QNAP 16-port 25 Gigabit switch for £1K

For the networking nerd with a miniature Google Cloud Datacentre in their bedroom....brought to you by QNAP....yes the NAS storage dudes.....uh huh that's what I was thinking too 🤪

https://www.servethehome.com/qnap-qsw-m5216-1t-16-po...

Good old Broadband Buyer stocking them from March. Roll up, roll up!

I wonder how many will be bought by those who "just have to have one"

Who needs more than 1Gbps

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Who needs more than 1Gbps

Unfortunately that would be me, I max out my gigabit links quite often. All my data is stored on the network

In reply to a post by RR_The_IT_Guy:

Unfortunately that would be me, I max out my gigabit links quite often. All my data is stored on the network

The link between the lounge and bedroom datacentres must take a pounding in your parents house

And there was me thinking 10Gbps was excessive in a home environment.

In reply to a post by dect:

The link between the lounge and bedroom datacentres must take a pounding in your parents house

More than two links, there is a dedicated link to the two offices, my office currently has a max of 1Gbps the other office is on 100Meg. Ran out of ports on the gigabit switches so grabbed an old HP Procurve 24 port with POE that can only do 100 Meg. I do have to say that there is a noticeable difference between opening some files in one office compared to the other, a perfect example was when I did some video editing for someone and everything was fast and responsive in premiere pro with some RAW 4K footage then in the over office it just lagged about whenever i moved playhead.


Thought I would add, I have since added another NAS to replace my old 12TB (RAW storage) 6TB in raid Synology DS216J with a Synology DS920+ with four 6TB Seagate ironwolf Pro's 24TB RAW, 12 TB in raid 10 (i think).
I might add some M.2 SSD's for cache in future. (No need at the current time)

The reason for the change in NAS is because the DS216J was underpowered and was struggling. Now things are running a lot smoother, logining in is faster and drives are mounted correctly without having to log in and out every so often when explorer or the automatic drive mounting script would just freeze on logon as the NAS was struggling.

The old DS216J is now used with hyper backup and is in my office, it does daily incremental backups at 3AM. The new NAS set up works a lot better than before, the network is the bottleneck.

I mean look at yesterdays BMQ Virgin Media had some serious issues.

Bond the two GigE ports on the NAS to maximise throughput.

Don’t bother with the SSD cache devices. Mine have both gone the way of the dodo (Samsung EVO 850s). Bit [censored] off with them if I’m honest.

Mikrotik do a good line in cheap, passive cooled 10GbE capable switches. 4 port and 8 port versions. Very good and quiet.

You can run a some pre-terminated and armoured 3mm OD single core of 9/125 singlemode like the antenna guys use, you can buy 50m drums of Global Invacom from CPC/Farnell for like £40 or so. and put BiDi SFP+ on the ends from fs.com for around £20 each. Hey presto 10 GbE uplinks.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Bond the two GigE ports on the NAS to maximise throughput.

Don’t bother with the SSD cache devices. Mine have both gone the way of the dodo (Samsung EVO 850s). Bit [censored] off with them if I’m honest.

Mikrotik do a good line in cheap, passive cooled 10GbE capable switches. 4 port and 8 port versions. Very good and quiet.

You can run a some pre-terminated and armoured 3mm OD single core of 9/125 singlemode like the antenna guys use, you can buy 50m drums of Global Invacom from CPC/Farnell for like £40 or so. and put BiDi SFP+ on the ends from fs.com for around £20 each. Hey presto 10 GbE uplinks.

I think looking at what you said maybe one of these https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/products/44060-mikrot... each end, I was looking at thisarmored cable 30M 4 core, OS2 9/125, LC each end, do you think i should chose SWA armoured over CST? The thing is after comparing your price compared to this there is a massive difference, do you know where i could get 30M lengths ideally LC connectors (2 or 4 cores)?

I was also considering sticking one of these breakout boxes either end connecting to the transceivers with a standard LC - LC Singlemode (9/125) Duplex Fibre Patch Lead

i had looked at FS.con but prices have gone up and shipping fees need adding so by that point the benefits of the low price have outweighed the inconvenience.

I found these not sure if they would be any good Transceivers

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Who needs more than 1Gbps

1GB/s is slow when moving large files, sadly my Nas is only 1Gb/s, so getting a faster network, will not make any difference

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

1GB/s is slow when moving large files, sadly my Nas is only 1Gb/s, so getting a faster network, will not make any difference

Your definition of "large files" is...

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

1GB/s is slow when moving large files, sadly my Nas is only 1Gb/s, so getting a faster network, will not make any difference

Your definition of "large files" is...

To be honest for a home user is anything more than 10 gigs, for a business user its probably anything more than 1TB enterprise 5-10-20 and even more TB

To be honest I am fed up of waiting at the moment, I have 2TB of locally stored games and some other video editing assets that are in use that I am moving onto the NAS but they are currently on old HDD's in a stripped raid, bandwidth
The reason I am moving them is so i can use my RAID chip instead of windows, which might help with performance and might let my encrypt the drives.
MY C (WINDOWS) and D (DATA) are currently encrypted just not the E (DATA 2)

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

1GB/s is slow when moving large files, sadly my Nas is only 1Gb/s, so getting a faster network, will not make any difference

Your definition of "large files" is...

!0,15, 20Gb, maybe larger

Apologies forget to follow up. This was the kit I meant:

10GbE (naked SFP+) Switches
MikroTik CRS300 series
- 4-port:version here
- 8-port version here

Small diameter internal/external grade, light armoured 9/125 SM fibre cable, with FC ends:
- 50 metre drum
- 100 metre drum
Other lengths are available. Excess can be left nearly coiled and this stuff coils quite well given its light armoured.

For a neat install, what I’ve done is use blank faceplates, simply drill them and then use a threaded FC-FC barrel bulkhead coupler though the faceplate. The Global cable then fixes to the inside of the faceplate, leaving the outside ready to be connected to a fly lead. In this way it all looks very neat. The advantage of circular FC ends is that you can drill any plate etc. to suit the fitting. This is the double outlet on my study bookshelf wall using a blank MK Edge brushed stainless faceplate

Then to adapt from FC outlet you need some FC to LC patch leads. I typically order batches from fs.com, as they build practically any fibre leads to order (or have a massive variety in stock in Germany), are all individually loss tested/certificated and the price is v.good, which negates the minimum order/shipping charge. However buying locally I would use a well known comms cabling wholesaler like Comtec. There is a lot of cheap junk on Amazon and eBay which I’d avoid at all costs.

A trick that learned from my days in structured cabling many moons ago, is to buy a duplex lead, pop out the coupler clip from the LC/SC side, the gently split apart the duplex cable to make two individual simplex cables. Most folks don’t realise that the factory made duplex leads come apart in this way but it’s great way to get 2 simplex cables for the price of one!

Here are some examples of duplex LC to SC leads at Comtec.

Then for actives I typically get them from fs.com again as the price and quality is fantastic. Alternatively if it’s just Gigabit BiDis I’ve had success with the ready packaged paired GbE BiDi units from Ubiquiti for around £20 a set. Jumping to 10 Gbit BiDi is a bit more expensive but not by that much. Around £30 for 10GbE BiDi from fs.com. Just removed to correctly match the paired/Tx and Rx complementary wavelengths if buying them singly.

Finally invest in getting a fibre cleaning pen or two and make sure you clean the ferrules before they are assembled. Most of the time is just microscopic invisible dirt and finger oils etc on ferrules that results in a non working or high loss connection.

I genuinely have a legitimate use for 25G.

I do not for 16 ports of it. Literally need 2 ports across 2 devices. Hmm.

EDIT: actually just need the one port as the other end is all set.

Any thoughts welcome - purchasing a 24 port switch seems wasteful.

Edited by CarlTSpeak (Sun 13-Feb-22 16:23:04)

In reply to a post by CarlTSpeak:

I genuinely have a legitimate use for 25G.

I do not for 16 ports of it. Literally need 2 ports across 2 devices.

Can you just connect those two devices back-to-back?

Access the rest of the network via a separate 1G/10G link, or by configuring one of the devices as a router.

My replacement MikroTik CCR2004-1G-12S+2XS routers (still in the boxes awaiting me to configure) have 2 no. SFP28 (25 Gbps) ports