I enjoy buying used enterprise gear because a) it’s cheaper than most other networking gear and 2) because it’s enterprise I usually don’t have to worry about overpowering the equipment with my home setup.
I’m looking at used 10gb switches on ebay for less than $200 but find that even though there are plenty of options they’re either vastly too complicated, like blade switches, or require licenses and I’m not that familiar with enterprise equipment to know if I’ll need a license which I don’t want to pay for or deal with.
I’ve looked at the dell z9000, dell force10 s4810p and the cisco n5k-c5548p which I understand needs a license so will probably be crossed out. I know that Mikrotik has some decently priced 10gb switches for $200~ that has 8 sfp+ ports, so that’s a last option I suppose.
Does anyone know anything about the z9000 or the s4810p? Any recommendations for other cheap enterprise 10gb switches? I liked that the dell units also had some ports for 40gb but the 10gb is more realistic for now. I also like dell networking in general.
There are “cosmetically damaged” 32-48 port 1U switches with 4-8 10G SFP+ ports on them for under $100 on eBay. I don’t have the need for a 10G network right now but if I do, I will probably get one of these. Of course, they probably all draw around 300W and the fans are probably loud. Some of them even support “stacking” which is when you connect two separate switches together with a thick proprietary cable and they act as one. I can’t think of a specific model but I am sure you will be able to find one.
Old dented 40G QSFP+ NICs and switches surprisingly aren’t too much more expensive. I am finding HPE FlexFabric JG894A (48 port, 4x SFP+, 2x QSFP+) switches for under $70.