Going to 10Gbe from 40Gb with the MikroTik CRS309-1G-8S+IN
As my Home Lab has evolved I’m always looking to make it better and at the same time learn something new. When I started work on Home Lab Gen IV (2016) I really wanted to have a high speed network to support vSAN. At that time 10Gbe networking was cost prohibitive and InfiniBand networking was faster, something that was new to me, and its cost was in the ball park I wanted to spend.
While I was able to get my InfiniBand network to work, it had a couple of the downsides – ageing technology, lack of support, difficult to work with, and power/noise was not optimal. Most of these I overcame but what I really needed was affordable 10Gbe Cards, Cables and a fan-less/low power Switch.
I know its a pipe dream, right? Well, this past week I got a new MikroTik CRS309-1G-8S+IN! Its 8 Ports of 10Gbe SFP+, no fan, and only 17 watts. Best part, its in a price range for most home lab folks. I found it doing a few searches and some of my fellow Home Lab enthusiasts are using it too.
In this video I chat a bit about InfiniBand vs. 10Gbe, I unbox the device and in the weeks to come I’ll post up some more videos around its use.
If you like my ‘no-nonsense’ videos that get straight to the point… then post a comment or let me know… Else, I’ll start posting boring video blogs!
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