Looking for 2.5GbE hardware

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

I’ve looked for hours and keep hitting walls like “out of stock”, “custom OpenWRT only”, or “poor VLAN support. My wish list is:

  • Minimum three 2.5GbE
  • Minimum five 1.0 GbE
  • Higher speed ports (10GbE) are fine so long as they reliably negotiate 2.5Gb and 1Gb.
  • DSA VLAN Trunking required.
  • SQM capable for 2.5Gb/s
  • Must support OpenWRT and not a custom compiled vendor limited version
  • x86, arm, and other platforms are okay.
  • Fanless would be great, but I’m good with fans that I can replace with quiet fans.

The Hasivo S1100WP-8XGT-SE looks like a dream, however I can’t imagine it keeping up with SQM and 2.5Gb/s. ETA: Yes, I know it’s not a router. The form factor, and port count are attractive combined with OpenWRT, but it’ll never pull off the SQM.

I found this little firewall and love that it has Intel 226V NICs, however the Core I5 worries me when it comes to the SQM again. Micro Firewall Appliance, Mini PC, OPNsense, VPN, Router PC, I5 1135G7, RJ51, 8 x 2.5GbE I226-V, HDMI, DP, Type-C for Data/Display, Console, 0 RAM, 0 Storage, Barebone No System https://a.co/d/hWXy2Wh

GL.iNet’s Flint 2 comes close and I might can work around it falling one 2.5GbE short.

THe Banana PI BPI-R4Pro could work, however it is still in pre-sales and no word on official OpenWRT support.

I could put a small PC together with a pair of quad i226Vs and whatever CPU I need. I’m not sure how to estimate the CPU cycles and therefore the CPU needed to make that work. I’d also like to stick with lower overall power consumption.

Perhaps a device with a pair of 10GbE and a good switch might be a better choice.

Please help before analysis paralysis sets in. What do you know that works well in the OpenWRT world?

ETA: I’m really looking at suggestions for hardware that works with OpenWRT and how to ensure it can keep up with 2.5Gb/s of SQM.

TIA, Mike

2

Not sure that is roght

Operating System RouterOS
3

Your aim is not very realistic, at least not the way to describe it. While that shouldn't rule out that there may be devices meeting your port requirements, but very few will. On top of that you seem to conflate the terms 'router' and 'switch', which is understandable, but won't make your search any easier.

x86_64 and two 10 GBe ports plus maybe a few (but not 3+5) 2.5/1 GBe ethernet ports is sensible, everything beyond that will need offloading to a (managed-)switch. While adding (more-) multi-port PCIe cards to a (larger-) x86_64 system wouldn't be impossible either, you're quickly leaving the sweet spot of what's 'possible' and what's realistic or sensible, that's just where switches play their role (and especially for 1 GBit/s you have a wide and affordable selection). 2.5/5/10 GBe just remains in the prosumer/ early adopter bracket for now, with corresponding prices.

4

That's a switch, not a router. It doesn't even come close to 100M without SQM.

In general, router hardware with more than 4-5 ports is hard to find. As you mentioned, it's probably easier to go with a dedicated router + managed switch.

If you want a managed switch running OpenWrt (like the Hasivo), you need Realtek hardware - the Hasivo you mentioned is one such device.

1 Like
5

Hey slh. I know that switch isn’t a router and lacks the CPU cycles to do SQM. The only reason I even looked at is the TOH mentions it, ServeTheHome did a nice write up on it, and it has the right form factor and port count. There’s just that pesky SQM issue.

I could certainly do a pair of 10GbE ports in an x86 and a 10GbE switch. I’m left with the question, how does one size the CPU to handle SQM at 2.5Gb/s? I’m sure I’ve seen someone discussing the number of CPU cycles for various tasks like SQM, firewall rules, etc, but I can’t seem to find it again.

Yes, 2.5GbE and 5GbE never reached an economic scale. 10GbE has dropped in price and the used market is super cheep.

6

Hey Andy.

Yeah I know it’s a switch.

Why do you feel I need Realtek hardware? Kernel support for Intel and MediaTek devices seems much better than Realtek in my experience.

7

You don’t think the 1135G7 can handle your SQM needs? It assuredly can.

1 Like
8

I recently got a Zyxel XGS1210-12 (8x 1gb, 2x 2.5gb, 2x 10g SFP) and it has been running without issues for a few weeks with working SFP ports. It was $110 at zyxel’s official store. The 2.5gb ports aren’t fully working yet, but I think there’s an open PR with a fix. It might not fit all your requirements but it’s probably worth considering.

I also have some Flint 2’s and interestingly I consistently get lower latency on pings between the Flint 2’s (the Zyxel switch can have .2-5ms higher latency depending on the interface). The flint 2’s have ~900mb more ram and 8gb storage, it’s really beefy hardware compared to the Zyxel switch. They definitely don’t fit your 2x 10gb and 3x 2.5gb requirements though.

9

Are you sure you really need SQM on such a fast connection?

10

HP T740 ($80 on eBay) + low profile quad port 2.5GbE NIC ($50 on Amazon) ?

Not passively cooled though.

2 Likes
11

Because that's the only supported switch SoC (not to be confused with the switch IC - a lot more are supported). The main purpose of the switch SoC is to configure the switch and provide a web interface. See also

1 Like
12

Please help me understand how you came to that conclusion. I’m not doubting you. I’d just like to understand so I can size this puppy correctly. :wink:

13

That’s a nice find. Excellent price point for a home lab. Thank you.

I’ve been a fan of GL.iNet since the AR150. They design some reasonable hardware and their engineers are wonderful to work with. I helped them solve a uBoot issue several years ago and they blessed me with a small army of hardware. :wink:

Thanks for the insights.

14

I missed that transition from MAC to SoC. Makes perfect sense. :wink:

15

My buffer bloat scores improved with SQM. I believe a lot of folks don’t use it at or above 1Gb/s because a lot of hardware simply can’t keep up.

16

Nice find! Looks like ServeTheHome did some testing with it and it will support a 25GbE or a dual 10GbE. That and a nice 10Gb switch would serve well.

17

Old Dell dual port low profile BCM 10GbE NICs are $12 on eBay, they're not multi-gig though, and got active cooling.

1 Like
18

That makes me believe that your current router is to slow for the desired speed.
When you've upgraded your hardware, maybe you could test it both with and without SQM and publish the results?

I'd like to test this myself, but it will take several months before we get fibre and the higher bandplans are indecent expensive...

19

Most folks don’t have connections that fast. And if they do, how often can they realistically saturate those speeds such that bufferbloat actually becomes a problem?

It’s well known that x86 is several times faster than the ARM chips used in most consumer routers. My i5-7600 running in a VM can do gigabit SQM without breaking a sweat.

prox
prox1298×600 75.3 KB

The 14% peak is running Ookla Speedtest; the 24% peak is Waveform Bufferbloat.

1 Like
20

Try this https://bufferbloat.libreqos.com/ it does bidirectional test too.

1 Like