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Cheap 10G Switches - Page 2
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Cheap 10G Switches

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  • kyakykyaky Member
    edited July 2021

    Five-port desktop switch with one Gigabit Ethernet port and four SFP+ 10Gbps ports
    https://mikrotik.com/product/crs305_1g_4s_in

  • AlexBarakovAlexBarakov Patron Provider, Veteran

    I have no experience with Celestica. I was looking into Celestica DX010 to play with 100G, however all units I found were possibly affected by the AVR54 bug.

    Anyway, I wouldn't go with Ubiquiti or Miktorik in production ever. They are just not targeted at production/enterprise use.

    The Arista's are very nice for this price, if you don't need L3 you probably won't need any additional licensing.

    An option would be Dell / F10 S4810, these are very solid options too.

    Another option would be Juniper, although higher priced. Although old - QFX3500 are rock solid and the newer QFX5100 are also very nice. I'd personally go with Juniper, but that's mainly due to me preferring Junos.

    And lastly - Brocade ICX6610, if you can live with 16x 10G ports. 8 via SFP+ on the front and 8 via QSFP breakouts.

  • randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

    @AlexBarakov said:
    I have no experience with Celestica. I was looking into Celestica DX010 to play with 100G, however all units I found were possibly affected by the AVR54 bug.

    Anyway, I wouldn't go with Ubiquiti or Miktorik in production ever. They are just not targeted at production/enterprise use.

    The Arista's are very nice for this price, if you don't need L3 you probably won't need any additional licensing.

    An option would be Dell / F10 S4810, these are very solid options too.

    Another option would be Juniper, although higher priced. Although old - QFX3500 are rock solid and the newer QFX5100 are also very nice. I'd personally go with Juniper, but that's mainly due to me preferring Junos.

    And lastly - Brocade ICX6610, if you can live with 16x 10G ports. 8 via SFP+ on the front and 8 via QSFP breakouts.

    The Celesticas have 48x10G RJ45 + 4x40G qspf+ and only cost $475 including shipping.

    Looks like they're from Tencent.

    Looks pretty damned cheap. They're cheaper than my Cisco 1G switches.

    The Celesticas are L3 and even support BGP.

    Thanked by 1TimboJones
  • qpsqps Member, Host Rep

    @AlexBarakov said: AVR54 bug

    This is definitely something to watch out for. Some of the switches on the market right now have this bug because they use the Atom C2xxx series chips. If you're going to risk it because it is cheap, definitely buy a spare switch to have standing by, as it can just die suddenly.

  • AlexBarakovAlexBarakov Patron Provider, Veteran

    @qps said:

    @AlexBarakov said: AVR54 bug

    This is definitely something to watch out for. Some of the switches on the market right now have this bug because they use the Atom C2xxx series chips. If you're going to risk it because it is cheap, definitely buy a spare switch to have standing by, as it can just die suddenly.

    Yup. This is the reason why a ton of Celestica 100g switches were dumped for peanuts on ebay at one point.

  • There are tons of enterprise-grade 10g (and 40g) switches available if you're ok with used gear.
    The trick is knowing which models/vendors are awesome and will last you another 10years.

    Brand names like Cisco, Juniper, Arista, Brocade, Mellanox, and others, as well as the same gear OEM'd and/or repackaged by IBM, Dell, HP, etc are all over ebay. Cheap!

    You just need the proper search terms. If you're not hanging out in enterprise datacenters, brute force is your friend. start vague, then get more specific. use high port count terms in your searches, as enterprise gear is usually designed for that.

    For example, 2-3 years ago, I was buying the Cisco 5548up switches just as the price came down to $200-$300. It's a tank of an L2/L3 box with 48 10g/1g ports, dual power, does FC and Ethernet, etc. those will probably last me another 3-5years in production.

    For the past year, I've been buying Brocade. their 10/25/40gb switches are in the $200 range, and are, again, tanks! I expect to get another 5-10years from them if I need.

    A great (older) example are the 'last generation' Cisco catalyst switches (1g+10g uplinks) 35xx/37xx series switches. When first released, (a long long time ago!) these were in the 1000s to 10000s of dollar range. about 7years ago, you could get them on ebay for low hundreds of dollars. I still see these all over datacenters. Not just in customer racks, but in provider racks too! They still work! reliably! (tho, I'd retire these after they stopped getting security updates. which for enterprise gear, can be a long long time!)

    I hate to refer you to another forum, especially when I like this one so much, but if you're looking for used networking hardware, a great place is:
    https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php#sales-deals-and-trades.1
    and the definitive guide on the Brocades, my current favorites:
    https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/brocade-icx-series-cheap-powerful-10gbe-40gbe-switching.21107/

    Also, since the price of used mellanox 40gb nics is in the $20-$50 range, I'd be looking at 40g!

  • randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

    @AlexBarakov said: Yup. This is the reason why a ton of Celestica 100g switches were dumped for peanuts on ebay at one point.

    I took the plunge and ordered one of the Celesticas. Mainly for testing. I also got some Dells since they are more common and 'trusted', so to speak.

    But the Celestica was interesting. Cheapest 10G RJ45 switch I've seen.

    First thing I did was check the CPU. It's running a PowerPC, so should not be susceptible to the AVR54 bug. That's a pro in my book.

    Managed to get into the console without issue. Being completely unable to find any documentation on this switch AT ALL, including specification listings or user manuals, I think these were actually MADE for Tencent. At the console, "Tencent-S48T>" is visible always. At first I thought this was the hostname, but in the running config file, there's no hostname set. Interestingly, there is a Linux Shell accessible via the console, BUT ONLY the console. The switch uses Zebos. Thankfully I CAN find documentation on Zebos, so I've managed to get some basic config done. Access via SSH goes straight into Zebos. There is no way to access the Linux shell via SSH. Not as far as I can tell any way. Not that it matters since the Shell is password protected, and there seems to be no way to access it.

    I think it too risky to actually deploy the switch in production. But it's an interesting purchase none the less.

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