Network Switches - Before You Buy!

Hello and welcome back and today I want to talk about the topic of

network

switches

, this is another one before you buy and today I want to talk to you about

switches

in the most glorious detail, some of this stuff is going to be super boring so let's Unless you are particularly interested in purchasing a

network

switch or want a little help purchasing the right one so you can go ahead and make sure you do it right the first time. Stay, but otherwise you may not enjoy it. This is going to be super boring, but let's talk about network switches why they are important what you should keep in mind what you need what you don't you don't need and I guarantee there are a couple of things in this video that you didn't know existed, but let's look at a quick disclaimer Right off the bat, I'm well aware of what a mess this desktop is right now.

I am preparing for a very large video that will appear soon and it has taken up a lot of space and a lot of hardware, as you can see there, consequently, I can not really move these things off in part, but some visits in the middle of the operation, so unfortunately I can't delete them there, but it will make sense soon and I'd rather not talk about the video in case everything goes wrong. but network switches, what are they? Well, some of you, your first feeling towards network switches or even the idea that you know they exist is the day that your Internet Service Provider's router, your Internet Service Provider suddenly runs out of ports.

Now these are obviously premium devices. I have on the table what you buy, but usually a router from your Internet service provider, that box they give you with your contract, also known as a router and modem combo or wireless modem, many different names assigned to that device will have certain The ports on the back are now one of those ports, whether you are connected directly or using a phone type cable and an adsl, that cable takes up one port now the remaining ports can go towards your smart TV if you are always on it. close enough to your home console. better to work on a LAN, it might be going towards another media device, it might be going towards a computer with bits and bobs or something like that, but ultimately most routers that ISPs include have between two and four ports that are consumed very quickly and then Suddenly, especially during the pandemic year, when people have to work from home and move office equipment or unknown office equipment into the house, they suddenly realized that The number of ports and connections on your home router simply wasn't enough, so switches suddenly jumped in both popularity and awareness, suddenly people had to figure out what they were very, very quickly and if they needed them. , but before we continue, what is the difference between a router and a switch, let's take a couple of these. switch here this is a qnap switch a qws 301 uh one 308 1c unmanaged we'll talk in a little more detail in a moment and this is a Synology router this is their mesh router that we talked about earlier this is the mr 2200 ac and let's go to ignore the fact that it's mesh for now, we're just going to talk about the difference between them, now a router and a switch, so a router is and I know a lot of you really cringe when I say that word.

I see it in comments all the time router router is your own country, you decide, but a router is effectively the gateway to the internet, it shares many of the capabilities of a switch, not all, but some, such as the ability to route traffic between different devices and managing and uploading people exchanging data over the network, although it can do those things, it is predominantly designed to be your gateway between you and the Internet. Now the reason people need switches is because they need some. less of that gateway to the internet and then a lot more network management blocking in the case of a switch, allows you to add significantly more network interface ports to your network with each connected device being able to communicate in a large loop lovely but also that network switch is connected to the router and therefore the internet is presented to that switch network and all those devices can access the internet through it as well but while the router prioritizes keeping the door open and close when appropriate with the Internet, the switch is about your local network and all management in between.

There are also other features like link aggregation, quality of service control, priority of service control and a lot of things like that that we'll talk about in a bit that are not really available in routers other than the more modern and enterprise level ones, definitely it's not ISP but that's your main difference between the internet gateway and the network and each one prioritizes within each other and there's a lot more to it than that but that's a great way to look at the difference between a router and a switch, so we can also move on to the first thing that you need to consider when you're buying a switch for the first time and we're going to step away from these two devices and we're going to look at this switch.

This is a Netgear 10gbe switch. We're going to ignore the fact that it's 10GB for now, but it's important that we talk about it a little bit in this video. The first thing you'll need to consider when purchasing your first switch is the number of ports. Now, this will already connect to your router, so you'll lose a port right away, maybe you're running. more than one connection to the router or you are running another connection to another router with another internet service or a mobile router, so you could lose two of them, why would you do that failover to support that kind of thing, but whatever is generally a rule of thumb, if I have a bunch of devices on my network, be they like cameras, laptops, entertainment devices, whatever number of devices I currently have that I need to change, I immediately double that number and get a change with that number because you need to have room to grow. across the network, you need to be able to create failover for some devices, you need to be able to have a more flexible network and if you have seven devices on your network and you buy an eight port switch, that's fine in the beginning, but by the time you When you add a device you are done so make sure you double that and where possible always try to go, there are 8, 12, 16 and 24 port switches and they go higher and higher but keep in mind that when you get a switch, if by the time you go beyond eight ports, I highly recommend looking at 10gbe switches, something we'll talk about later, but the next consideration to make when purchasing your first switch is managed versus unmanaged, now I mentioned a bunch of features previously I talked about link aggregation or port bonding quality of service layer 2 security functionality um loop detection, so you have um or just a lot of different configurations and port control all built into one switch, no However, the switches come with Hardware Architecture inside that allows end users to configure the most customized network as per their needs and requirements which is known as managed switch or they arrive with much more rudimentary hardware architecture inside, usually on soc or software on chip and that processor does everything by default. you can't configure it, there's no user interface to play with, but it has all the features and functionality configured by default, so it's basically some default rules and regulations built into the system to manage your network, now switches unmanaged because they don't. they have that flexibility and have a much more rudimentary, albeit more cost-effective, architecture, with an unmanaged switch that is generally noticeably cheaper, 20 to 30 percent cheaper in most cases, regardless of size or capacity of a switch.

Managed switches are generally more commercial. Architecture-led and customization-led will cost you more, so figure out if you need those features and functionality and if you're spending money you really don't need to spend, which brings us back to topic 10. gbe, a lot of people, when buy a switch, it will get me a future proof 10g switch, I may not need it. I love 10GB and I talk about 10GB on this channel all the time. 10 gigabit Ethernet is so affordable now it's a joke. I remember a decade ago you knew that even the simplest 10g setup cost thousands of pounds.

You can now buy 10gbe equipment switches like this one that will set you back a few hundred pounds. It's really affordable, so I can understand the appeal. As to why you would want to go with a 10GBE switch, however, keep in mind that there are certain hidden costs for 10GBE that you may not be aware of, you can't just plug a 10Gigabit Ethernet switch into your computer or local media. system and then suddenly you get speeds 10 times faster than Ethernet, you will need to make sure that the connections on the devices connected via 10gbe are also 10gbe, otherwise you will experience bottlenecks, e.g. , if you continue with a 10gbe switch like this net gear. here and connect it to your smart TV with a LAN port on the back, chances are that even if you want to enjoy super-fast media or think you'll suddenly get 1000 megabytes per second performance, there isn't a single TV on the En Right now the world has 10GB enabled so it will be limited to 1GB for TVs, not a big deal, still more than enough to stream most multimedia these days at 100 megabytes per second, but if you are a photo video. editor and you're trying to connect your client PC or Mac system that only has one gbe to a 10g switch, you won't be able to take advantage of those speeds, especially with a 10g switch on the uh 10g nas at the end, so always make sure Knowing that you will have to upgrade each of your client computer devices with 10GBE via a PCIE card or Thunderbolt adapter or you will have to move forward with PCIE upgrade cards that go directly to the desktop systems, these can range between 100 and 250 pounds, depending on the brand.

There are many links in the item description, but remember that if you are going to buy 10 GB, you don't have to do it all. Of course you can go for affordable switches like this one that have one or two combo ports built in that will allow you to have a mix of many single gpu connections and just one or two 10gbe devices that you can connect a nice solid nas to. and everyone can share the full fluency with that nas quite easily. Now, another thing to consider when purchasing a switch is whether you are going to look for switches that are p or e or power over ethernet.

It not only transfers data to all connected client devices, but also supplies up to an area of ​​power. This power can be used from IP cameras to IP speakers, alarm systems and other general surveillance tools allowing you to deploy devices that may not be available. anywhere near an outlet, but power can be transmitted from them via a simple Ethernet connection between the switch and the device, so it's nice, simple, nice and easy to know that poe switches have a place , no matter what the poe switch is. noticeably more expensive due to the larger power supply inside and therefore much more work must be done on the internal cooling systems, as well as ensuring power delivery is maintained safely.

The second thing to note is that a switch though is labeled at say 185 watts. or 300 watts or 500 watts does not guarantee all that power to an individual port, each port on a poe switch will usually have a maximum limit of between 15 and 30, maybe 50 watts in some cases, but ultimately it means that you cannot I expect to connect to a Poe switch and a device that will draw the 100 or so, because each of those ports will max out at a particular power, so if you buy a Poe switch, remember that if you're powering devices, double check that.

The switch provides enough power through a single connection to the power, so single device POE switches have dropped in price noticeably in recent years, but they are still not the cheapest out there and take us very clearly to our last two issues: The first is the warranty, now the warranty behind the switch is a very contentious area for many people. First of all, most switches these days come in two categories: they come from companies like qnap and other similar brands that release switches for home and business users of all levels with a warranty of between two and three years, which whichis great, it means that when it comes to warranty, if something goes wrong with this device and it's not your fault, they will repair or replace the model within that time period.

It usually does not include software and the software arrives with debatable lifetime warranties and support. Now Netgear also has small home level and some high-end business level switches, but it is one of the few brands that offers lifetime warranties, meaning they will cover the repair and replacement of this device within the lifetime. Now it's a relative term, it doesn't mean this switch will probably last forever. It is fallible. It has hardware inside that is susceptible to aging. What they say is that they have done everything possible for this device. to last forever and beyond, anything they can't predict will still be covered by a lifetime warranty.

Now, a simple google of lifetime warranties online will show you that it is not completely foolproof. Some lifetime warranties have an area of ​​contention built into the terms. and conditions that have to do with fair use that have to do with the expected life of certain components and the lifetime warranty, although in most cases it is genuinelyThe useful life is not always a lifetime, so please check the terms and conditions or find out if you really think you'll need them because switches usually last indefinitely anyway. I've never had a switch fail when knocking on wood and I've tried many of them over the years, but that, of course, doesn't constitute any kind of realistic statistic.

The last point I'm going to make is with a demonstration and this has to do with noise, it's such an overlooked part of network switches that you'll often never hear about it anywhere. Network switches actually generate a lot more noise than people realize. Now unmanaged switches are generally the quietest due to their rudimentary architecture. They don't generate much noise. They just have to keep the heatsinks inside cool and when they do that they use passive ventilation so no fans even the electronic hum is minimal however managed switches particularly enterprise managed switches of 10 GB and poe switches can generate noticeably more noise, not always, for example, here on the desktop. just seeing it out of shot it's a poe switch being used for two cameras in an upcoming video and you've barely heard it throughout this video you definitely have heard it but if you go back and listen to the background of this video it was there However, this is a 10gbe non-poe enterprise switch, it has only eight ports and what we're going to do is connect power to this switch, we have our main power connector and I'm going to keep quiet and just turn this switch on, Remember that nothing is connected.

Listen to that now, if you're very close to this switch, you're going to hear a lot of that noise, plus, when you have even two 10GB connections active on this. the fan goes higher, it will increase steadily at this time, let's eliminate any potential for vibration, which is the noise this is making, air is being forced out of that vent, this switch is making so much noise once again, I'll be on silence again. I'm going to turn it off, so let's give it one last second before we turn it off, so it's worth highlighting that network switches make a noticeable degree of noise.

A lot of people overlook these things when it comes to buying their first network switch and if you are sensitive to noise or are going to take advantage of 10gbe with direct connection to a switch and a nas or whatever to be able to edit on the fly that is fantastic but keep in mind that these devices make noise and if you use 10gbe or you use managed or in many cases when you use poe that noise gets louder and louder and louder and louder and louder and louder so you need to keep that in mind, the last thing you should play right before you end this video and I.

I've made other videos about this, so I'll avoid it a little bit. It will be the issue of sfp and copper or tl base t connectivity. Now everyone is familiar with this. This is our Ethernet connection. This is the one that practically connects. absolutely anything in your home office environment this is known as cat cable it is also known as copper based rj45 ethernet and almost everyone uses it if you are going to use 1gbe you can move up to about cat5e by the time you look at 10gbe. to cat6 and cat 7 cables due to the better internal quality and thicker cabling you can go up to a distance of about 20 meters I would say before you start to notice any kind of drop in performance in terms of slower latency, that sort of thing, but in general, upgrading to 10GB using that method or just sticking with it is absolutely fine, but if you're covering larger distances or looking for 10GB, that's when you have to look into something called sfp fiber aka like sfp plus sfp. fiber optic cabling that comes with transistors on the end, now smaller cables like these known as AC that go three to five, maybe seven meters, they come with the transceiver already connected on top, but longer than that , you should go for a more custom build where you buy the cables and you buy the transistors separately and have to build your connection as you go, build a bear in that sense now sfp is probably the more expensive option of the two, it covers distances larger while maintaining that high performance. speeds, but that price threshold, particularly in terms of transceivers and cabling, may be a real disappointment for some of you, although strangely, when you look at um switches and even nas systems, predominantly sfp-only switches are priced lower than copper. based alternatives, so depending on the size of the area you're going to cover, you can really extend where you want your money to be and I think when it comes to choosing between copper and fiber, most people, especially home users, prosumers and SMEs.

They're going to move to copper because it's easier to upgrade and you can scale your upgrade capacity and phase in 10gbe pretty easily, but on the other hand, those with larger footprints have multiple floors working vertically, not just horizontally. You may even want to gradually incorporate SFP or go for a combo device like this one that has both copper port and SFP so you can have a mixed network and take advantage of both methods; There are even adapters that we have talked about. in the past they allow you to change a copper to a fiber and a fiber to a copper, but these little adapters cost a few hundred pounds each.

I wouldn't always recommend them for business use because they can get very hot and that can eventually affect and degrade the overall performance of your system, but before you buy networking switches, we've covered a lot of ground today and I still haven't covered everything we haven't covered yet. spoken, some of those things. about the combined layer two, three comparisons and more, but I wanted to keep this on the colder facts for you. I've made videos on most of those other things and individual projects so I recommend you check them out but otherwise thank you very much for watching if you enjoyed this video please click like if you want to learn more please click to subscribe and if you need help, if you need free, unpaid, unpaid advice on your setup, don't go to the comments, go to the links in the description of the free advice section on nas compare is run by ed and me, it's It may take us an extra day to get to you because we get a lot of questions there, but we answer, as I would say, all of them except the ones that are. almost impossible and then we'll hand them over to an expert who can, but I'd say 98 of them are all of us, baby, and it's unbiased, it's unbiased, and it's there to help you, so check them out, but otherwise, a lot thanks for looking and see you next time