Starting homelab network - hardware choices

[bimbar]

It's one of their weirdest products ever :
- € 200 for the Switch
- € 90 for the adapter

If you can get by with a PoE injector as Patrick suggested, then the non-PoE version of the same switch is the better deal.  But at that point the Mikrotik with its 8x 2.5GbE ports is practically begging, even with the fan.

And add to that Netgear and HPE switches.

I haven't tried the professional Netgear switches and I do expect better of them, but I had a terrible experience with a cheaper Netgear smart switch and had to return it.  It was leaking RAs across the VLANs.

We've had terrible experiences with professional Netgear switches regarding port speeds and compatibilities. Even if it works, for the homeuser Netgear switches the interface is terrible.

HPE Aruba might be on the expensive side.

[nero355]

I haven't tried the professional Netgear switches and I do expect better of them, but I had a terrible experience with a cheaper Netgear smart switch and had to return it.

It was leaking RAs across the VLANs.

Do you happen to remember the exact model and revision ?


/EDIT :

GS308EP with firmware 1.0.1.4

I was still very green at the time but I don't think this was user error.  There was no working combination to prevent the RA spillage.

Ha!  Looks like they fixed it some months after:

https://kb.netgear.com/000066737/GS308EP-Firmware-Version-2-0-0-5

:-)

Thank you! :)

[senser]

The topton x2e (n150, 4 intel nics) from aliexpress should be considered as a cheaper alternative to the protectli. It is also supported by coreboot. However, I haven't been able to flash it on my x2e yet.

[OPNenthu]

Do you happen to remember the exact model and revision ?

GS308EP with firmware 1.0.1.4

I was still very green at the time but I don't think this was user error.  There was no working combination to prevent the RA spillage.

[OPNenthu]

Ha!  Looks like they fixed it some months after:

https://kb.netgear.com/000066737/GS308EP-Firmware-Version-2-0-0-5

:-)

[Greg_E]

The Netgear AV Line of switches are pretty solid, they were pointed towards the NDI video and Dante audio market, both of which have some timing requirements that are met by these two lines of switches. M4250 and M4350 are the two model lines, not exactly cheap though. I have a 4250 at work and it was doing fine when we were using it with NDI video streams at roughly 140mbps per stream, 10gb to the computer doing the work.

If you decide to look at Mikrotik, find the datasheet for the speeds, you should find 3 different ratings depending on router, bridge, or switch OS, as long as you keep things within your operational limits based on the functions you need, they are fine.

And yes I have seen quad port i226 based cards, I think they were going for around $100 on ebay. I went a different way and tracked down a couple quad x710 cards for my faster needs, they integrate into my lab better because a lot of things are SHP+ on DAC or fiber, and gigabit SFP modules are cheap if I only need gigabit.