How long before we see affordable consumer 25 GbE switches?

[Promit]

25 GbE NICs are easy to find, but unfortunately we still don't have reasonably priced switches to hook them up. Sure there's the datacenter pull option, but the size and power consumption of those units is not generally homelab friendly. The cheapest 25G switches I know of are:

• MikroTik CRS504-4XQ-IN 25/100 for ~$650
• MikroTik CRS510-8XS-2XQ-IN for ~$850
• QNAP QSW-M7308R-4X-US for $999
• Ubiquiti USW-Pro-Aggregation for $899

I wonder how long it'll take to see someone, perhaps a Chinese generic, do a 25 GbE capable switch under $500? I would love to see something with a pair of SFP28 ports and then maybe 2.5G distribution. I imagine the hold-up is the availability of cheap underlying chips to build the switch around, but with how prices have begun to crater on 10G equipment I can't help but hope for 25G in the consumer grade space soon.

 

[BackupProphet]

Those prices are affordable. Remember when 1G was available around year 2000, it was easily 3-400 USD for an unmanged 8 port switch. The major problem today, is that consumer network cards are still using base-t standard. When or if they will move over to SFP will probably never happen. Wifi is getting too fast for that.

 

[sam55todd]

The fist thing what is probably needed - generating demand (matching purchasing power)
for such incredible bandwidth in regular home user space
which actually seems highly unlikely in near-term horizon.

I can understand home-lab experimentation needs for curious tech enthusiasts,
but even hypothetical grandma falling asleep in bed while simultaneously streaming two gardening/cooking tv-shows
in 4K format (and forgetting about third ON device in living room) will be just fine with regular 132MBit

 

[DaveLTX]

The fist thing what is probably needed - generating demand (matching purchasing power)
for such incredible bandwidth in regular home user space
which actually seems highly unlikely in near-term horizon.

I can understand home-lab experimentation needs for curious tech enthusiasts,
but even hypothetical grandma simultaneously streaming two gardening/cooking tv-shows
in 4K format will be more than fine with regular 100MBit

By that basis, we wouldn't be seeing 10gbit fiber connections even for home. One time we were astonished by 1gbit, years ago even at home we realize the limits of it

In my country (which isn't one of the toppers in the world for fiber speed) is already moving to 10gbit en masse and 10gbit 8 port SFP+ switch is far cheaper than RJ45 10Gb so the chance for 25Gb SFP+ fanless reasonably priced switches isn't that outlandish

Give it a couple of years

 

[sam55todd]

By that basis, we wouldn't be seeing 10gbit fiber connections even for home.

Let's not deviate from rationality of cause and effect, that's the power of marketing, giving no other options for informed decision, people are precipitated into buying things they don't need or don't understand, there are advantages of course of pushing the capital/research/technology boundaries (mostly for narrow minority and via secondary effect in general for everyone else too, development blah blah blah)... and we're back into the scope of technological discussion.

 

[DaveLTX]

Yeah like we totally don't need 8 cores at all lets go back to dual cores yeah...

 

[i386]

How long before we see affordable consumer 25 GbE switches?

I believe this will never happen.
Consumer don't have the need for that much bandwidth. (For example I have like ~20 iot devices running tasmota and they have peak bandwidth requirement of less than 100 MBit/s)
At best I think there will be smb switches with 2-4 sfp28 ports and 24-48x 1/2.5/5/10 GBE ports

In my country (which isn't one of the toppers in the world for fiber speed) is already moving to 10gbit en masse

I'm in germany, in a bigger sized city and we have 100MBit/s dsl (+ ~200MBit/s via 5g bonding), I'm praying for >=1GBE fiber

 

[DaveLTX]

I believe this will never happen.
Consumer don't have the need for that much bandwidth. (For example I have like ~20 iot devices running tasmota and they have peak bandwidth requirement of less than 100 MBit/s)
At best I think there will be smb switches with 2-4 sfp28 ports and 24-48x 1/2.5/5/10 GBE ports

I'm in germany, in a bigger sized city and we have 100MBit/s dsl (+ ~200MBit/s via 5g bonding), I'm praying for >=1GBE fiber

At the same time, years ago we wouldnt have expect to have 2.5 and 5g or even 10G reaching the consumer
Some routers already come with SFP+, and yes SMB switches are already SFP28 (or even QSFP+/28) with 24/48 2.5gbe ports
Now the only possibility of it lies whether Realtek would make it... 2.5G and cheap 10Gb SFP+ switches were made possible because of Realtek

On that note, my country has had standard 1G fiber for over a decade!

 

[nabsltd]

Per 25Gbps port:
$40 - MikroTik CRS504-4XQ-IN 25/100 for ~$650
$53 - MikroTik CRS510-8XS-2XQ-IN for ~$850
$41 - QNAP QSW-M7308R-4X-US for $999

The QNAP looks to be a big winner with 24x 25Gbps ports. The CRS504-4XQ-IN is slightly cheaper per port, but it only has 16x.

 

[pimposh]

QNAP is price-wise winner only but firmware dissapoint at least not to say suck ...

 

[Pholostan]

Hmmm, Realtek makes pretty cheap 5Gbe chips now, I kinda expect them to be in all but the cheapest mobos soon. I guess 10Gbe will become common when Realtek starts mass produce such ships, probably a few years off.

Cheapest we to get 25G seems to still be second hand stuff, Mellanox/Nvidia stuff can be pretty cheap on fleabay. A Mellanox SN2xxx series switch is overkill ofc, but they are real nice and fully supported by upstream linux kernel. I guess Marvell/Aquantia stuff is getting cheaper though, maybe the next iteration in a few years? Still, won't be tomorrow.

Checking Dell, a mid-tier Optiplex office box still only has gigabit standard. And wifi ofc

My ISP rolled out 10G six years ago now, but availability is still a bit hit and miss. My local city network infra said they supported it, but when I ordered it wasn't deliverable due to equipment in my building being old af. Scheduled to upgrade this year, always something.

 

[jabuzzard]

At the same time, years ago we wouldnt have expect to have 2.5 and 5g or even 10G reaching the consumer
Some routers already come with SFP+, and yes SMB switches are already SFP28 (or even QSFP+/28) with 24/48 2.5gbe ports
Now the only possibility of it lies whether Realtek would make it... 2.5G and cheap 10Gb SFP+ switches were made possible because of Realtek

The issue is that there is no useful standard for 25Gbps over twisted pair. Yes, there is a point-to-point standard that uses Cat8 cable with CG45 connectors up to 30m, but it will be like 40Gbps over the same cable setup, and no products will ever be brought to the market. So you are either using DAC cables or fibre which basically means not a mass market consumer market.

 

[DaveLTX]

The issue is that there is no useful standard for 25Gbps over twisted pair. Yes, there is a point-to-point standard that uses Cat8 cable with CG45 connectors up to 30m, but it will be like 40Gbps over the same cable setup, and no products will ever be brought to the market. So you are either using DAC cables or fibre which basically means not a mass market consumer market.

Hence the mention of SFP+.

 

[Promit]

On Amazon right this minute, I can get a 2x SFP+, 4x 2.5G switch for $36.78 from YuanLey, and it will work great. This is barely more than the cost of a generic rj45 transceiver. This is all down to, basically, cheap and cheerful Realtek switching chips doing all of the work for next to no cost. 25GbE is a step up, yeah, but it’s not SO far out of the switching capacities of some of these devices. The whole discussion of “mass consumer market” is irrelevant, because clearly these aren’t being made for a mass market. But they are being made and sold in large quantities nonetheless, and I don’t think the 25 GbE level is somehow uninteresting the same people who are buying these.

 

[DaveLTX]

On Amazon right this minute, I can get a 2x SFP+, 4x 2.5G switch for $36.78 from YuanLey, and it will work great. This is barely more than the cost of a generic rj45 transceiver. This is all down to, basically, cheap and cheerful Realtek switching chips doing all of the work for next to no cost. 25GbE is a step up, yeah, but it’s not SO far out of the switching capacities of some of these devices. The whole discussion of “mass consumer market” is irrelevant, because clearly these aren’t being made for a mass market. But they are being made and sold in large quantities nonetheless, and I don’t think the 25 GbE level is somehow uninteresting the same people who are buying these.

That and routers gaining SFP+ AND SFP+ ONUs entering the public conscience (Very common in china already! It's already an option here)

 

[blunden]

On Amazon right this minute, I can get a 2x SFP+, 4x 2.5G switch for $36.78 from YuanLey, and it will work great. This is barely more than the cost of a generic rj45 transceiver. This is all down to, basically, cheap and cheerful Realtek switching chips doing all of the work for next to no cost. 25GbE is a step up, yeah, but it’s not SO far out of the switching capacities of some of these devices. The whole discussion of “mass consumer market” is irrelevant, because clearly these aren’t being made for a mass market. But they are being made and sold in large quantities nonetheless, and I don’t think the 25 GbE level is somehow uninteresting the same people who are buying these.

Actually, the switch chip is that switch you mentioned is absolutely meant for mass market products. That's why it's so cheap and why the suggested use cases they showed for it were all fairly close to the products we see now from China. Those particular brands don't have mass market appeal though, that's true.

 

[DaveLTX]

Most if not all 10G switches (even the ones that use RJ45) often use RTL9303 switch chips
and the cheapest ones are TP Link ST1008F... We could go on but in essence, its not unrealistic to expect 25GbE might happen

 

[jabuzzard]

Most if not all 10G switches (even the ones that use RJ45) often use RTL9303 switch chips
and the cheapest ones are TP Link ST1008F... We could go on but in essence, its not unrealistic to expect 25GbE might happen

Without a useful standard for 25Gbps over twisted pair yes it is. Right now the only standard for 25Gbps over twisted pair requires Cat8 cable with CG45 connectors and is limited to 30m direct connection so no patch panels, or outlets in the mix. It is intended for data centre usage a bit like the 40Gbps over twisted pair standard, which as far as I am aware no products were ever released because we either used DAC or went optical. Same for 25Gbps and fibre at home is unusual.

Hence the mention of SFP+.

Have you seen the price of 25Gbps routers? It is going to be a long time before that gets to the SOHO market IMHO. I was pricing them up earlier in the year for work and OMG we are sticking with 10Gbps for now.

 

[DaveLTX]

Without a useful standard for 25Gbps over twisted pair yes it is. Right now the only standard for 25Gbps over twisted pair requires Cat8 cable with CG45 connectors and is limited to 30m direct connection so no patch panels, or outlets in the mix. It is intended for data centre usage a bit like the 40Gbps over twisted pair standard, which as far as I am aware no products were ever released because we either used DAC or went optical. Same for 25Gbps and fibre at home is unusual.


Have you seen the price of 25Gbps routers? It is going to be a long time before that gets to the SOHO market IMHO. I was pricing them up earlier in the year for work and OMG we are sticking with 10Gbps for now.

holy shit why are you so fixated on RJ45?

When CONSUMER routers even come with SFP+ it is won't be unexpected that eventually fiber or SFP+ will become very common
It's not a matter of counting consumer routers with sfp+ ports on one hand, there's a lot of them and the earliest ones track back a few years ago when wifi 6E was starting to take off

 

[jabuzzard]

holy shit why are you so fixated on RJ45?

When CONSUMER routers even come with SFP+ it is won't be unexpected that eventually fiber or SFP+ will become very common
It's not a matter of counting consumer routers with sfp+ ports on one hand, there's a lot of them and the earliest ones track back a few years ago when wifi 6E was starting to take off

Because for the most part fibre and DAC cables are not consumer parts and with no useful standard for 25Gbps over twisted pair it severely limits the likelihood of even SFP28 switches for the SOHO market.

You are not going to see consumer level 25Gbps internet access for consumers for a considerable period of time given the current price point of 25Gbps capable routers. They would need to drop by a factor of around 100 to make it viable.