Hi all!

Long time lurker on the sub as i have recently been building out my home production network over the last couple of years. I am a freelance 3D artist and i use my network to connect my boxes to each other to render 3d through deadline server. My current setup has three networked compys with an additional 2 compys coming before the end of the year.

I recently upgraded two of my boxes with nicgiga 10gbe nics and i have a third box that will continue to run at 100mbs due to being a laptop that connects via an eGPU interface.

now that i have some time and $$$ to invest in a switch, i’m looking at upgrading my lab to a 10gbe managed switch.

i’m about to pull the trigger based on info i have read here and some follow ups reviews from serve the home on youtube.

I am eventually going to run centralized NAS storage to serve all of my boxes but for the time being, i’m serving my files to deadline from my main production box for rendering.

My goal is to simply open up the internal pipe so that files read/write faster to drive during the rendering process. My setup runs on rj45 cabling with cat6 run throughout the house, so i’m hoping to keep the switch consistent with that, but i’m not opposed to running sfp+ with adapters (which seems to be a cheaper option, understanding that adapters cost money as well as may sometimes have compatibility issues)

I’ve narrowed my possible solutions to

Mokerlink

TPLink

and Microtik

I’m leaning more towards the microtik as they seem to have a pretty good rep and there’s some flex in the setup if i ever want to update to fiber, but i would be interested if anyone had experience with the other switches.

Also, i’m not an IT person at all, so if i’m misreading the capabilities of these switches or if i’m just out of my depth in general, i would definitely appreciate any critique you all have.

thanks so much, all!

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  • HTTP_404_NotFound@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    As somebody who has spent a ton of time messing with both 10/40/100GBe…

    https://static.xtremeownage.com/pages/Projects/40G-NAS/

    My advice-

    1. use Intel or Mellonax NICs when possible.
    2. 10GBase-T (RJ45 / Copper) runs REALLY hot, uses ~9 watts, and the modules are expensive. Use Fiber / DAC / AOC / Twinax when possible. Its cheaper, cooler, more efficient.
    3. Mikrotik switches are fine. Nothing fancy, but, they work. I have one in my 10G network.
    4. Cat6 is perfectly fine for 10G, I have 60 foot runs of it through my house.
    5. Make sure flow-control is enabled on your switches / NICs. Can make drastic differences.

    I PERSONALLY use a unifi aggregation switch as my layer 2 10G switch. With 6 of the 8 ports filled, it only draws around 8 watts of energy, and is completely silent. This- is quite fantastic.

    I also use a Unifi PRO switch, for 10G routing, which is also silent, and pretty efficient.

    Granted, these are a lot more expensive then mikrotik switches. Mikrotik can handle the job just fine.

    If noise/power isn’t a concern, pick up a brocade icx6610-48-p on ebay. The absolute beef-daddy of switches, for 100$. 16x 10G SFP+, 2x40G QSFP, 48x1G poe.

  • Herobrine__Player@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    When going between SFP+ vs RJ45 10GbE switches it is mostly compared to if you already have cables ran.

    The RJ45 ones cost a lot more, but they let you use preexisting ethernet cables like you have which can save a bunch of money from running new cables & the time of running said new cables.

    If you were to get a SFP+ switch & get a bunch of adapters that gets much more expensive than getting a RJ45 switch (Those adapters also run HOT). The benefit is that fiber can go much farther (not needed in a home really though) & you can use DAC’s which compared with the lower switch & NIC price can be much cheaper.

    If your leaning towards the MikroTik switch it is a good switch, though its nothing too fancy. It would also let you use a couple DAC cables to connect to a few boxes if you have one next to where the switch will go.