Need An Affordable Switch With 10G SFP+ Ports

[CougTek]

I need an inexpensive switch with at least 2 (but ideally 4) SFP+ 10G ports. It has to be a managed switch. Smart managed or fully managed isn't important. I only need to configure VLAN on it, so anything with L2 management should be fine. No redundant power supplies needed. Same goes for stacking capability and PoE.

So far, I've looked at Netgear S3300 and GS728TXS, Cisco SG500X-24, HP 2530-24G (J9856A) and even some TP Link switch. I don't know how low I can go without expecting problems. On the other hand, the Cisco SG500X is almost twice as expensive as the Netgear S3300 and it doesn't seem to be much better, on paper at least (The SG series have nothing in common with real Cisco switches, starting with the 2960X).

There's always eBay, but buying there is a nightmare for the accounting department.

 

[Mercutio]

When I was looking at getting 10GbE stuff, it looked to me like the cheapest I could get away with was around $300/port. US$1500 - $2000 probably isn't wholly unreasonable right now.

 

[ddrueding]

I have some S3300 units and they're fine for my needs. I haven't done any management, so can't speak to that part.

 

[CougTek]

The S3300 is the least expensive of the bunch. I can get one for less than 700$CDN. The others are all between 1000$CDN and 1500$CDN. The SFP+ optical transceivers are also among the most affordable.

 

[blakerwry]

What's the application? what are your availability requirements? I'm pretty happy with the Cisco 4948E-E or 4948E-F models we have. While they're overkill for what you stated (IP4/IP6 routing, ACLs, etc @ 176 Gbps, redundant PSU), they go on the gray market for between $1k and $1.5k US.

 

[blakerwry]

btw, for a cheap managed switch I would have no problem recommending the HPs. I've had good luck with several Procurve models in the 18xx, 19xx , 28xx, and 29xx series in L2 applications. No experience with their 10G equip though.

 

[CougTek]

We'll use the switch to test transceivers (Fiberstore, AddOn, etc) and 3rd party FO cables. It will also connect industrial equipment like PLC, rugged networking switches and engineering stations to the rest of our network during development stages. 10G is overkill, but the logic is that if XXXX manufacturer can make stuff that works fine at 10G, their gigabit gears will be fine too. Plus, 10G is a lot today, but it will become standard in a few years.

I've configured my share of HP 2920. We also have a 3-way virtual stack of HP 2510 (IIRC) switches at one of our offices, that I've been managing for the past two years. None of these is a match for a Cisco 2960X or 2960XR, no matter what HP wants you to believe, but they are ok considering their selling price and targeted segment (low to medium traffic access-level switches).

 

[blakerwry]

Testing transceivers in this switch or at the remote end? In my experience, vendors are picky about transceivers. I have always used the vendor branded transceivers with Dell, HP, Redback, Brocade gear. However, I have experience with Cisco devices and non-cisco branded transceivers. What I have found is that it's best to use the vendor branded transceivers. Generic fiber transceivers generally tend to work fine with Cisco gear. Copper transceivers, however, usually fail in one of a couple ways: 1) No link state detection or 2) No auto negotiation (or bad auto negotiation). While you may read that it's fine to simply force the speed/duplex and issue a speed nonegotiate command to get the link working, protocols that rely on link state then fail to work properly. This includes LACP/PAgP, spanning tree, even static routing usually drops directly connected routes when an interface goes down, etc. And no link state indication obviously causes difficulty when troubleshooting L1/L2 connection problems.

Where the Cisco 4948 series will shine is in it's ability to perform wirespeed switching. The Cisco 29xx series has never been wire speed. You may experience some drops, and the thing may not perform well if there is a switching loop, but it sounds like that may be fine for your application. I have not performance tested the HP switches, but generally they have performed reliably for our clients that use them (small ISPs) and the limited roles where I have used them (desktop gbit). I think their web interface is decent, but their CLI is lacking a lot of the troubleshooting information that I can easily access on a Cisco (mac table summaries come to mind). I appreciate that HP offers lifetime free firmware updates and warranty on some of their switches; Many vendors require a support contract for software updates and have a limited warranty. If you're already used to them, and like them, I wouldn't hesitate on an HP.