Network Switches - Before You Buy!

[Music] hello and welcome back and today i want to talk about the subject of network switches this is another before you buy and today i want to talk to you guys about switches in the most glorious detail some of this stuff is going to be super dull so unless you're particularly vested in either buying a network switch or want a bit of help buying the right one moving forward and making sure you get it right first time stick around but otherwise you might not enjoy this this is going to be super super dull but let's talk about network switches why are they important what should you look out for what do you need what do you not do not need and i guarantee there's a couple of things in this video that you didn't know existed but let's get a quick disclaimer straight off the bat i am well aware what an absolute mess this desk is right now i'm preparing for a very big video coming up soon and it's taken up a lot of space and a lot of hardware as you can see there consequently i can't really move this stuff powered down some of it but some visit in the middle of operation so unfortunately i can't remove it there but it will make sense soon and i'd rather not talk about the video in case it all goes wrong but network switches what are they well a number of you your first feeling towards network switches or even the idea that you know they exist is the day when your router from your internet service provider your isp suddenly runs out of ports now these are obviously premium devices i've got on the table that you buy but generally a router from your internet service provider that box that they give you with your contract otherwise known as a a combined router and modem or wireless modem lots of different names thrown around that device will have certain ports on the rear of it now one of those ports whether it's cabled directly in or using kind of a telephone type cable an adsl that cable takes up one port now the remaining ports might go towards your smart tv if it's close enough your home console always better to work on lan right it might be going towards another media device it might be going towards bits and bobs computer or something but ultimately most routers that get included by internet service providers have between two and four ports which get eaten up really quickly and then suddenly particularly during the year of the pandemic when um people have to work from home and move office equipment or unfamiliar office equipment into the home they suddenly realized that the number of ports and connections on their home router was just not cutting it hence where switches suddenly leapt up in both popularity and in knowledge suddenly people had to find out what they were very very quickly and whether they needed them but before we go any further what is the difference between a router and a switch let's grab a couple of these this is a switch here this is a qnap switch an unmanaged qws 301 uh one 308 1c we'll talk in a little bit more detail in a bit and this is a synology router this is their mesh router that we talked about before this is the mr 2200 ac and we're going to ignore the fact it's mesh for now we're just going to talk about the difference between them now a router and a switch so a router is and i know a lot of you are really cringing when i say that word i see it in the comments all the time router router it's your own country you decide but a router is effectively the gateway to the internet it shares a lot of the um abilities of a switch not all of them but some of them such as the ability to um route traffic between different devices and manage and load the people exchanging data across the network although it can do those things it is predominantly designed to be your gateway between you and the internet now the reason people need switches is because they need a little bit less of that gateway to the internet like and then a lot more of the network management lock in the case of a switch it allows you to add significantly large the light going nuts there significantly larger numbers of network interface ports onto your network with each connected device being able to communicate in a lovely big loop but also that network switch is connected to the router and therefore the internet is presented to that switch network and all those devices can reach the internet through it as well but whereas the router prioritizes keeping the gate open and shut where appropriate with the internet the switch is about your local network and all the management there in between there's also other features such as link aggregation quality of service control priority of service control and lots of stuff like that that we'll talk about in a bit which aren't really available on routers apart from more modern and enterprise grade ones definitely not isp but that's your main difference gateway to the internet gateway to the network and each one prioritizes within each and there's a lot more to it than that but that's a great way to look at the difference between a router and a switch so on top of that we can move on to the first thing you need to bear in mind when you buy a switch for the first time and we'll move away from these two devices and we're going to look at this switch this is a netgear 10 gbe switch we're going to ignore the fact that it's 10 gb for now but it's important that we talk about it a little bit in this video now the first thing you're going to need to bear in mind when buying your very first switch is the number of ports now this is already going to connect to your router so you're going to lose one port already straight away maybe you're running more than one connection to the router or you're running another connection to another router with another internet service or a mobile router therefore you might lose two of them why would you do that failover support that kind of thing but whatever generally is a rule of thumb if i have a bunch of devices in my network be like cameras laptops entertainment devices whatever number of devices i currently have that i need to switch for i immediately double that number and get a switch with that number because you need to have room for growth across the network you need to be able to create failovers for some devices you need to be able to be able to have a more flexible network and if you have seven devices in your network and you buy an eight port switch you're fine at the beginning but the minute you add one device you you're done so make sure you always double that and where possible always try to go there's 8 12 16 and 24 port switches and they go higher and higher but bear in mind that when you do get a switch if you the minute you go above eight ports i strongly recommend that you look into 10 gbe switches something we'll talk about later on but the next consideration to bear in mind when buying your first switch is managed versus unmanaged now i touched on a bunch of features earlier there i talked about link aggregation or port trunking quality of service layer 2 security functionality um loop detection then you've got um or just lots of different configurations and control of ports all built into a switch however switches either arrive with hardware architecture inside that allows end users to configure the most bespoke network to their needs and their requirements that is known as a managed switch or they arrive with much more rudimentary architecture hardware inside generally at soc or software on chip and that processor does everything by default you can't configure it there's no user interface to play with but you have all of the features and functionality set to a default so it's basically some predetermined rules and regulations built into the system to manage your network now unmanaged switches because they don't have that flexibility and they have much more rudimentary are albeit more cost-effective architecture inside the with is an unmanaged switch is generally noticeably cheaper some 20 to 30 percent cheaper in most cases regardless of the size or ability of a switch managed switches generally more business led because of the architecture and because of the customization control will cost you more so do work out if you need those features and functionality and whether you're spending money that you don't really need to spend bringing us back to the subject of 10 gbe a lot of people when they buy a switch will go gonna get me a 10g switch future proofing done you might not need it i love 10gb and i talk about 10gb on this channel all the time 10 gigabit ethernet it's so affordable now it's a joke i remember a decade ago when it you know even the most simplistic 10g setup cost thousands of pounds you can now pick up 10 gbe equip switches like this one that will set you back a few hundred quid it's really affordable so therefore i can understand the appeal of why you would want to go for a 10 gbe switch however do bear in mind there are certain hidden costs for 10 gbe that you may not be aware of you can't simply just connect a 10 gigabit ethernet switch to your local pc or media system and then suddenly get 10 times usually ethernet speeds you will need to make sure that the connections on the connected devices via 10 gbe are also 10 gbe otherwise they become bottlenecked case in point if you go ahead with a 10 gbe switch like this net gear here and connect it to your smart tv with a lan port on the rear chances are although you want to enjoy super fast media or you think you're going to get suddenly 1 000 megabytes per second throughput there isn't a single tv in the world right now that is 10 gbe enabled consequently it will be bottlenecked to 1gb in the case of tvs not much of a problem it's still more than enough to put through most multimedia these days at 100 megabytes per second but if you're a photo video editor and you're trying to connect your client pc or mac system that only has one gbe to a 10g switch you will not be able to take advantage of those speeds particularly with a 10g switch at the uh 10g nas at the end so always make sure that you're aware that you're going to have to update every single one of your client computer devices with the likes of 10 gbe via pcie card or a thunderbolt adapter or you're gonna have to go ahead with pcie upgrade cards that go straight into desktop systems these can range from between 100 to 250 pounds depending on the brand there's lots of link in the description in the article there but just remember if you are going to go for 10 gbe you don't have to go the whole hog you can go for affordable switches like this that have one or two combo ports built in that'll allow you to have a combination of a lot of one gpu connections and just one or two 10 gbe devices that you can attach a good solid nas and everyone can then share full fluidity with that nas quite easily now another thing you need to bear in mind when buying a switch is if you're going to be looking at switches that are p o e or power over ethernet power over ethernet switches our switches do not only transfer data to all the connected client devices but also supply up to an area of power this power can be utilized from everything from ip cameras to ip speakers alarm systems and other generally surveillance led tools these allow you to deploy devices that may not be anywhere near a mains power socket but can have power transmitted from the to them via a simple ethernet connection between the switch and the device like so so it's nice and straightforward and nice and easy to know that poe switches have a place however one poe switches are noticeably more expensive due to the larger psu inside and therefore a lot more work has to go on to cooling systems inside as well as ensuring power delivery is maintained safely the second thing to bear in mind is that a switch although being labeled at say 185 watts or 300 watts or 500 watts does not guarantee all of that power to a individual port each port on a poe switch will generally have a maximum limit of somewhere between 15 to 30 maybe 50 watts in some cases but ultimately it means that you can't hope to connect to a poe switch a a device that's going to draw all 100 or so what because each one of those ports will max out at a particular power so if you do buy a poe switch remember that if you are powering devices to double check that the switch delivers enough power by a single connection to power that singular device poe switches have come down in price notably over the last few years but they're still not the cheapest out there and they do lead us very neatly into our last two subjects the first one being warranty now the warranty behind the switch is a very contentious area for a lot of people first and foremost most switches these days arrive in two categories they either arrive from the likes of qnap and other brands like that that release switches for home and business users for every tier with a warranty of somewhere between two to three years which is great it means as far as warranty is concerned that if something goes wrong with this device and it's not your fault they will repair or replace the model within that time period generally it doesn't include software with software arriving with arguable lifetime warranties and support now netgear also has small home and some top end enterprise level switches but they are one of the few brands that offer lifetime warranties that is that they will cover the repair and replacement of this device within a lifetime now lifetime is a relative term it doesn't mean that this switch will probably last forever it's fallible it has hardware inside it that is susceptible to age what they are saying is they have done everything possible for this device to last forever and beyond um anything that they can't predict it will still be covered within a lifetime warranty now a simple google of lifetime warranties online will show you that it's not completely foolproof some lifetime warranties have an area of contention built into the terms and conditions to do with fair usage to do with expected lifespan of certain components and lifetime warranty although in most cases is genuinely lifetime is not always lifetime so do double check the terms and conditions or look into whether you actually think you're going to need it because switches generally do last indefinitely anyway i've never had a switch fail on me touch wood and i've dealt with plenty of them over the years but that of course does not make any kind of realistic statistic the final point i'm going to make is with a demonstration and this is to do with noise it's such an overlooked part of network switches that you will often never hear about it anywhere network switches actually generate a lot more noise than people think now unmanaged switches generally are the most quiet because of their rudimentary architecture they don't generate much noise at all they only have to keep heat sinks inside cool and when they do that they use passive ventilation so there's no fans even electronic humming is very very minimal however managed switches particularly more enterprise managed switches 10 gb e managed switches and poe switches can generate noticeably more noise not always for example here on the desk you can just see it out of shot is a poe switch it's being utilized for two cameras in an upcoming video and you've barely heard it throughout this video you've definitely heard it but if you roll back and listen to the background of this video it was there however this is a 10 gbe non poe enterprise switch it's only eight ports and what we're going to do is we're going to connect the power to this switch we've got our mains power connector and i'm going to keep quiet and just turn this switch on remember nothing connected you guys hearing that now if you're in close proximity with this switch you're going to hear that noise a lot moreover the minute you have even two 10 gb connections active on this that fan wraps up higher it will get consistently higher right now let's remove any vibration potential that is the noise this is making air is being pushed out of that ventilation this switch is making that much noise once again i'm going to be quiet again i'm going to power it down so let's give it one last sec before i power it down so it's worth highlighting that network switches do make a notable degree of noise a lot of people overlook these things when it comes to buying their first network switch and if you are sensitive to noise or you're going to take advantage of 10 gbe with direct connection to a switch and a nas or whatever so you can edit on the fly that's fantastic but bear in mind these devices make noise and if you use 10 gbe or you use managed or in a lot of cases when you use poe that noise gets more and more higher and higher and busier and busier so you have to bear that in mind the last thing to touch on just before we end this video and i've made other videos on this so i will skirt over it a tiny bit will be the subject of sfp and copper or tl base t connectivity now everyone out there is familiar with this this is our ethernet connection this is the one that pretty much connects to absolutely anything in your home office environment this is known as cat cable it's also known as um copper based into ethernet rj45 and pretty much everyone utilizes it if you are going to use 1gbe you can go to about cat5e the minute you look at 10 gbe go to cat6 and cat 7 cables due to better quality internals and thicker cabling you can go up to a distance of about 20 meters i'd say before you start noticing any kind of performance drops in terms of you know slower latency that sort of thing but generally upgrading to 10 gb in that method or just sticking with that is absolutely fine but if you're covering larger distances or you are looking into 10 gbe that is when you have to look into something called sfp fiber otherwise known as sfp plus sfp is fiber optic cabling that arrives with transistors on the end now smaller cables like these known as the acs arriving three to five maybe seven meters arrive with the transceiver already attached on the top but any longer than that you have to go for a more customized build where you buy the cables and buy the transistors separately and you have to sort of build your connection as you go of it build a bear in that regard now sfp is the probably the more expensive option of the two it covers vaster distances while maintaining those high performing speeds but that price threshold particularly in terms of the transceivers and the cabling can be a real downer for a number of you weirdly though when you look at um switches and even nas systems predominantly sfp-only switches are lower in price than that of copper-based alternatives so depending on the size of the area that you're going to be covering you can really scale up where you want your money to be and i think when it comes to choosing between copper and fiber most people particularly home users prosumers smb users they're going to go copper because it's just easier to upgrade and you can scale your upgrade ability and phase in 10 gbe quite easily but on the other hand those that have got larger surface areas enterprise multiple floors working vertically not just horizontally you are people that are even going to want to phase in sfp or go for a combo device like this one that has both copper and sfp port so you can have a mixed network and take a advantage of both methods there's even adapters out there that we've talked about in the past that allow you to switch a copper to a fiber and a fiber to a copper but these little adapters few hundred quid each i wouldn't always recommend them for enterprise use because they can get very very hot and that can eventually affect and degrade the overall performance of your system but this has been that before you buy about networked switches we've covered a lot of ground today and i've still not covered everything we've still didn't talk about uh some of that stuff about combo layer two three comparisons and more but i wanted to keep this to the stone cold facts for you guys i've done videos on most of those other things and individual projects so i recommend you check those out but otherwise thank you so much for watching if you've enjoyed this video click like if you want to learn more click subscribe and if you do need help if you need free impartial unpaid advice on your setup don't go to the comments go into the links in the description to the free advice section at nas compares it's manned by myself and ed it may take us an extra day to get to you because we do get a lot of questions through there but we do answer as i would say all of them apart from the ones that are near enough impossible and then we'll afford them to an expert who can but i would say 98 of them are all us baby and it's unbiased it's impartial and it's just there to help you so do check those out but otherwise thank you so much for watching and i'll see you next time

Channel: NASCompares

Views: 38,915

Keywords: BEST 1GBE SWITCH, BEST 2.5G SWITCH, BEST SWITCH FOR NAS, BEST SWITCH FOR QNAP, BEST SWITCH FOR SYNOLOGY, BEST UNMANAGED SWITCH, HOW NOISY IS A SWITCH, MANAGED VS UNMANAGED SWITCH, NAS SWITCH, NETWORK SWITCH BEGINNERS GUIDE, NETWORK SWITCH GUIDE, RECOMMENDED POE SWITCH POWER, RECOMMENDED SWITCH, RECOMMENDED SWITCH SPEED, ROUTER SWITCH DIFFERENCE, SFP+ 10GBASE-T DIFFERENCE, SWITCH BUYERS GUIDE, SWITCH LIFETIME WARRANTY, SWITCH PORT TRUNKING, SWITCH ROUTER DIFFERENCE

Id: Sz5ugbrdS7c

Length: 22min 15sec (1335 seconds)

Published: Mon May 03 2021