When I upgraded to 10Gb I wanted to be able to use the existing 10 Base T cabling already ran. I didn’t want to go SFP+ as the cost of cables, transeiver and router end up costing more than a 10 Gb RJ45 based router.
I went with the a Mikrotik CRS312-4C+8XG-RM Cloud Router which gives you 12 RJ45 10Gb jacks as well as 4 SFP+ 10Gb ports plus management ports. The 4 SFP+ ports can be used instead of port (RJ45) 9-12 on a port by port basis so if you have SFP+ uplinks from other routers they can plug right in.
Mikrotik like any enterprise router is going to have a learning curve if your not familiar with it. It’s certainly not harder to use than Cisco or Juniper. Unfortunately too many ignorant Youtubers talk shit but likely have little if any enterprise router experience but instead compare it to pro-consumer gear which technically isn’t business class forget about enterprise class.
I’ve got several pieces of Mikrotik gear including APs marine certified on my sailboat so I like their gear. Can’t beat it for the price. I actually really like the software as you can manage a campus with it which confuses many YouTubers when they see WiFI but the router doesn’t have it. One software many devices. For more advanced setup it makes working on multiple devices in different locations pretty easy.
I just did a test with my Verizon FIOS Gb connection plugged into port 1 and a speed test gives me 949 down and 950 up with 4ms latency. That’s with the 26GB of other traffic normal traffic on the router when I tested. Plugged the FIOS Ethernet back into the FIOS Gb router doing the same speedtest with zero traffic on the router (nothing else plugged in) and get 860 down and 780 up with 8ms latency.
Hopefully I gave you something to think about for future expansion down the road.
I’d say you have that backwards. Mikrotik is more like an enterprise campus tool that makes it easy to manage devices that are interconnected. From serial cable to web to CLI or Winbox you get a consistent method to manage everything. Ubiquity is “pretty” but cloud controllers are a no go for me.
Stay away from low end stuff like TP-Link switches. I’ve got a few TPL I’ve inherited and each requires it’s own software with different layouts and designs and lack of “central” anything. Save TP-Link for under desk switch type stuff but don’t use it by choice for central backbone use or anything like at as multiple devices do now work in harmony but as independent devices.
Ideally you want to be able to add a new device to your network. It’s recognized by your management software. Set to use the SNMP credentials, same log handling (ie send to Graylog)
“I’d go with 10G fiber, but that seems out of budget for now.”
What’s your budget?
QNAP QSW-308S (unmanaged) has three 10GB SFP and eight 1GB ports. Currently $149. I use 6 foot QNAP Twinaxial cables. The SFP were $40-60 each plus fiber, where the Twinax cable was $13 for the QNAP brand on Amazon.
I have 10GB to my home QNAP NAS, Workstation and ASUS Wifi gaming router. The 1 GB ports support my devices. Under $250 including shipping.
QNAP QSW-M2108-2C is managed version on Amazon for $369. Only two 10GB (Edit: there are 3-4 port models available), but if you want the control, it’s there.
My setup wasn’t that expensive/complicated compared to the speed.
2 used mellanox 25GbE ethernet cards (1 dual port, 1 single port). 2 multimode transceivers and a multimode fibercable were included and I just got some other transceiver / single mode fiber cable for connection to ISP from fs.com.
1 port of the 2 port mellanox card goes to ISP, the other goes to my 2nd PC. For my laptop, mobile, I just use the motherboard wlan of my 1st or 2nd PC as an access point.
In case fiber connection to ISP has a problem, just switch to use the mobile as hotspot and the PCs connect to Internet via Mobile.
I’ve had a test microtik 25GbE router/switch from ISP as a test, but that thing sounded like a hairdryer, so I’ve returned it, and just used the mellanox cards directly in PC.
One software many devices. For more advanced setup it makes working on multiple devices in different locations pretty easy.