Which switch for home?

When we moved into the house, the coax entrance was upstairs, so for 2 years we ran the network out of one of our offices. We finally got around to stringing some cables, which let me tuck away the bulk of my gear in the basement. The next thing I wanted was a switch that would power my cameras and APs, and let me segregate the equipment I manage from our work and IoT devices.

I probably spent too much time looking for the ideal switch. My initial needs were basically:

  • Managed
  • 8 or more 1G RJ45 ports
  • PoE+ with at least 100w power budget
There are a lot of older datacenter switches that fit that bill - the Cisco 2960X and 3750X come to mind. The problem with datacenter gear is it's loud and consumes a lot of power. The 2960X has a PoE budget of 740W and uses something like 44W with nothing plugged in. No, I wanted something quiet, and at least one 10G SFP+ port would be a big plus. 

While I'm sure there are more switches that meet my criteria, here's what I came up with after some research on /r/homelab, vendors' sites, and Amazon shopping:

Model 1G 1G PoE+ 2.5G PoE+ Power budget (W) SFP+ Price Fanless
TL-SG1016PE 8 8 150 0 CA$164.37 Yes
ICX 7150-C12P 2 12 124 2 CA$304.35 Yes
CSS610-8P-2S+IN 8 140 2 CA$313.00 Yes
TL-SG3210XHP-M2 8 240 2 CA$499.99 No
TL-SG3428XMP 24 384 4 CA$599.99 No
CRS328-24P-4S+RM 24 450 4 CA$671.66 No

The clear bang-for-buck champion there is the TP-Link TL-SG1016PE. At $165 (~$120 USD), it has everything I really need, but nothing more.

The Mikrotik CSS610-8P-2S+IN checked all my boxes, has richer (but esoteric) management, and even throws in 2 SFP+ ports for uplinking to the other Mikrotik switch I have for my hosts and NAS, but doesn't seem to be in stock anywhere in Canada.

I would have loved the TP-Link TL-SG3210XHP-M2 for future APs that use 2.5G uplinks, but couldn't justify the additional cost when many of the ports will be occupied by cameras that link up at 100M.

The winner, and what I ended up purchasing is the Ruckus ICX 7150-C12P. I picked up this switch in like-new condition on eBay for $277 USD, a good chunk of which was extra for delivery to Canada and prepaid taxes/duties.


This desktop form-factor switch, the little sibling of the Brocade ICX 7150-24p/48p, packs a ton of features into a small footprint:
  • 12x 1Gbps PoE ports with a 124w power budget
  • 2x 1Gbps non-PoE ports
  • 2x 10Gbps SFP+ ports
  • Fanless design
  • Basic L3 functions
I followed Jon Sands' excellent guide on getting this (and many other Brocade switches) up and running and it now serves as the core switch of my home network. The CLI, while not exactly like Cisco IOS, is straightforward and easy to use. Transceiver-wise it's supposedly wide-open and accepted the 10Gtek 0.3m 10Gbps DAC I bought to uplink to my Mikrotik CRS309-1G-8S+IN with ease. I also like that it has an onboard USB-C port that lets you skip the clunky USB-to-serial-to-console dance for the initial setup.

Ready for cameras and new access points!

Are there other switches that you love for home or your lab? Please let me know in the comments.

Note: I didn't receive any consideration or demo equipment for this article. Links to products do not attract any commission.

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