When you work for a big corp and someone asks you to have a conversation like this where there is no upside for you, one of the best things you can do is copy the lawyers in and nope out of there as soon as you can.
I'm a "big tagger", and I have no problem with it. I don't control the type of traffic going through it, though; from my understanding, TCP/UDP wouldn't make much of a difference?
Well, what can I say, fails for me in this scenario. Maybe the NICs on the other end matter too, but I experienced same issues on 4 different desktops with both 2.5gbit Realteks and 10gbit AQtions.
All the Flex swithes I tried glitched: USW-Flex-Mini, USW-Flex-2.5G-5 (frame drops and interface going down for several seconds) and (to lesser extent, just frame drops) USW-Flex.
Have no idea why but I observed that more under UDP loads.
We used the 1GbE version in an outdoor setting to easily connect multiple sensors in a port within a research project. Good reliability and being able to extend and "split" the ethernet connection without additional power supplies was very convenient.
We did not integrate them into a UniFi ecosystem, just used the PoE and dumb-switch functionality.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but still fun to see that they’re apparently using an ESP32 as management processor (without antenna, probably just RMII directly to the switch ASIC)
Edit: there’s a RTL8201 10/100 PHY to the left of the switch asic, that connects the ESP to one of the switch ports.
huh i never noticed it. interesting to see, especially because everytime esp32 is brought up the opinion is that they're not fir for production scale units/quantities.
so it's the one managing the ubiquiti specific features, and controlling the switch chip?
For home use I have got a bunch of very cheap ($20 each?) 2.5gbit switches with 4x 2.5gbit and 2x10gbit SPF+ off aliexpress. I've ran fibre round my house and it works perfectly.
With the upcoming Realtek RTL8127 based products I would rather jump to 10G straight. Sadly there isn't much competition in that switch segment, I couldn't find reasonable products besides maybe Mikrotik CRS304-4XG-IN.
It is managed by ESP32, so it is going to be something very minimalistic on level of FreeRTOS instead of big Linux distro.
Which means that if you know how to program ESP32 and setup the RTL8372 switch you can have massive flexibility with it. If you don't, then you are stuck with whatever Ubiquiti firmware is being run by this switch.
Bought a few of these to extend my hardware coverage around the house. The PoE slot works nice to stick it in a small access panel. Performance is good. Overall good and affordable piece of equipment.
Ubiquiti copies in a lawyer for what reason now? Reviewing a bought product. That is absolutely BS behavior.
When you work for a big corp and someone asks you to have a conversation like this where there is no upside for you, one of the best things you can do is copy the lawyers in and nope out of there as soon as you can.
From my experience, these cheapo Unifi switches from Flex series are bad.
They heavily drop frames under even moderate loads (well under 2gbit). If you turn on vlan tagging, they won't hanlde more than 0.1gbit.
They work well if you need to connect a bunch of slow iot devices. Don't dare connecting them to a desktop.
The Ultra series of utility switches is rock solid though.
That’s not been my experience. My flex has been rock solid and it’s outside.
Try to tag a vlan on a port and pass some heavy udp traffic through it.
I'm a "big tagger", and I have no problem with it. I don't control the type of traffic going through it, though; from my understanding, TCP/UDP wouldn't make much of a difference?
Well, what can I say, fails for me in this scenario. Maybe the NICs on the other end matter too, but I experienced same issues on 4 different desktops with both 2.5gbit Realteks and 10gbit AQtions.
All the Flex swithes I tried glitched: USW-Flex-Mini, USW-Flex-2.5G-5 (frame drops and interface going down for several seconds) and (to lesser extent, just frame drops) USW-Flex.
Have no idea why but I observed that more under UDP loads.
Same, works great on my end, not seeing any poor experience like this.
We used the 1GbE version in an outdoor setting to easily connect multiple sensors in a port within a research project. Good reliability and being able to extend and "split" the ethernet connection without additional power supplies was very convenient.
We did not integrate them into a UniFi ecosystem, just used the PoE and dumb-switch functionality.
Similarly I've had a 1GbE one installed in my loft for the last 3 years with 4×G5 Bullets plugged into it.
No problems, no fuss, mounting options are great - would recommend that approach to anyone installing cameras.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but still fun to see that they’re apparently using an ESP32 as management processor (without antenna, probably just RMII directly to the switch ASIC)
Edit: there’s a RTL8201 10/100 PHY to the left of the switch asic, that connects the ESP to one of the switch ports.
huh i never noticed it. interesting to see, especially because everytime esp32 is brought up the opinion is that they're not fir for production scale units/quantities.
so it's the one managing the ubiquiti specific features, and controlling the switch chip?
For home use I have got a bunch of very cheap ($20 each?) 2.5gbit switches with 4x 2.5gbit and 2x10gbit SPF+ off aliexpress. I've ran fibre round my house and it works perfectly.
can you split the fiber or so you need one switch on every end of each fiber cable?
With the upcoming Realtek RTL8127 based products I would rather jump to 10G straight. Sadly there isn't much competition in that switch segment, I couldn't find reasonable products besides maybe Mikrotik CRS304-4XG-IN.
Depending on cables and length I dont think every home could switch to 10Gbps. With 2.5 and 5Gbps it is much better and Realtek RTL8126 support 5Gbps.
Cat6 is a 23 year old standard, and a lot of people just connect to a NAS next room.
I have Zyxel XGS1250-12 which at least has a few 10G ports.
Can't find RAM and CPU specs for RTL8372N. Would be interesting to flash OpenWRT onto it.
It is managed by ESP32, so it is going to be something very minimalistic on level of FreeRTOS instead of big Linux distro.
Which means that if you know how to program ESP32 and setup the RTL8372 switch you can have massive flexibility with it. If you don't, then you are stuck with whatever Ubiquiti firmware is being run by this switch.
It's just an ASIC switch, not a SoC.
its basically AISC plus microcontroller - https://svanheule.net/switches/rtl8370
Is there anything comparable in the TP-Link Omada ecosystem?
lots of low end switches use RTL837x series as basis nowadays
Bought a few of these to extend my hardware coverage around the house. The PoE slot works nice to stick it in a small access panel. Performance is good. Overall good and affordable piece of equipment.