-ON and N1148P-ON are not passively cooled but provide PoE.

The series claims to support ONIE - does that mean Cumulus Linux? I have ordered a N1124T for my homelab with 1 server and 2 workstations, to provide 10G connectivity.

Regards
The problem is that is 10G Fiber and I need 10G Copper. I have a Xeon D and several Aquntia cards I'm trying to connect.
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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The series claims to support ONIE - does that mean Cumulus Linux? I have ordered a N1124T for my homelab with 1 server and 2 workstations, to provide 10G connectivity.

Be careful with assumptions on those - they say:
"All N-Series switches include Dell EMC Networking OS 6, designed for easier deployment, greater interoperability and a lower learning curve for network administrators. In addition to supporting the Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) allowing for installation of alternate network operating systems, "
So you do get NOS6 (lower level version of they OS10 I assume), and an unspecified list of 3rd party NOS's


However, there is this document listing compatibility of switches with aforementioned third party NOS's

https://www.dellemc.com/resources/e...llEMCNetworkingQRG_OpenNetworkingPartners.pdf

with a header for "N‐series campus switches 1G and multi‐gig" and it does not even list the N1100... and even for the N31 series there is only a single alternative OS available - which is not free o/c

So ask what is supported/installed before you buy those ;)