You 2 need to collab, like really :) - Id watch a few collabs of you 2.

that's true for this model in particular, but other models in the crs300 or crs500 series can in fact offload stateful connections. the dataflow is new connections are first analyzed by the CPU then marked to be offloaded to the ASIC on all subsequent packets for the connection, resulting in wire-speed firewalling for most setups. you can check which models exactly at the bottom of their docs page for l3hw.

Great to know, keeping your traffic inside the switch rather than having to move it to your router and back to do VLAN routing (aka router on a stick) is a key feature I'm looking for.

@@BattousaiHBr Are those "other models" suitable as edge devices then? How sophisticated is their firewalling compared to, say, a pfsense device?

​@@headlibrarian1996 it's not a firewall, it's a switch with L3 capabilities. it can offload NAT if that's what you need, but there are still other limitations, just like any ASIC. if you want a proper firewall, you'd need a much more expensive solution which necessarily would rely on its CPU. i'd recommend checking their docs on "L3HW".

I've got a CRS312 as my main switch and really like it. I had already ran CAT6 cable so I preferred getting a switch that has RJ45 ports instead of SFP+. Bought it for around $520 total including shipping (no tax since I got it shipped from Latvia to the USA).

I went all 40G many years ago, and 100G recently! :)

You'll have to have rather specific needs for that to make sense IMO since so few things support it. If you have a very fast NAS/SAN or some such maybe, short of that I don't see the point unless your purpose is bragging ;-). In a professional setting sure, but for home use there are a bunch of downsides to it and very few upsides.

You didn't have enough ports with the other one?

@@barygol The CRS309 has only 10gbit SFP+ ports.

I have the TP-Link TL-SG3210XHP-M2 which has exactly that config 😊

​@@weisstdudochnicht1I will probably buy the same switch. I wish they made it in a more desktop form factor. They have a 10GbE model with poe and in a much more attractive form factor. If you want a desktop mount. I'd be happy with a non poe model. Would be great to have a desktop size omada capable 2.5G switch.

For SFPs, your probably better just forcing them to the speed of the module anyway?

@@DRx1546 Yes, I have done that but since the firmware on the Mikrotik switch is f***** you can't set link speed on the switch. You would have to do that on the device it is connected to, and then what if the device dont support manual configuration of link speed? It isn't a huge problem, but I expect better when buying a new product for 200+ USD

What is the purpose of PoE for home envirement except for PoE Access point?

I have the same question. Is it the hardware that makes it a router or can RouterOS make a switch act as a router?

yep they do, It's called a poe midspan.

As far as I know, this one doesn't support NAT offloading or Fastrack offloading, so it's not as useful as an edge router. It'd be fine for inter-VLAN routing though.

what's fragile in a PC-based setup?

Look at the RB5009 or CCR-2004

It can probably do pure routing just fine. I'm sure it won't have any NAT or stateful firewall functionality (at least not in hardware) so it will be useless as a gateway device.

I have this switch. You can technically configure it as a router with NAT, but I tested it and it achieves 400-600 MBit/s with the CPU utilization at ~92% with one client connected.

Mikrotik too has lots of documentation geared towards CLI (ssh or serial console) use, some things are only explained in CLI. Although the GUI follows the same structure as the CLI so you can usually figure it out.

@marcogenovesi8570 Let me clarify, there's time questions are asked where they assume I'm referring to the CLI when I'm not with FS. It's getting better, as I have a consistent contract point, and they've learned that I go GUI first, but that was a sticking point for a bit. But yeah, with the S3900, LACP is only explained in the CLI side, and I eventually found and informed them that while you could adjust an already configured LACP group in GUI, you couldn't create it there, but example. There's also a little less knowledge from some of them on the differences, possibly because less clients use the GUI than CLI with them, so they'll make a comment and I'll have to clarify that the GUI doesn't have some setting or opportunity to navigate away for something after a certain point. Minor teething issues, but CLI is always a fallback I can use, much like many other switches, and it has all the features I need. That's just the one thing that does bother me about the FS gear that I've been using in conjunction with where this almost would have been useful (but again, needed poE, so still not quite).

That is the FS switch I have been looking at, looks like it has been working well for you so far. I am about to do a home network upgrade (we have 2.5gig coming in from our ISP.) The next item I will need is a newer router so I can get rid of my old Edge light.

@dumbALASKANhick It's only used on small occasions, just because of what is used for, but yeah it's been perfect for what we needed it for. I'd recommend getting directly through them due to the support you get from them, but the hardware has been great for us; a step down from what we'd been using, but it means I don't have to rip my home network apart, and it fills our needs. The Mikrotik looks like a good alternative if you're not needing the PoE though

This looks more or less ideal for when Verizon ups me to 2tb internet

Just got mine, and after multiple attempts, did some digging and found that swos actually is not supported.

probably 4-5 years

I agree. I’ve been using a qnap switch for a few years and it has 2 sfp+ ports, 2 combo rj45/sfp+ ports (so four 10gig connections) and 8 gigabit rj45 ports. Been great. Just wish we could skip 2.5 and go straight to 10 gig for the mainstream folks.

​@@mrmotomoto Its a cabling issue. 10gbe wont run on many existing cat5e runs. But 2.5gb will. If you are advocating for multigig gear that can also do 10gb, sure, but that's all brand new because 10gb has been out a long time now and a lot of it doesn't support multigig.

i don't think 2.5/5g was ever worth it and is only a stopgap for 10gb. 10g over sfp+ ports via dac cables or cheap optical transceivers has been worthwhile for a few years now

I think you can fit two of these in a single 1U space (side by side) you just need to fabricate a bracket or just zip-tie them to a drawer or something

But then you have to deal with the front facing power connection, uggh.

@@marcogenovesi8570 thanks yes the in-place upgrade is width-constrained to fit in a media cabinet, not a full rack unfortunately.

@@andersenpeters why is that such a big deal? There are barrel jack extender cords you can use if you really have to have the power in the back

@marco They include a bracket for installing 2-wide in a 1U in the box! Completely forgot to mention that.

yeah I bought a couple of those used at a price suspiciously close to the "new item" price. I feel violated but I needed them

what were you doing? L2 and L3 switching is done in-hardware only for the first bridge. If you make multiple bridges those are not offloaded and run on the CPU, so those run bad

@@marcogenovesi8570 What do you mean "what was I doing"? I was using it as the backbone of my network running SwOS. I didn't have any special configurations for anything, no vLANs or anything like that. But I wasn't coming close to saturating my home Internet connection (which is Google Fiber 5Gb) from my desktop going through the MikroTik CRS317 to my router. With the TP-Link switch I dropped in to replace the MikroTik, I have zero issues doing that.

+1 to@@marcogenovesi8570 comment. The switch will switch at line rate as long as you have it configured as one bridge.

did you use devices where the L3 hardware offloading is supported? Because in this device (and most crs3xxx and crs5xxx) it is