Why the Dell S5232F-ON is a Vastly Better 100GbE Switch

[@Amogh-Dongre]

100% need a video on the 25gbe switch

[@MarkD26]

I really like the break down of the differences in architecture and hardware choices. Please do more! Seeing how all the supporting tech needs to change for higher and lower tiers of switches makes a good idea of why and how these things get to the price points they get.

[@whatwhat-777]

Man, the switches you bring just make my eyes water 🤩

[@bushhawk5460]

And so does the price tag.

[@coso2]

I want one of every managed switch you reviewed

[@FireStormOOO_]

Only one?

[@KillaBitz]

Just what my one bed apartment needs. ;)

[@morosis82]

Energy company: *gleefully rubs hands*

[@AlexisHernandez-fv5vg]

Let’s open that S5296 switch! 🤩

[@youtubecommenter4069]

Patrick's strong shoulders because he's been flexin' holding gear up recently.

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

I need a table badly.

[@DrivingWithJake]

Pretty cool the switches, we typically use the Arista 100G, however over a year ago it was around $1300 for one now they are around 6500 :(

[@DrivingWithJake]

@@technicalthug Yup sadly that is gone this past year. Hopefully we will see another big drop again in the future.

[@RayZde]

@@technicalthug hell no.

[@katycollins3901]

Very cool stuff, I would be interested in learning more about that SFP28 switch you mentioned as well! Also, when you do the optical cabling, please do a video on that as well! I am interested in learning how to make my own optical cables and it is harder to find instructions on how to do that.

[@jaygames1980]

Thanks!

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Wow! Thank you!

[@jacob_90s]

i really wish switch manufacturers would sell a replacement lid that took up an extra U, and had mounts for 120 & 140mm fans, so that if for people who wanted to use one of these NOT in a data center, we could simply replace the aircraft engine fans with quieter ones.

[@MatteoSaitta]

+1 on reviewing that 2u eldritch abomination

[@nickolas1386]

I’d love to see a initial provisioning tour of this stuff. I’ve been waiting for approachable white box switching for 6+ years.

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Something that may be interesting is that Chris did a SONiC article 4+ years ago on STH. www.servethehome.com/get-started-with-40gbe-sdn-with-microsoft-azure-sonic-for-under-1k/

[@electronicharry]

"American Megatrands[sic]" sticker on the BMC? Err, what?

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Great catch. Found it on the S5292F-ON too. Had a reader already find it in a Gigabyte server. I have reached out to AMI's legal department asking about this.

[@electronicharry]

I’m curious - did you ever hear back from AMI about this?

[@PatrickKennedy2]

@@electronicharry hoping to have that piece out the week of Thanksgiving

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Online now, quite delayed. kzbin.info/www/bejne/moa5nneZq5xraM0

[@spicybaguette7706]

You sir are a legend now

[@MiguelX413]

I want to see a video of the S5296F-ON!

[@hedikintheoriginal]

I want a video of the 2U you lifted up

[@brane2379]

All "cool changes" that you listed are either trivial for an end function or are meant to host extra spyware. One expects from his switch to do switching, not bazzilion of extra ( mostly hidden) functions.

[@lanceevans4372]

Thanks for this! very detailed.

[@minigpracing3068]

I would like to see as many of these Dell switches as you want to show. I need to replace around 128 Gigabit ports in a stack sometime in the near future. Probably going to go with Xtreme, but my mind is still open to alternatives. My only other port needs is like half a dozen 10gb ports for some servers.

[@MinorLG]

for the fiber series, please include server side HBAs and device to device direct routing. I'm looking for a reccomendation for a FC HBA to connect to my LTO(5) library that has fiber only sfp on it.

[@JBenet38]

Awesome review as always Patrick! - 100% agree mgmt & Console ports should be in the front. - Missing power cables option in the front & back, like we see in some QCT switches. Why is it not seen anywhere else? - Is the S5232F-ON racked from the front of the rack like a server or from the back of the rack? Sad note: Cumulus Linux 4.4 supports NVIDIA Spectrum-based switches only. Cumulus Linux 3.7 and 4.3 continue to support Broadcom-based networking ASICs.

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Yea. At some point, the world is just going SONiC if we are being realistic. I know that is a controversial take, but SONiC is a much larger ecosystem at this point and NVIDIA has not been using Cumulus to attempt to take share.

[@johnmijo]

Aha, Patrick does a "Now for something completely different." moment ;)

[@JohnAngelmo]

Wonderful video, I am learning a lot!

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Glad it was helpful!

[@pelor92]

The reason Dell is a lattice shop is because their FPGAs are massively cheaper with respect to xilinx and intel/altera ones. My guess is that since in a high end networking switch these components will only be used for fairly mundane glue logic, they don't need the performance. Now downside of lattice is that their ecosystem is way less mature, thus they are much more painfull to develop for with respect to the big two

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Often these FPGAs are used for things like blinking status lights. This is also an area where the S5296F-ON (96x 25GbE + 8x 100GbE) version of this switch is a bit different. That one actually has a Xilinx part.

[@madllama]

Would love to see more on SONiC

[@ipekposet8639]

Can this switch sustain 100% I/O load and if it can how hot are those 100Gb port running ? Thx for the nice video

[@ewenchan1239]

In terms of noise, which one is quieter - the Mellanox 100 Gbps switches or the Dell? Or are they about the same?

[@zbc_152]

Love these videos, I have two Agema 100 GbE Switches running a custom NOS. I can't use them though because they're, as you said, too loud and can't really be silenced. Maybe we could see a video where you try to silence these things for homelab usage?

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

That was actually the idea behind the S5296F-ON. I recorded the video today. That was a less than successful idea that the 2U would be significantly quieter.

[@zbc_152]

@@ServeTheHomeVideo At this point I'm almost tempted to mod the top lid to have multiple 140MM Fans in it, but if I recall, there arn't any standard 4pin headers.. I could always use external power for the fans but even that's a bit 'ghetto' for my taste. :-D Love your content by the way, I'm always watching!

[@I4getTings]

@@ServeTheHomeVideo I've been working on trying to get my S3048 quiet with modding. I've got one fan module swapped with a noctua. The system boots with it, but reads as failed. I tried the same on the power supply fan, but that signals to the power supply that it is failed, so the switch just doesn't post. Next step is seeing if I can cram micro-controllers in there to spoof the tach speed to the power supply and fan control boards. muhahahaha!

[@JensIhnow]

You have it already, of course you do a review! 😜

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

I just recorded the video since we have quite a few comments asking for that.

[@chaosfenix]

I feel these videos are a lot more interesting a few years down the road. On one hand I can get a new Ubiquiti EnterpriseXG 24 for $1300 and on the other I can get a used S5232F-ON for $1150. One of them is a 10Gbps switch with 2 25Gbps upload ports where this thing is all 100Gbps. As a home labber this is REALLY interesting. Seriously. Why is Gigabit or even 2.5Gbps even considered acceptable in 2024?

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

To be fair, 2.5GbE is much lower power

[@chaosfenix]

@@ServeTheHomeVideo Yes and as such probably quieter. Then again intel is launching a consumer CPU that pulls 400W today and a 4090 can pull almost 500W. If all users cared that much about power consumption then those products would be dead in the water. If they really felt the need to address power consumption I feel like they would implement a mechanism for devices to renegotiate link speed on the fly. It could run in 100Mbps mode while it is sitting there not doing much but then renegotiate up to 1Gbps when a user connects to the device and then renegotiate again whenever a file is being transferred. Consumer workloads tend to be very sporadic so I think this would be clearly something they could do if power consumption really is that much higher.

[@amessman]

18:10 you can't just say it's loud without showing us :P

[@BenState]

For the money, id like to see heatsinks on those chokes. How hot do they get?

[@jurepecar9092]

Does anyone know what switch asic is in Extreme X870? Thanks.

[@parsons151185]

Would love to know how the Dell switches compared to the Celestica SeaStone DX010. I'd looked at both the S51xx and S52xx series. The fact the S51xx didn't support anything other than OS10 and OPX was disappointing, but the price was compelling.. The S52xx are quite a bit more expensive, but offers enterprise SONiC support. Tomorrow I take delivery of 2x DX010, a ICX6610 and a box of modules =D

[@nick-leffler]

We need hot swap CR2032

[@kwinzman]

How much does this switch cost approximately?

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

This is now a generation old, but used prices are up a lot. These days it is probably ~$2750 or so used. Two years ago it was probably $8-11K. Linus' $15K switch in his 100GbE video was 2 generations older than this, and a lower-end switch, but I think he was using new-at-the-time pricing before normal discounts. Without the chip shortage this would be a $1500-2000 switch but used prices have risen because of it.

[@whatwhat-777]

@ServeTheHome I want to know are these switches future proof or not?

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Certainly more than the S5100F-ON switch series. Networking is evolving rapidly though.

[@camerontgore]

Yes please

[@AlpineTheHusky]

Looking at a video with a 100GbE switch...I got like 40mbit to my server with a wifi link and powerline inbetween wooo

[@udirt]

Would you not prefer something like Mellanox over the Dells?

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Pricing matters here.

[@andrewfurst9901]

Let’s see that big mama 25 gig switch!

[@ParkerDD]

Why am I tripping out right now, I swear I’ve already watched this?

[@VictorFernandoPro]

What about Edgecore???

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Still working on finding more of those to open up.

[@123cowgoesmoo]

N E E D a 25gbe switch teardown!

[@RonJohn63]

Why is this needed *in the home?*

[@memyself879]

Excellent review as usual. Can you please elaborate on the Dell VLT technology to connect 2 switches (similar to stacking) because Dell has a different implementation of stacking than usual switches.

[@maxmalmberg4755]

more fiber and sfp switches vds

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Probably not SFP. More SFP28 and QSFP28 are coming.

[@TorbjrnViemNess]

Great review, but please - "Printed Circuit Board board"? triggered.gif

[@huplim]

First! ❤️ STH videos.

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Wow! You are fast!

[@mikebruzzone9570]

Tomahawk? mb

[@mikebruzzone9570]

25 GbE; Windows Server then . . . mb

[@mikebruzzone9570]

Got it Trident mid shelf. mb

[@mikebruzzone9570]

Lattice has more to trade when it comes to commodity and programmable components. In other words Dell pays less and Lattice bundles in more of the down bin parts Altera and Xilinx don't offer or won't bundle as sales close margin sacrifice. mb

[@mikebruzzone9570]

That proves it mid shelf B.O.M., Denverton off the surplus market. They're actually are not many and are very difficult to replace any Intel micro server although D is available. mb

[@mikebruzzone9570]

It will be good when the open network conference circuit starts up again at SCCC. Big updates then. mb

[@joc469]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/omichp6eiZ6CjKs S5248F-ON is circled and not the S5232F-ON

[@DroneCentralUK]

early squad

[@goodyKoeln]

I’ll never trust any dell branded switch ever again. Sorry they sold to much crap over the years.

[@naikrovek]

who in the world can afford this stuff for the home? this is a $5500 switch, before you buy any modules or cabling...