Review: MikroTik CSS326-24G-2S+RM 10gbe switch


1812

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I don’t typically write reviews, but there have been some enthusiastic discussions about MikroTik’s switches lately, especially since they are much cheaper than expected. So I thought I’d share my experience with their CSS326-24G-2S+RM, a 24 port gigabit switch with 2 sfp+ ports.

 

1423463646_ScreenShot2019-01-09at5_29_53PM.thumb.png.5d2b23c7789fc20fa0bd7f5f4786f20d.png

 

 

 

 

 

Originally I wanted to purchase a CRS305-1G-4S+IN but they are either currently sold out everywhere or 50 dollars over MSRP. [UPDATE: I bought one... review is here:  

 


So the switch arrived. The metal appears a bit thin and the paint job isn't really durable. Putting in screws into the ears (with plastic washers) already removed the paint around the screw holes.... The gigabit ports feel "loose" to me vs my quanta, or even any other d link/comparable consumer switch I've had, and I've had to readjust a gigabit cable seating once or twice as it didn't show connected on the simple lighted panel below the ports. It's cheap and feels like it. But for me, that's ok if it works. And it sort of does?

 

 

 

I followed the directions to access the web gui. Nothing happened. The directions were simple: “go to 192.168.88.1 and you’re there.”(more details on everything I did can be found on their forum here: https://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=143728   I don't fee like rehashing it al here, but long story short, nothing will allow me to connect to the web gui. ) The switch was operational, as in, I could pass traffic through it, but not modify any of the limited settings or update firmware due to lack of GUI access. 

 

 

So I returned that switch assuming it was defective and another showed up. Same issue.

 

I contacted email support who informed me that when the switch is placed in a network with a DHCP server, it will get an IP and the web gui will be there. Protip for Mikrotik: That would have been nice to know in the one page of documentation that came with the switch AND/OR online anywhere…. Except, that didn’t actually work either. My router would offer an address and the switch would not respond to the DHCPOFFER. None of my other devices on the network have this issue, so I know it's the switch.

 

Support also told me I could use a serial cable to find out what ip the switch was using, except this model doesn’t have a serial port….. thanks again for the assistance. This switch also currently “works” but without the ability to adjust any settings like before. I’m very tempted to return it and change all my devices over to 10gbe ethernet since I already wired my house with cat 6a. It would cost more, but work most likely work properly. I have been so let down that I haven't even really tried to push the sfp+ ports to see what their real saturation numbers are yet.


So, you get what you pay for I guess. I’m currently waiting for a followup from support and as of writing this, only one person has offered some advice on the their forum but it did not lead to a resolution. And digging through other posts on that site, it seems that their products are hit and miss, and more times than not, software updates break things.

 

 

A bit disappointed.

——-

UPDATE

 

A chance comment on the Mikrotik forum lead me to a discovery. While I had changed my ip and subnet to be in the same range, I had not thought to change the gateway to the default ip of the switch (as I’ve never had to do this before with similarly configured devices.) Nowhere does this requirement appear in Mikrotik’s documentation or anything I read online.

 

After making this change and putting my ip in the same range of the default ip of the switch again, I was able to finally access the web GUI.

 

After looking around the basic functions including vlans, I decided to update the firmware. The process was simple, click a button to update. The web GUI then went blank and I thought “great, I’ve bricked it...” then I wondered if the update from 2.7 to 2.9 fixed the dhcp issue. So I changed my ip/subnet/gateway back and sure enough, there was a new dhcp lease for the switch in my router logs.

 

I ran some quick bandwidth tests from my unRaid server (files on a Samsung ssd) to a RAM disk on computer via dac cable, using a cheap mellanox connectx2 card and a solar flare cars. File reads pegged out the max drive read speed at 550- 600MBps. Higher is certainly possible I believe.

 

TLDR: Mikrotik shipped the switch twice with faulty firmware meaning it wouldn’t  acquire a DHCP lease, and doesn’t provide any quality information regarding how to access the switch including information about changing your gateway to the switch address, which caused me to waste a few hours over a few days, return one switch that I thought was faulty, contact tech support who had no answers, and finally get lucky on their forums.

 

I still haven’t decided if I’m keeping it yet... but happy I can finally play around with it.

 

--------

 

UPDATE 2

 

about a week and a half later and here is what I've found:

 

after a while, the web gui won't respond to the DHCP assigned address. It's annoying, but can be fixed with a quick reboot. Switch still seems fully functional when you can't access the web gui. but still dumb.

 

Ran some iperf tests on it, from an osx vm on one unraid server using a solar flare card (passed through to the vm) to another unraid server running iperf via nerd tools, 10 threads:

 

801368068_ScreenShot2019-01-18at11_38_22AM.png.816040fbae47486eeda9412a473f0322.png

 

switch showed similar speeds in the web gui

 

942423742_ScreenShot2019-01-18at11_38_16AM.png.8b5b18cfae6047baf97556dff4728bb3.png

 

 

This is on 1500 frames... so some room for improvement if I bumped up to 9000, but I may also have a bent dac cable causing lower speeds.

 

 

Before posting, for fun I changed the threads from 10 (above) to 100 and pushed it to:

 

107787863_ScreenShot2019-01-18at11_59_28AM.png.874946eab05f955208a9c11e5302cbb1.png

 

still on 1500 frames.

 

 

Although the web gui and DHCP issues are fairly annoying, its nice to be able to pull this switch out of my sound dampening server rack and have it out by my desk, vs having the lb4m just suck power and make noise in the rack.

 

ALSO

 

It has no fan and is quiet, but runs quite warm within its parameters. The specs say the switch is rated up to 70c. Mine hovers around 64-66c. This is even after pulling the top cover off and letting air circulate over the heatsink. So I do have a few concerns about longevity if it's hanging out at the top of it's range. There are no (visible to me after a quick look) places on the board to add on a small fan. But hitting it with multiple runs of iperf didn't really move the needle on temps. So who knows....

 

 

SO

It's not as fast as my LB4M? Maybe it is, I never tested the LBRM to capacity, but since my cache drives only write about 400MB/s and I can currently read at about 800MB/s, it's fast enough for now. I have a few more days, but will probably keep it. It's cheap, quite, and only mildly annoying to modify settings.

 

 

________

 

Update March 28, 2020

 

SO I've been using this switch for a little over a year. It has given me no issues running about 16-20 ports of gigabit lan fro the house and a 10gbe trunk from my server. Quite pleased, really. I don't really know what else to say... I guess we'll check back in a year from now (if I remember...)

Edited by 1812
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19 minutes ago, ken-ji said:

Try unplugging all the cables except your PC/Laptop.

Restart the switch.

You should be able to access the switch then on the default IP.

If not, try restarting the switch while initially holding the reset button/pin down for a few seconds...

 

Already tried both of those.

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That's mighty weird... but I've only used the RouterOS devices so far (and 3 models of them) with great success...

Just to be clear, your PC/laptop is on the same subnet as the switch? ie IP 192.168.88.x/24?

Other than this, I have no idea what's wrong and unfortunately connecting to the serial console might require tapping the pins or having a SOL config available - if a rollover cable is not enough...

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12 hours ago, ken-ji said:

That's mighty weird... but I've only used the RouterOS devices so far (and 3 models of them) with great success...

Just to be clear, your PC/laptop is on the same subnet as the switch? ie IP 192.168.88.x/24?

Other than this, I have no idea what's wrong and unfortunately connecting to the serial console might require tapping the pins or having a SOL config available - if a rollover cable is not enough...

Yeah I’ve made sure it was same ip range and subnet. If it was just one switch, I would have thought just a bad switch but two in a row. 

 

Im not a networking engineer but my quanta was easier to access than this...which is saying a lot because that was a pain.

 

—-

edit: figured it out finally and will update the review

Edited by 1812
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Unbeliveable disappointed. Thanks for sharing.

 

2 hours ago, 1812 said:

edit: figured it out finally and will update review in a few days

 

😀 CSS326 haven't serial console. SwOS seems powerful, quite like it.

 

Reset and Reinstall

CSS326-24G-2S+RM has built-in backup SwOS firmware which can be loaded in case standard firmware breaks or upgrade fails:

Holding Reset button for few seconds while CSS326-24G-2S+RM is booting resets configuration and loads backup firmware SwOS 2.0p.

After loading backup firmware SwOS 2.0p it is possible to connect to 192.168.88.1 using web browser and install new SwOS firmware.


CRS326-24G-2S+RM has a dual-boot feature. With reset button Manual:Reset you can restore RouterOS default-configuration.

To reset SwOS to factory defaults:

Connect to device using serial console

Boot SwOS

Choose "r - reset configuration"

Edited by Benson
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14 hours ago, 1812 said:

After making this change and putting my ip in the same range of the default ip of the switch again, I was able to finally access the web GUI.

I just got one of these delivered yesterday and glad I saw your post. Can you tell me how you did this? Did you just manually enter an IP on your computer in the 192.168.88.XX range?

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1 hour ago, wgstarks said:

I just got one of these delivered yesterday and glad I saw your post. Can you tell me how you did this? Did you just manually enter an IP on your computer in the 192.168.88.XX range?

I edited the first post but here is the info again: set your ip on your computer manually to 192.168.88.2 or .4 or something close, subnet 255.255.255.0, set your gateway to 192.168.88.1 (switch default) and apply settings. then go to the web gui 192.168.88.1, login is admin and no password. I didn't try to set a static ip, I just navigated to the (iirc) last tab, told it to update, and then when it rebooted it pulled an ip from the router, which is now where the web access goes through.

Edited by 1812
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On 1/9/2019 at 4:23 PM, 1812 said:

Ran some iperf tests on it, from an osx vm on one unpaid server using a solar flare card (passed through to the vm) to another unsaid server running iperf via nerd tools, 10 threads:

You have an 'unpaid' server and an 'unsaid' server (is this the server which shall not be named?)? 

 

You might get better results if you actually paid for the first server and dared to speak the name of the second (sorry, I also paid my forum sassiness fee).  😉

  • Like 1
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18 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

You have an 'unpaid' server and an 'unsaid' server (is this the server which shall not be named?)? 

 

You might get better results if you actually paid for the first server and dared to speak the name of the second (sorry, I also paid my forum sassiness fee).  😉

 

Yeah, autocorrect is a birch! Now I have to change it... THE SHAME!

 

17 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

Don't be sorry, he deserves to get as good as he gives.

 

Some people have no sense of humour, I find this kind of banter hilarious.

I agree 100% ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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  • 1 month later...

I buy a CSS326 for replace two 8 port switch, it run normal and GUI no hang for 20+ days. 2 10G SFP+ optic also work. Temperature around 6X C.

 

I like the ACL feature - change VLAN ID,  similar as I apply on one of other switch.

 

It also can set some rule to trap something and count for it, this quite useful for troubleshooting. Thanks @1812 .

Edited by Benson
  • Like 1
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  • 2 weeks later...

Lifesaver, thank you.

 

Another option, once you have connected to the switch by changing your IP address manually to be on the .88 subnet - Got to the System tab (penultimate), change the IP address to one on your normal subnet, and save. Doesn't need a reboot (at least a manual one).

 

Revert your client to previous IP settings, reconnect, upgrade and enjoy (hopefully).

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Hello, I purchased this router and the sfp port does not appear to be seeing my unraid server.

 

I have the following setup:

 

Monoprice LC LC multimode duplex fiber cable

Finisar 850nm multimode sfp transceiver

 

In the unraid server I have a Mellanox connect X-2 ethernet nic.

 

Everything looks as if it should work, when the cable is connected I see no lights on the router or on the card.  In addition, in swOS the sfp section says “no link”.

 

Is there anything that looks wrong here?

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