I tried asking this in a different sub, but it got deleted, so trying here; if this is also the wrong place, I’m not sure where the right place is.

Working for an MSP, I have enterprise grade switches for my basement distribution and garage access switches, which came free from the e-cycling pile, but recent utility hikes have me rethinking things.

I’m currently running a HP 3500-48G-PoE+ yl Switch (J9311A) for the basement distribution switch, and a HP 3500-24G-PoE+ yl Switch (J9310A) as the garage access switch. My 2nd floor access switch is a USW-FLEX-MINI, though I’m looking to add a second one of these in the attic, both using PoE.

I try to keep one access switch in the same hardware class as the distribution switch in case of hardware failure. I don’t really need 8 ports in the garage, but if the SHTF, I can do without internet in the garage, not so much in the house.

In the garage, the access switch is only hosting a PoE camera and access point, so there 8 ports is overkill, but redundancy.

After doing a hardware inventory, I can get by with 8 ports for the distribution switch, with at most 3 for PoE/PoE+, though I may need to move a raspberry Pi from the Distribution switch to an access switch.

I’m looking at PoE+ over straight PoE for future-proofing, Wifi 7 etc.

My current switches together idle at 226 watts, according to their spec sheets. I want to reduce that as a cost-saving measure.

I’m looking at the Netgear GS308EP and the TP-Link TL-SG108PE V5 as good enough replacements, as they both seem to do VLANs, which I use to keep IoT things on their own VLAN.

Anybody here have a preference, or something I haven’t pondered which would be a better fit for my needs?

  • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
    3·
    19 days ago

    If you want your power budget to be lower don’t use poe switches, they run crazy hot.

    Use PoE injectors for the devices that need poe.

    If your running copper 10g consider switching to optical, it’s much cooler.

  • walden@sub.wetshaving.socialEnglish
    2·
    19 days ago

    Are you familiar with Mikrotik? If you’re located in the USA, you can browse Streakwave, Roc-Noc, Baltic Networks and others to see about pricing.

    I only did a little research and this one seems to fit your needs (8 PoE/PoE+ ports, low power consumption) https://mikrotik.com/product/css610_8p_2s_in

    One downside to their more inexpensive switches is they run SwitchOS instead of RouterOS as their software. You can still accomplish tons of stuff, but some people have concerns that RouterOS has sort of been left to die without many updates in the works.

    You can also use their routers as switches. I do that with the PoE version of the RB5009 https://mikrotik.com/product/rb5009upr_s_in. It’s more expensive than the switch I mentioned, but I like it for the form factor and that it runs RouterOS.

    You seem to be tech savy enough so you can figure out how to configure it as a switch. Basically you just add all of the ports to Bridge.