Jgreco told us some years back on the old forum that 10 GbE, especially via SFP+, was the way to go for high speed, and was pretty inexpensive with used enterprise gear. Since then, that’s only increasingly the case (thanks, Brocade!). So the question naturally becomes, what about the next step?
Well, when it comes to 25/100 GbE, the situation doesn’t seem quite as rosy. NICs are pretty cheap–Mellanox CX-4s are around US$50, and dual-port Intel XXV710s can be around US$70. Both of these are more than a comparable 10G NIC, but still quite reasonable. Switches, though–not so much.
Mikrotik, of course, has a few entries into the space. Their CRS510-8XS-2XQ-IN (gotta love how their model numbers just roll off the tongue) gives 8 25 GbE ports and 2 100 GbE ports (each of which can be broken out into 4 more 25 GbE ports), for a street price of about US$800.
Going used doesn’t really save money that I can see, though it does add capabilities. The Dell S5148F-ON, for around US$1000 on eBay, gives you 48 SFP28 25 GbE ports, plus 6 QSFP28 100 GbE ports (which can break out into an additional 24 SFP28s)–lots more capability, not much more money. Of course, the 750W PSU in 1U means that cooling’s likely to be pretty noisy. And then you need to worry about licensing for the OS? I see a few Cisco units for a bit less, but don’t really know anything about them (and whether something like an OS license might be needed there as well?). Going for a smaller Dell switch, like the S5212F-ON, paradoxically costs more (by quite a bit).
Are there switches I’m missing, or is the market just not quite “there” yet?