Small 10Gb Switch

[ThatDiabeticGuy]

I'm looking for a small 10Gb switch for my home office. I'd like to upgrade my PCs and NAS to 10Gb in order to start video editing off of the NAS and the one piece I haven't been able to find is a small switch that supports 10Gb.

[Guest]

What's your budget and how many ports? RJ45 or SFP+?

[ThatDiabeticGuy]

Just now, Den-Fi said:

What's your budget and how many ports? RJ45 or SFP+?

Hoping for something under $300 but I kinda just want to know what's out there. And I need RJ45 ports.

[Lurick]

Define "small", 4 ports? 8 ports? 10-12 ports?

[ThatDiabeticGuy]

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

Define "small", 4 ports? 8 ports? 10-12 ports?

5 ports would be ideal but I'm pretty open to whatever is available. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

54 minutes ago, ThatDiabeticGuy said:

5 ports would be ideal but I'm pretty open to whatever is available. 

The cheapest still seems to be the MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+IN but only 4 port SFP+ and issues keeping it cool if you use copper SFP+ adapters.

 

I'm waiting on the Netgear MS510TXM or MS510TXUP myself, it seems in short supply and way out of your price range.  You might be able to find the MS510TX in or slightly above your price range though, if you can "put up" with only two 10Gbit, two 2.5Gbit and two 5Gbit.  Although that does then limit your NICs as only newer models support Multi-gig speeds.

 

Either way there are benefits to having at least one client using fibre or an SFP+ DAC if its close enough to the switch.  Going copper is the most problematic/costly route from what I can tell, unless you don't care about noise/power consumption and go with used enterprise switches, but they wont be small either.

[ThatDiabeticGuy]

18 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

The cheapest still seems to be Mikrotik but only 4 port SFP+ and issues keeping it cool if you use copper SFP+ adapters.

 

I'm waiting on the Netgear MS510TXM or MS510TXUP myself, it seems in short supply and way out of your price range.  You might be able to find the MS510TX in or slightly above your price range though, if you can "put up" with only two 10Gbit, two 2.5Gbit and two 5Gbit.  Although that does then limit your NICs as only newer models support Multi-gig speeds.

What kind of cooling issues would I run into with that solution? Would it be better to kit out all my PCs and the NAS with 10Gbps SFP+ cards instead of RJ45 ones?

[Alex Atkin UK]

7 minutes ago, ThatDiabeticGuy said:

What kind of cooling issues would I run into with that solution? Would it be better to kit out all my PCs and the NAS with 10Gbps SFP+ cards instead of RJ45 ones?

SFP+ RJ45 adapters need active cooling or they thermal throttle and the cheap Mikrotik doesn't have a fan so you have to hack a solution for it to work.

 

Kitting out all the PCs with SFP+ adapters with 10GBase-SR adapters avoids this problem.

 

If any of the PCs are within 5m of the switch you can also use DAC cables which are short coax cables.  They are the simplest option when possible as they just have an SFP+ plug on each end, my NAS is connected that way.

[ThatDiabeticGuy]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

If any of the PCs are within 5m of the switch you can also use DAC cables which are short coax cables.  They are the simplest option when possible as they just have an SFP+ plug on each end, my NAS is connected that way.

Everything is in the same room, so distance isn't the problem. It's more that I wanted to each PC to only have a single cable for NAS connection and internet. I also wanted the ability to connect more than 2 PCs at one time (Synology only offers 10Gb cards with up to 2 ports), hence the switch. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, ThatDiabeticGuy said:

Everything is in the same room, so distance isn't the problem. It's more that I wanted to each PC to only have a single cable for NAS connection and internet. I also wanted the ability to connect more than 2 PCs at one time (Synology only offers 10Gb cards with up to 2 ports), hence the switch. 

I use the DAC to connect my NAS to the Netgear switch on its single SFP+ socket, which you could do with the Mikrotik for every PC - if they are within 5m of the switch (might be a stretch).  The catch is the Mikrotik only has four SFP+ sockets and one Gigabit RJ45 (which presumably would go to your router).

In my case as I have the Netgear, the SFP+ connects to my NAS, the single RJ45 10Gbit port connects to a switch in another room which has two 10Gbit RJ45 sockets on it.  My gaming PC then connects to the other 10Gbit port on that other switch.

 

Back on the main switch I then have 2x 2.5Gbit ports, 2x5Gbit ports, 4x1Gbit ports.  My laptop connects using a USB 2.5Gbit adapter and my upscaling PC connects using a USB 5Gbit (limited to 3.6Gbit due to USB overheads) adapter.

[DogKnight]

 

Below is a copy and paste from a similar thread that may give some ideas.

Worth noting, Netgear also have the XS505M, a smaller version of the switch I use. 

 

_____________________________________________________

 

Just to share how I setup 10gb for a portion of my network. May give some ideas. Not a cheap approach though. 

Switch - Netgear XS508M
https://www.netgear.com/business/wired/switches/unmanaged/xs508m/#tab-techspecs

NICS - Intel X550 (a couple T1 and one T2)

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/88208/intel-ethernet-converged-network-adapter-x550-t1.html

 

NAS Upgrade - QNAP qna-uc5g1t
https://www.qnap.com/en-au/product/qna-uc5g1t

I have 3 PC's connected to the switch via 10gb. With one PC (my home lab server), taking up two ports with the X550-T2 NIC.
The NAS takes up one port and runs at 5gb. 

There is one port running to a 16 port 1gb switch. 

And a final port connected to my router on it's 5gb LAN port. Router is a Netgear RAX120. 

I have a gigabit fibre internet connection. 

My main reason for going 10gbe was due to regular use of VM's from my lab and transfer of large files (especially VM's) between multiple machines. 
My last part is to get an adapter for my work MacBook Pro. I am tossing up between getting another QNAP adapter and running it at 5gb, or purchasing an QNAP Thunderbolt 3 to 10gbe adapter (https://www.amazon.com.au/QNAP-QNA-T310G1T-Thunderbolt-Adaptor-Silver/dp/B07KTLGTXB/). 

Hopefully will give you some ideas.