What switch are you using for your home lab?

AMD_Gamer

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What switch are you using for your home lab? I would prefer a Cisco switch with full Layer 3 IOS. I was wondering if anyone is using one of those bare metal switches? I believe they are expensive though. 10GB would be nice also but I don't want it to cost an arm and a leg.
 
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I run the Netgear Prosafe XS708E in my home lab. I'm able to hit full line rate out of many ports at once so there isn't a lot of over commit on the back plane as many think. It's super quiet if you keep it cool. I have a 120mm fan blowing over it to help keep cool air going to the intake and around the metal. If you want 10Gb and have the disk to push line rate, this switch is amazing for that and it's not a $30,000 Cisco device.

Nick
 
Running two Edgeswitch 48-port 500w PoE switches.
One runs my servers, one runs my workstations, with a 10gbps SFP+ cable as my VLAN trunk between 'em.

Very straightforward and easy to use. Only complaint is that I'm limited to 6 LACP bonds per switch, and MLAG isn't an option.

One day the server switch will be replaced with something 10gbps friendly (beyond just the uplink ports), but I don't do enough massive data transfers to make it worthwhile yet.
Only bottleneck is when I sync my backup server, and that runs overnight so w/e.
 
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So ... out of all the options mentioned... which ones have full layer 3 functionality?

I know the Cisco SG300-## series have partial layer 3
 
which ones have full layer 3 functionality?
I'm not sure the context or need for a switch with Layer 3 functionality but I use a Cisco ASA to run my layer three and firewall. There are a lot of options out there to run layer three. If the idea is to reduce network equipment then you can run a Linux VM to provide layer 3. You could even play around with NSX and VXLans.
Thoughts?
 
I bought a used 24 port Cisco 3750 on eBay for $300. I specifically bought it for layer 3.
 
For a homelab there is hardly a reason for an L3 switch as you would hardly need the router functionality in the switch.
Any switch is ok, maybe vlans with a Web-UI like the HP 1810/1910 would be a good option to separate traffic.

If you only need 10G ex for a fileserver and a few clients with enough nic ports on the server, you may skip the 10G switch and use a software bridge on the filer that allows all clients to connect the filer and each other without an expensive 10G switch. I am just doing some tests with bridging on my napp-it ZFS filer on OmniOS and this seems to work well (Have added an option in the GUI to enable)
 
I'm running a Cisco 3560-E 48port.

Great switch. It's end of sales and nearing end of life, but it's been good to me. I was going to go for the 10Gb fiber connection to the file server, but I just never got around to it.
 
I've got an HP 1810G-24v2 for my lab and it is absolutely fantastic. I did get 3x Intel X520-DA2's to direct connect my FreeNAS storage box to my 2x ESXi boxes. And when 10G switch prices come down I'll pick one up and some more 10G NICs to get the workstations up to speed but for now it's unnecessary for my purposes.
 
Zyxel GS1900-16. Works great and supports the Synology dual-port ethernet flawlessly.
 
3 switches:

Cisco SG500X-48 48x 1Gbe + 4x 10Gbe
Cisco SG500X-48-POE 48x 1Gbe (POE) + 4x 10Gbe
Quanta LB6M 24x 10Gbe
 
  • Ubiquiti Edge Router POE for Core Router
  • MikroTik - Cloud Router CRS125-24G-1S-RM - 24Port
  • Quanta LB4M for 10GB
  • 2x Cisco SLM2008 in remote locations.
 
Not a "lab" per se, but I use an HP JG912AABA. It's got all the functions (minus PoE) that the switches at work use, so I can experiment as needed.
 
Im actually using one of these but looking for a good low power upgrade? Anyone got any suggestions?
I have a 2816 myself, but I've been entertaining the idea of a MikroTik CRS226-24G-2S+RM, low power, fanless with 2 spf+ sounds pretty nice. I do understand the processor is a little under powered for any serious L3 functions.

In my imaginary future lab my NAS would have direct 10GbE connections from a dual port NIC to each of my two Xenservers, and in each of the Xenservers a dual port NIC with one 10GbE connection from the NAS, and the other to a switch for VM traffic.

Even my imagination isn't willing to spend on a 6+ port 10GbE switch at today's prices.
 
Mikrotik crs226 here, but my setup is much simpler than many here. 10gbit into the switch is useful for the times when I saturate 1gbit
 
Got a HP ProCurve 1810G - 24 port here. Set up with 3 VLANs, Internal, Guest, and WAN. Using the SFP port to convert incoming coax to fiber and back again before hitting firewall. Works out pretty nice, even if it is ghetto rigged under my desk.

Sadly only using 10 ports out of it right now though, but all my VMs are self contained on my ESXi box. Looking to break away my unRAID set up to its own dedicated machine, so that should add up with traffic being sent over lines instead of a virtual switch. Just trying to decide if I should make the plunge into racked or keep it desktop style.
 
The free 8 port Meraki switch I got for listening into one of their seminars. I guess it worked because we are buying some switches and licencing with them for a new remote office build in a few months.
 
Nortel/Avaya ERS4548GT-PWR 48p Layer 3 PoE+ switch.

A bit overkill for my purpose, but as long as it works, I'm not complaining.
 
Gnodal gs4008 - 40 x 10 gbe & 8 x 40gbe + two dlinks with two 10gb uplinks for access connectivity. Dlinks have limited layer 3 but I don't use it.
 
2x Cisco 3750X 48 port stacked switches.
1x Cisco Nexus 5010 10gbe for storage (not setup yet)
 
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