CBS350-24T-4X interconnectivity - Best practices?

[BlueSkyy]

Hi all,

I am a beginner when it comes to managed switches and the CBS350 is my first foray into this arena.  I currently have a home network with my cable modem feeding an ASUS router and a QNAP QSW-1208-8C unmanaged switch followed by several inexpensive Netgear unmanaged switches in the four or five rooms on the house where I have Ethernet drops.  I have a new CBS350-24T-4X that I am going install at the router and feed any remaining switches and/or dedicated Ethernet drops from the CBS350.  The 350 has four (4) 10G fiber ports and I need more of them so I intend to connect the QNAP which is capable of 10GbE via RJ-45 and SFP+ modules as well.

I am wondering if I can install a single RJ-45 copper SFP+ in the CBS350 and connect the CAT6A from that directly into the RJ-45 port on the QNAP or must I have an identical SFP+ module installed in the QNAP for it to work?  Alternatively, I suppose I could get two optical SFP+ modules; one for the CBS and one for the QNAP.

Also, is there anything inherently wrong with the inexpensive Netgear unmanaged switches?

Thank you for your thoughts!

[balaji.bandi]

Both sides of RJ45 should work for QNAP have you tried and you see the issue?

are you looking 10G connection for J45 or 10G with SFP Module?

[BlueSkyy]

10G with: J45 on the QNAP without the SFP and on the CBS350 with the SFP.

[balaji.bandi]

Sure that should work as expected, check the matrix is the model support 10GB copper SFP.

[Karsten Iwen · Accepted solution]

One additional aspect to consider is which ports you need later on the QNAP. If you could run out of copper-ports, then I would connect both switches with a DAC (Direct Attach Cable) on the SFP+ ports. If not, the Copper SFP+ on the CBS side would be a good fit.

[BlueSkyy]

Excellent point and thanks for the advice!  I am amazed at how large my tiny home network has grown!

[BlueSkyy]

Hi Karsten,

I took your advice and got an inexpensive 1m DAC cable (twinax copper) and it works fine.  Much, much less expensive than two Copper SFP+ devices!

[Karsten Iwen]

That's what I also do most of the time if the devices are near by.

[Joseph W. Doherty · Accepted solution]

"Also, is there anything inherently wrong with the inexpensive Netgear unmanaged switches?"

The one issue with inexpensive switches, they often cannot support wire-speed on all their ports, concurrently.  (BTW, many earlier Cisco Enterprise switches couldn't either, e.g. 24 or 48 gig port 3750g.)

Fortunately, this often isn't a problem in most home networks (or, truthfully, many business networks either).