10Gbps switch/router query

[Armageus]

What I cant understand is why wouldn’t the money better spent on a PC which has a much more powerful CPU and more RAM, with the network cards. Surely that would give me better performance? (Is it just CPU/RAM that would determine the VPN and NAT performance?)

Because even chucking money at the problem isn't a solution - PFSense may do 10Gbps with the right hardware and configuration but it isn't guaranteed.
TNSR will do it (and up to the 100Gbps range), but the fact it's pricing is "contact a sales advisor" tells me all I need to know.

The Draytek or something similar is probably the easiest route, but I wouldn't bank on getting anywhere near 10Gbps, merely "better than gigabit" in real world scenarios

 

[safc10g]

Because even chucking money at the problem isn't a solution - PFSense may do 10Gbps with the right hardware and configuration but it isn't guaranteed.
TNSR will do it (and up to the 100Gbps range), but the fact it's pricing is "contact a sales advisor" tells me all I need to know.

The Draytek or something similar is probably the easiest route, but I wouldn't bank on getting anywhere near 10Gbps, merely "better than gigabit" in real world scenarios

Yep that was my concern with TNSR, contact a sales advisor does indeed tell you everything about that... ££££££

Am I right in thinking that the firewall “bottleneck” is only applicable for services I chose to have firewalled? I.e could I, for example, have raw download/upload speeds to a particular host by having a rule to disable the firewall for that? In that instance, the “lower” speeds will not concern me as much I guess!

I didn’t mean spend more on a PC btw, I was just floating ideas of more capable hardware at a lower cost. Something I was looking at elsewhere was using a Dell R620, with dual Xeon, 64gb RAM and 10Gb network cards to handle the 10Gbps throughput. That was pricing up at about £400. So this would work out cheaper than the Draytek and arguably better as its a much more capable machine and can be upgraded if ever required. Just an example I found, I am sure there are better/cheaper again?

Hitting my 15 posts per 24 hours limit here, so trying to put more into each post!

 

[Armageus]

What hardware does the ISP provide with a 10Gbps connection? (i.e. don't they supplier a Router with it?)

 

[safc10g]

What hardware does the ISP provide with a 10Gbps connection? (i.e. don't they supplier a Router with it?)

So far, just the ONT ( i think that’s what’s its called?)

I’ve done some more digging and found another ISP called B4RN who are rolling out 10Gbps and they are providing this kit (£300+ install cost which I guess covers it?) I can’t find any stock of it, so called B4RN to see if they can sell me one, and now much for. Could have found the one at last??

ZYXEL AX7501-B0

Combine that with something like a UniFi Dream Machine Pro? Use the Zyxel as the router/firewall?

Or still not as powerful as the more expensive options and going to hinder speeds?

My head hurts

 

[Armageus]

I’ve done some more digging and found another ISP called B4RN who are rolling out 10Gbps and they are providing this kit (£300+ install cost which I guess covers it?) I can’t find any stock of it, so called B4RN to see if they can sell me one, and now much for. Could have found the one at last??

ZYXEL AX7501-B0

https://www.zyxel.com/uk/en/product...N-VoIP-IAD-with-SFP--AX7501-B0/specifications

Nope - that only has a single 10Gb (SFP+) port in for fibre connectivity, it only has 4x Gigabit LAN ports + AX wifi (up to 6Gb/s).

These sort of routers are designed for normal home use - i.e. multiple users who will share a 10Gb connection (either via wired connections or more easily now Wifi).


Your use case is outside the "norm" so you are going to struggle with anything that isn't enterprise kit (and consequently price).

Personally I'd question how important it is to be able to download your "linux isos" at 10Gb, rather than just sharing out the 10Gb connection with a "home" grade router like the above, or settling for a likely more appropriate 1Gbps connection, until the hardware market catches up.

 

[safc10g]

https://www.zyxel.com/uk/en/product...N-VoIP-IAD-with-SFP--AX7501-B0/specifications

Nope - that only has a single 10Gb (SFP+) port in for fibre connectivity, it only has 4x Gigabit LAN ports + AX wifi (up to 6Gb/s).

These sort of routers are designed for normal home use - i.e. multiple users who will share a 10Gb connection (either via wired connections or more easily now Wifi).


Your use case is outside the "norm" so you are going to struggle with anything that isn't enterprise kit (and consequently price).

Personally I'd question how important it is to be able to download your "linux isos" at 10Gb, rather than just sharing out the 10Gb connection with a "home" grade router like the above, or settling for a likely more appropriate 1Gbps connection, until the hardware market catches up.

Looks like it has an SFP+ fibre for WAN and then 1x10Gbps Ethernet port and 4x1Gbps Ethernet.

So my theory would that will allow me to use that 1 10Gbps Ethernet port to connect to a 10Gbps switch like the UniFi Dream Machine Pro and that would do it.

BUT....as you say, it may not work like that.

I could well just split the 10Gbps into multiple machines/connections, absolutely, whilst I wait for the market to catchup and offer something else. Not in a mad dash to get sorted for day 1.

 

[Armageus]

Looks like it has an SFP+ fibre for WAN and then 1x10Gbps Ethernet port and 4x1Gbps Ethernet.

Apologies yep - it does have a 10Gb copper port as well as the SFP+ (I misread the 10G as 100 in the photo when I looked before).

In theory it should be fine, and if B4RN are rolling them out, then I'd say they've looked at what options are available and it should be decent kit (as from everything I've read B4RN seem to do a great job with their fibre roll out)

 

[Caged]

Again it depends on your use case, B4rn do know what they are doing but the 10Gbps service is more of a demonstration of what their network can do and I'd be amazed if they have more than a handful of their customers on it, so I wouldn't necessarily take that as an endorsement of being able to push 10Gbps through it all day long.

You're being quite vague with the answers to questions and that's going to limit the amount of advice people can give you. What ISP are you intending to use? Whether they use PPPoE or not is going to be a huge factor in the performance of any router you decide to use. What exactly are you using this 10Gbps connection for? I'm not saying you have to say what files you're moving around but "I'm putting things on Google Drive" and "I am going to start up connections to 20 different Google Drive accounts and use it to chunk copies of movies into" is different.

 

[safc10g]

Apologies yep - it does have a 10Gb copper port as well as the SFP+ (I misread the 10G as 100 in the photo when I looked before).

In theory it should be fine, and if B4RN are rolling them out, then I'd say they've looked at what options are available and it should be decent kit (as from everything I've read B4RN seem to do a great job with their fibre roll out)

I’ve called them and asked how much to sell me one. Strangely the manufacturer suggested this!

Again it depends on your use case, B4rn do know what they are doing but the 10Gbps service is more of a demonstration of what their network can do and I'd be amazed if they have more than a handful of their customers on it, so I wouldn't necessarily take that as an endorsement of being able to push 10Gbps through it all day long.

You're being quite vague with the answers to questions and that's going to limit the amount of advice people can give you. What ISP are you intending to use? Whether they use PPPoE or not is going to be a huge factor in the performance of any router you decide to use. What exactly are you using this 10Gbps connection for? I'm not saying you have to say what files you're moving around but "I'm putting things on Google Drive" and "I am going to start up connections to 20 different Google Drive accounts and use it to chunk copies of movies into" is different.

sorry not trying to be deliberately vague, I’m just thinking as i go!

ISP is YouFibre - a new startup in the area. Ran by the same people as community fibre I believe. I don’t know about PPPoE that’s a good call, I will find out.

Main use will be downloading, from one machine, here is where i would like as much speed as possible. Also will be uploading, via something like rclone, to google drive (team drives within one account) Very similar to what plexguide does really.

Another thing will be keeping 3 x cctv cameras synched up to the cloud - instead of just recording to the HDD inside the NVR. Files are a decent size so speed would come in handy here too.

And finally plex, but not many connections from outside here, so that’s not concerning me too much.

 

[WJA96]

The Unifi Dream Machine Pro won’t route 10GbE at line speed. It’s rated at 3.5Gbps with everything switched on and 8Gbps with everything switched off. You’re looking at one of the top-end Mikrotiks to do this on a budget.

If you can find a UniFi USG-XG-8 that can route 10GbE but it’s EOL hardware now.

 

[safc10g]

The Unifi Dream Machine Pro won’t route 10GbE at line speed. It’s rated at 3.5Gbps with everything switched on and 8Gbps with everything switched off. You’re looking at one of the top-end Mikrotiks to do this on a budget.

If you can find a UniFi USG-XG-8 that can route 10GbE but it’s EOL hardware now.

Cheers. Stumbled on the UniFi USG-XG-8 previously, but was going for about £2.5k!

So if I go with one of the top end Mikrotik’s - that is going to give me everything i need? If I go with one that has 4 SFP+ ports and a bunch of gigabit ports, that should cover me yep?

Looking at the test results on each product (nice touch that!) they seem to handle the required throughput from about the $995 and up range. Which one stands out for you out of those?

 

[safc10g]

This one seems very good value for money: MIKROTIK CCR1036-12G-4S

Can be found for around £700 - would that give me all I need, or would I still be lacking?!

 

[Armageus]

This one seems very good value for money: MIKROTIK CCR1036-12G-4S

Can be found for around £700 - would that give me all I need, or would I still be lacking?!

That one has 4SFP (gigabit ports), you'd need the
CCR1036-8G-2S+

 

[safc10g]

That one has 4SFP (gigabit ports), you'd need the
CCR1036-8G-2S+

Sorry yes, I messed up on the copy/paste there, I was searching for the wrong one! Thats the one I intended to search for the price on. So that’s about £800ish. I’m happy with that to avoid messing about and having it all running on a PC. Means I dont need any of my other gigabit switches either, this has enough ports to cover all usage for me.

Fantastic! Got there, thanks for your patience (and everyone else!)

 

[Caged]

I know you're shooting for 10Gbps but honestly I can't see anything in your use case that needs it. Looking at YouFibre's website the costs are £250+VAT (£300) for 10Gbps, vs. £50 for a 1Gbps residential service. That's £3000 per year extra to download the entire contents of a 50GB Blu-ray disc in 45 seconds instead of 7 minutes. It's the difference between downloading 10TB in a day and 100TB. With the savings you can go on a very nice holiday.

You don't need 10Gbps for a single computer, that sort of service is designed for 50 people in a media company. You won't get anywhere near 10Gbps throughput into Google Drive, anyway.

You're massively underestimating what a symmetrical gigabit connection is capable of, especially when you're talking about connecting to Internet destinations rather than your own private WAN.

 

[Armageus]

That's £3000 per year extra to download the entire contents of a 50GB Blu-ray disc in 45 seconds instead of 7 minutes.

Off topic, but £3000 also buys a considerable amount of legal content.

 

[Caged]

Haha this is incredibly true, we may be solving the wrong issue

 

[safc10g]

I know you're shooting for 10Gbps but honestly I can't see anything in your use case that needs it. Looking at YouFibre's website the costs are £250+VAT (£300) for 10Gbps, vs. £50 for a 1Gbps residential service. That's £3000 per year extra to download the entire contents of a 50GB Blu-ray disc in 45 seconds instead of 7 minutes. It's the difference between downloading 10TB in a day and 100TB. With the savings you can go on a very nice holiday.

You don't need 10Gbps for a single computer, that sort of service is designed for 50 people in a media company. You won't get anywhere near 10Gbps throughput into Google Drive, anyway.

You're massively underestimating what a symmetrical gigabit connection is capable of, especially when you're talking about connecting to Internet destinations rather than your own private WAN.

You are very much correct of course!

I’m slowly coming around to the idea of just sticking with the original plan of 1Gbps. Going to have too much to invest here for no additional benefit, you are all correct!

Off topic, but £3000 also buys a considerable amount of legal content.

It does. Got lots of that on my apple account from over the years. Nice touch getting the free upgrades drop in your library when they finally get around to it too!

 

[SumpNut]

Hi,

With respect to a cheap PC to handle routing, it would definitely possible to do it cheaply using PFsense.

I do this myself for internal 10 gig network traffic (my internet is poverty speed) using a low spec i3-6300 based system as my PFSenseas router. Into which I have added some cheap, second hand, Intel x540 10gig network cards. These are configured as a 10gig virtual switch. This CPU comfortably handles 10gig traffic between 2 systems without breaking a sweat. My first attempt using an old core2duo was CPU limited at around 2.5gig across the virtual switch.

There are obviously some downsides to this setup, with respect to complexity and power draw etc when compared to a proper switch. But on the plus side, if you've never used PFsense, I highly recommend it. The routing options and additional features (such as whole home ad blocking) are fantastic!

Daniel

 

[BigT]

I’m right at the limit of my knowledge but that PC with pfSense on it is just moving 10G traffic at L2 I think. Horsepower required for L3/4 routing and firewalling as the OP would need must be a lot more than your use case requires.