WHY isn't anyone talking about this switch?! - Ubiquiti UniFi USW-Aggregation Switch
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- Опубліковано 6 чер 2024
- The #UniFi USW-Aggregation 8 port 10 Gigabit network switch is an affordable managed layer-2 network switch from Ubiquiti that we feel like no one is talking about and we’re gonna change that! We're always on the lookout for affordable 10 Gig switching for our #homelab with more than 4 ports for some time now and when we found the UniFi USW-Aggregation from Ubiquiti we couldn't believe we hadn't heard about it yet!
In this video, we'll walk you through the setup of the USW-Aggregation switch with our UniFi controller and we'll also compare this switch to the Mikrotik CRS309-1G-8S+IN, which up until now was really your only option in 8-p 10gbit switching!
*PRODUCTS USED IN THIS VIDEO*
Ubiquiti UniFi USW-Aggregation: store.ui.com/collections/unif...
Mikrotik CRS309-1G-8S+IN: mikrotik.com/product/crs309_1...
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*TIMESTAMPS!*
0:00 Introduction
0:31 Dimensions and overview of the USW-Aggregation switch
1:39 A note about switch management using the UniFi Console
2:09 Let's rack and stack this thing!
2:35 Adopting the USW-Aggregation switch into our UniFi Console
3:32 Comparing the USW-Aggregation to the Mikrotik CRS309-1G-8S+IN
5:10 Comparing management software of the USW-Aggregation and the Mikrotik CRS309-1G-8S+IN
6:36 A note about Mikrotik hardware
6:54 Recap and final thoughts on USW-Aggregation switch
7:24 Thanks for watching! Subscribe for more #homelab! - Наука та технологія
Just ordered this and 5 pro switches. excited to make the jump to 10G! thanks for the vid.
Great episode. I know uniFi is in my future. Secure gateway and a switch to keep everything organized. Great job guys!
Thanks Gregory, glad you liked it!
Yes, great switch. I just deployed the Enterprise version of it, but this is a great use case for smaller SFP+ needs. I'm going to deploy one of these for vmotion network between three vsphere servers (20Gb LACP between each server).
LACP doesn't help you from 1 host to another... Would help on the shared network storage though
I'm glad you guys put them head to head. I'm what I call long-term-lazy so I'm MikroTik gang for now.
welp, im adding this to my rack! thanks guys!
I used their XG 16 10Gb SFP switch for a campus install last year. Works perfectly.
Nice! I’m curious how well the UI gear works in a large deployment like a college campus! Are you using it as an aggregator? Tell me more!
@@2GuysTek I have 7 remote buildings with UniFi 24port pro switches and two other main buildings with UniFi 48port pros each coming back to the XG. Works great. However because of certain requirements at the time like Multiple WAN to internal VLAN requirements I used a Zyxel firewall on top. It’s all connected via OM3 10Gb fiber.
@@rickstokes2239 Thanks for sharing! And we totally get you on the FW side of things - Ubiquiti just doesn't have that great of an offering on the firewall side. We use pfSense as our FW for similar reasons. Thanks for sharing your info and consider subscribing!
I've got 2 of the XG 16's as part of the network I manage. One is in my primary comms room going out to multiple buildings and a hub comms room. 2nd unit is in that hub and connects to 5 more switches downstream. 19 switches on there at the moment which will go up to at least 26 and currently 90 AP's.
of course someone has a youtube video on this. Thank you :)
Mikrotik Winbox interface is less friendly but more powerful on configuration options and features compared with Unifi. Once you pass the learning curve of the RouterOS you can do a lot of tricks that Unifi cannot simply match. Just for that I am going with Mikrotik for L3 switching and Unifi for L2
We couldn't agree with you more! We're using Ubiquiti for L2 as well, but all L3 stuff for us is being handled in pfSense in a 'router on a stick' design. We have used the UDMP and were underwhelmed by its feature set. Thanks for the comment and consider subscribing!
@@2GuysTek agreed :). PFSense is also a good option. I use L3 Router, L3 switch and L2 access model where I can (yeah I know its more boxes) but approaches more to Enterprise Standard Architectures and the Mikrotik / Unifi Combo works really well under this scenario for me.
One issue I find with Mikrotik(or any other individually managed units) is likely hood of making a mistake. Unifi integration with a single controller, makes changing config effortless and one spot to manage. If you only need handful of switches or need the extra capability Mikrotik offers, go for Mikrotik otherwise Unifi wins.
MikroTik is powerful but follows that old school mentality of making everything as complicated as possible in order to sell you courses,
Which is a complete opposite of unify.
I strongly believe that if you want to do something (example port forward) as long as you know how technology works you should be able to do it even if you never used that vendor before.
If you can’t that’s just a poorly designed interface.
Overly complex interfaces make mistakes (such as for example leaving ports open )much easier to make and much harder to notice after the fact in order to correct, which is why I personally believe that systems like unify will thrive and soon others (like MikroTik) will have to improve on their software design, or they won’t have a bright future
Great video! Just found you guys.
Awesome! Be sure to subscribe!
Can it handle 2.5gb and 5gb as well ?
I have 2 4 ports spf+ microtik switches, there is a learning curve.. I'm now really considering the aggregation switch as my main central switch
It’s a great switch. Still using it to this day.
I just bought this 8 port 10G Switch because my Microtik performance was really bad. Prior to getting the 16 port Microtik I was able to hit 8.2Gbps on iperf3. Installing the microtik switch and setting to switchOS I maxxed out at 3.2Gbps. Putting my old 4 port 10G switch back in I was right back up to 8Gbps. I went to the Microtik forums and asked for help and after a week no one replied to my post. I went with Ubiquity because they are significantly more responsive, the UI is very clean and helpful and all around better switch (for me).
I have the 4 port Mikrotik and not too impressed with the admin UI. will have to check out this Ubiquiti switch.
can it do loop protection without stp ?
mstp with 31 instances ?
Tbh I was kinda hopeing to know how it works, how many network ins can it take and how many outs does it have, I am very new to networking so dont know much other than I need aggregation for my current network.
Mine will be here Friday can't wait to set it up
It's a great switch!
@@2GuysTek truly only got it to 20g my pc and nas lol
@@2GuysTek so far so good. 10g to my pc and redundant 10g to my nas.
Content is 🔥
Can’t connect Qnap TS832PXU directly with the switch, I don’t see it in the network and when connected to LAN the port gets blocked. When I use sfp though the port looks good in the web interface but I still can’t ping or open the web interface of the NAS. When I connect another smaller QNAP (2 disks only) everything works like a charm, any suggestions? :(
It would be nice if this had a one gig management port which would help with controller adoption.
We actually agree with you.
Or bundle in a 1GBe SFP module
Do you have a comparison between Ubiquiti Aggregation switch and the Unifi Flex XG? I feel the XG is better just because you don't need to purchase the SFP+ ports if you're using copper.
The Unifi Flex XG only has 4x10gb ports, you need to get two units to have 8 port. In addition, fiber is much faster than copper.
Ubiquity gear is very easy to use. I'm a legacy voice engineer rather than a trained data engineer / networking guy and I have deployed and run a 28 switch and 100 AP network single handed. I have 2 of these USW 8 SFP+ port switches which are currently my primary and hub backbone units but I'm upgrading to their 28 port version which has 24 SFP+ and 4 SFP28 ports as network will be expanding.
Not had a single switch issue in over 5 years and only had a couple of AP's go out of service.
It's good stuff! We use Ubiquity here for all of our wireless and layer 2 switching as well! Thanks for the comment!
how many sfp modules would you use on this USW model? Reading around that 4 modules max from a heat management POV
I've since upgraded to the ProAgg swich as 8 SFP+ wasn't enough, but when I was running it, it was fully utilized and I had no thermal issues.
love mine. can't beat having 10 SFP+ ports for the price
Just bought it :)
I'm in process of setting up this switch, but now I have no physical access to it to try - I did not notice in manual that port 7 is suggested as an uplink port for the resto of the infrastructure. As a result, I see the devices behind this switch, but I don't see it in unifi controller, so I can't adopt it. In this video, I see that port 7 is used. So, is it mandatory to have "uplink" to the router via port 7? I'd say the instructions are vague about this.
There is no prioritized or dedicated port on the USW-Aggregation for uplink, any uplink port that's tagged with the necessary VLAN back to the network where the controller is should work just fine. Without knowing your network config, and assuming you're using VLANs, I'm guessing the problem is likely you don't have your trunks tagged completely through to the rest of your infrastructure where your controller sits. Worst-case scenario you can hard reset the USW-Aggregation switch and associate it with the controller and rebuild your config. Best of luck and thanks for watching!
Unifi UI is good , that is true. But it is bugged. You also need a unifi controller - because the hardware is not powerful enough to handle it like mikrotik. Mikrotik using Romon, you can use any of their switch or router and make it a controller. Mikrotik UI seems outdated but all options are there. Someone knowing networking is able to manage a mikrotik with little documentation review.
Any plans to do a real comparison using throughput testing?
What would you like to see specifically?
Not sure if better to go for a USW pro 24 PoE with 2 SFP+ for my 2 SFP+ devices and (UDM pro connected via 1GBit) making the switch kind of futureproof or go for the non pro switch and an Aggregation switch, do link aggregation with the two non+ SFP ports and ditch the 24 port Switch once 10, 5 or 2.5Gbit becomes standard and prices drop 🤷♂️
i currently have this...udm pro->usw switch agg->usw pro 24 POE. The usw switch agg and the usw pro 24 poe are connected via 2 sfp+ dac cables (link aggregation). i also have 10g servers connected via SFP+ (fiber). is this the proper way to integrate the usw agg or should it sit after the usw pro 24 poe?
Either is technically fine. However, your configuration is best. In best practice network design, you’d want the USW-Agg to essentially function as your ‘backbone’ with all of the slower devices connecting to it for best performance. The way you’ve configured is the way we would configure it!
is it possible to connect this switch direct with a sfp+ module to a normal cat7 cable to a RJ45 computer in ?
100%, we do it all the time. You can even find cheap SFP+ to BASE-T transceivers on Amazon, we use these all the time: amzn.to/3KuU4t8
can this be used for Internet connection aggregation? example ISP 1 + ISP 2?
No. the USW-Aggregation switch is just a layer-2 switch.
wish UBNT made an affordable RJ45 version like this. I have a video production studio with 3 MacStudios with 10GB RJ45. Our rack mount Synology NAS has 10GB RJ45 card and we need the Macs to access the NAS at 10GB speeds. We also have UDM Pro. So would this work to connect the UDM to this USW-AGG with a SFP+ patch cable and then get 3 RJ45 adapters to connect the Macs?
That's exactly how you'd setup your network, connect the 10G switch to the UDMP and you can buy these: amzn.to/3jJkNHn Those would allow you to connect your 10g RJ45 NICs into a USW-Aggregation switch.
I have the 16 port US-16-XG, do you think I can add the mikrotik to the network by connecting it to one of the ports at US-16-XG? I want the mikrotik to behave like an unmanaged switch so I can have more ports.
You absolutely can do that.
@@2GuysTek yes, thanks. But maybe it is cheaper to use USW PRO aggregation than the US-16-XG plus microtik combo. It saves space as well.
Hey,
I like the USW.
is it possible to use 1 Gbit SFP from Unifi temporary during some maintenance stuff?
Nice Video✌🏻
Yep!
Yes, SFP+ ports will down clock to 1Gb speed when necessary. Some switches need you to do it manually, but others will do it automatically.
But since all the management for a Unifi switch is done via the controller, there isn’t a need to connect directly for maintenance.
In my case I need 10G for my home network NAS + workstation, can I setup my network using this aggregation without needing to depend on an additional router like with Mikrotik, I don't want to buy a udm I don't find it makes any sense
Yes, out of the box it will work as a standard layer 2 switch. If you decide you want to setup VLANs you will need to setup a UniFi controller which is free software and doesn’t require you to own a UDM or anything else from Ubiquiti.
Can I use 2 of them for 2 Datacenter Sites and connect them to each other?
Of course you can. They're standard Layer 2 switches, so you can LAG them together, set up VLAN trunking, and do anything you'd want within the bounds of Layer 2!
You should make a Video about the Pro Aggregation too!
We'd love to! Here's hoping Ubiquiti will send us one! ;-)
Those Unifi SFP+ ports can't do CAT cable at long distances
In canada, the mikrotik 5 ports is the same price as this USW-Aggregation et the microtik 8 ports is 105$ more than this USW-Aggregate so it kinds of kill it!
i want the 48 port
Having all sorts of problems with mine no word from UniFi been 3 days
Just wait till they find out that Unifi silently released this switch's big brother: USW-Pro-Aggregation
Great video. These 2 switches will become heavyweights as 10G pricing comes down. I think the Unifi is superior but I'm worried about the switch losing its configuration like many of my other unifi devices.
We've got a few UniFi switches throughout the studio and we've never had an issue with them losing their config. The UniFi controller we use is running on a VM and has been shutdown for days at a time, but we understand your concern! If we run into anything like this we will certainly let everyone know! Thanks for the comment!
You should have a look at the HP Aruba 1930 series, because for only $170 you will not only get 4x 10G ports but 24x 1G ports too.
@@friedrich1277 does the Aruba switch work together with Unifi? Of course, you can't manage it though the unifi dashboard, but makes it sense to run it with a Udmp?
got the USW-Aggregation-Pro for work
Whatcha think?
If the USW 24 pro only has 1gb ports whats the benefit of connecting it to 10gb aggregation port?
The USW-Pro-24 has 2x 10Gbit SFP+ uplinks on it. In a typical network design you LAG (bond in an LACP trunk) those two connections up to the USW-Agg switch to provide 20Gbit of total bandwidth and redundancy.
@@2GuysTek understood. What I’m asking is if that 20gbit carries over to the ports, or is the bandwidth limited to what the ports can deliver? Because those ports on that switch are only capable of GbE
@@cloudmike you’re 100% correct, those are 1gig ports. The idea is that you can use the 10gig ports to uplink all of the 1gig client traffic elsewhere into your network. Those 10gig ports can be used for clients as well.
Not a single trick this thing has up its sleeve that MikroTik didn't do first or doesn't do better (& cheaper). But all is fair in love, war and networking.
My understanding is while the CRS309 can do L3 it cannot do it well. I opted for an ebay Cisco 4900M (for 10G L3) and modified the fans for noise and power. Still draws over 100w of power though.
Probably because the UniFi line does not have SSH or command line access, which makes it a nice toy for non IT people. Anyone who requires scripting, automation would not touch a network device that is only limited to a web interface without real access to the firmware OS.
People in IT love their keyboards 😅, because it is faster to type than clicking around things. Not to mention cloud controlled devices, thank you, but no. Ubiquity had their Edge line for that market, which they discontinued. That probably leaves MikroTik as the better option in that price range.
Except that you can SSH and CLI if you feel like it.
I learned networking on Ciscos in a very large enterprise, but use Unifi at the MSP I currently work at. It is mostly layer 3 abilities on the switches were things get rocky or nonexistant.
What’s with the latex gloves? See someone about OCD.
It's about keeping fingerprints off the product when shooting broll - thanks for the armchair diagnosis, though.
Hey Guys! I was curious if you've tried 10G SFP+ modules for connecting 10G links to your servers. If so which ones were able to auto negotiate at 10g? I currently have a UI based environment so I am well versed on the management for Ubiquity. Thanks!
Absolutely! We currently have two servers connected to the USW-Aggregation switch. Both are 10G SR optics, one is a branded Cisco and the other is a branded Brocade (yep, it’s old!). We also have a generic 10G SR to 10G-BaseT we bought off Amazon and it’s working fine as well. TBH we haven’t had much of any issues with 10G optic compatibility, but we’ve only been using SR optics. HTH!
Not enough ports
While the price of the switch is very reasonable -- if you want/need to use RJ45 the SFP+ modules get expensive really fast. Do your homework on the media connections you need and do the math if it makes sense for you. I'm curious how the Flex XG will play once it comes out of EA.
You're right about the cost of 10G RJ45! I think it's crazy the premium to get to twisted pair is so high! However, we did buy a few of these: amzn.to/3vsulKp (SFP+ to 10G RJ45 transceivers) at @$45 a piece and they're still more affordable than buying an 8-port 10G BaseT switch!
@@2GuysTek Would like to see an update on those -- let us know how they work. Every dollar saved counts towards something else that can be upgraded instead. :)
And in typical Ubiquiti fashion of Halfass things they did not put a SPF+ port for faster uplink and longer fiber runs instead a weak Gigabit port. Now you have to used one of the 4 Multigig port if you want to uplink at faster speed.
This is very true.
For this reason I went with the Netgear MS510TXUP. It costs 300 bucks more but when you factor in the cost of SFP modules it's quite equal. If you are only connecting servers and PC's it makes sense as you can run either DAC cables or fiber or whatever. But when home equipment is thrown in the mix you are often still stuck with RJ45.
Why do they call it an aggregation switch and not just a switch?
It’s all about how you implement it. Fundamentally, it is just a network switch and can be used to connect servers and/or downstream switches equally. It’s clear Ubiquiti sees the switch being used as an aggregation point for downstream switches, but you can use it how you wish and it will work just fine either way.
The other issue is the SFP covers. instead of using the standard grabbable overs that everyone else uses they use flat panels that require a screwdriver to pop. Try setting up twenty or thirty of these and you just added a couple of hours to your setup time popping covers! If your setting up a home lab it doesn't matter. if you're doping an enterprise-wide deployment, I don't want to be paying a tech $50 an hour to pop covers!
I love my Unifi home setup. I have 3 of their 10 Gb 8 port Aggregation switches providing distribution layer capabilities and 10 Gb server connections. Before going Unifi I purchase a Mikrotik 10 Gb switch and was thoroughly disappointed in their operating systems. SwitchOS and RouterOS are a convoluted mess and both operating systems need to be rewritten from the ground up. There should be one OS and you turn on layer-3 by simply creating a layer-3 interface. Unifi does some weird layer-3 inter-VLAN routing stuff but it is leaps and bounds easier to understand and configure than Mikrotik.
This is not an enterprise level switch so power redundancy is non-existent. It would be cool if you could combine two of these into one virtual switch like you can with Cisco’s VSS and Nexus VPC technology. That would give you a way around the lack of power redundancy although you can dual home connections to 2 of these and rely on spanning-tree.
?
🇳🇱NL 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏👍👍👍👍👍👍
what does Non Blocking Thrueput means ?
Great question! Non-blocking often means the switch's internal bandwidth has sufficient capacity to carry all the port bandwidths, concurrently, at full capacity. Put simply, all ports can run at full speed at the same time.
@@2GuysTek oh okay. so if lets say i have 5 1GB Ports and the Non Blocking Trueput is just 4GB that means regardless of the Ports i just can Handle 4GB over all 5 Ports in total ?
The problem is that the switch has to be managed by a UniFi Controller. It would be much better product running the EdgeMax Firmware. For an aggregation switch there’s still a lack of power redundancy without the use of an External RPS. As for the UniFi equipment that does have Power redundancy options, in my opinion it’s a poor implementation and the reason being is that when the built in PSU fails the device cannot be powered up by the RPS unit. As an example in the event there was a power cut you can now no longer power up the device until the Internal Power Supply is replaced.
Yes they have🤦🤷🤷🤷
Doesnt have to be. SSH is a thing, but the management "gateway" does make it hell easier. You can simply install it on a windows machine
What's with the gloves??
Fingerprints!
What a shame that it has no copper 10G ports.
Toss in a few SFP+ to Base-T and you’re good to go.
Thanks but what 10 Gig Copper transceiver (SFP) part number is compatible for SFP+ to Base-T please? (I love that this switch has zero fans and a nice big heatsink instead)
We’ve used 10Gtek SFP+ to Base-T transceivers as well as HiFiber.
Thank you
I've seen reviewers indicate that this switch will not connect to unify, is feature incomplete and some features just don't work. It's another Unifi product rushed out the door for users to beta-test. I'll look at it again in six months to a year if its still available. Unifi has a nasty habit of rushing products out the door only to have them disappear from the market a year later We have adopted the Mikrotic switch into our primary data centers. The fact they can be layer 3 is important. They also feature complete and much more thoroughly tested with all functions implemented prior to release. . So, for now, I'm filing this. Unifi is not an enterprise-class provider. SMB yes but there are significant risks in adopting their latest products.
All we can say is what we've experienced, and so far this has been a fantastic switch and we have yet to experience issues with it. That being said, we fully agree with you regarding Unifi's current place in the market - it's not for enterprise organizations, but that's not the target market for Ubiquiti's Unifi products. Thanks for the comment!
While it's only $269, when you start adding SPF+ modules at $50 to $150 each, cost goes way up. I considered this, but since I only needed 2 SPF+ ports and modules and will use the aggregation from a Synology 920+ NAS (which only has 2 1GB RJ45 spigots), it made more sense to go with a 16 or 24 port POE switch, which does aggregation on all ports, does 2.5G ethernet, and doesn't require a ton of added costs on the SPF+ modules. The 24 port POE is only $110 more at $379, but it may make more sense since you aren't needing a ton of SPF+ modules if you want to connect RJ45 CAT5/6. Trying to fine a 10G SPF+ network cards that supports Windows 11 is a royal pain. The vast majority of NIC's that support SPF+ modules only support Windows 7/8/10 Professional, not 11.
Spf+ modules are $19 usd...
Mikrotik has the worst administration interface, Mikrotik is a true time machine, the horrible, ugly and bad interface of its Route-OS app was created in the early 90's🤦🤦🤦 But the most ridiculous thing, Mikrotik despite having the same base operating system as Ubiquiti, I'm talking about Linux Debian Base, both share almost 98% of the same libraries, but with the big difference that Mikrotik does charge you license fees and Ubiquiti does NOT ! There are other ecosystems like the garbage from PaloAlto Notworks, WatchGuard, Fortinet, they also use Linux and they all charge License Fees🤦🤦🤦
This guy gets it!
Sorry, but Unifi is the Bose of the networking world. All show and no go.