TP-Link TL-SX3008F (Optical based switch) Fast Ethernet query

[Reclused]

** Having read a post by Tech Miner UK I joined this board today anticipating that I would be able to message them direct - apparently not! So what follows is my original message intended for Tech Miner. If anyone else has experience of (or can answer my question) feel free to jump in **

Hello Tech Miner UK

Saw the posting about your travails with a TL-3016F and its fan noise, but what caught my interest was you also have a TL-3800F (I assume you are referring to the TL-SX3008F, if not I am wasting your time)

I would be interested to hear of your experiences with the 3800 and if possible to clarify a particular usage scenario.

To set the scene I have (for some months) been considering updating my home network switches and TP-Link with their Omada management control has piqued my interest. I need to replace between 6/8 switches so the investment will be considerable and I am looking to future proof it as much as possible (ie 2.5Gb or even 10Gb) One particular consideration as regards my home “office” switch is noise and most POE or larger switches seem to come with fan(s) as standard. Obviously these are intended for server rooms/racks.

One of the potential solutions I had identified for my office (like you) was the 8 port passively cooled TL-SX3008F which is fibre based.

For ease of connection I was planning on utilising a combination of Cat 6 (RJ45) based SFP+ and SPF modules. So this potentially would allow me to trunk at 10Gb from other switches, 10Gb to my desktop but at 1Gb for lesser devices (I am aware whilst you can mix/match these modules within switches, they must be like for like at each termination end i.e SFP+ -> SFP incompatible)

However a thought then occurred to me (and this is the particular point, if you have any experience of, I am looking to pick your brain) If I connect a non gigabit device, say a printer running at fast Ethernet, to a RJ45 based 1Gb SPF module on the TL-SX3008F would it auto negotiate down the link connection speed to 100 or is it all or nothing (which I understand to be the case with fibre optic based connections, whereby a 1Gb will only run at 1Gb) ?

I should add that as part of this “upgrade” I am looking to introduce VLAN’s so other options involving non managed switches are out.

Hope I have expressed myself adequately and the above makes sense.

Kind regards

 

[Reclused]

Appreciate might be considered bad form to reply to one’s post, but I have managed to obtain clarification as to the answer to my question via a competitor whom are a large scale retailer of TP-Link products and thought it might be of interest to anyone coming across this thread.

Basically the TP-Link TL-SM5310-T 10-Gigabit 10GBASE-T SFP+ (RJ45 connection) will auto negotiate down to 10G, 1G and 100Mb.

Whereas the TP-Link TL-SM331T Gigabit 1000BASE-T SFP (RJ45) runs purely at 1G (shame it doesn’t drop to 100Mb as its considerably cheaper)

As regards fibre connected SPF & SPF+ I am advised by Jon that they only run at the speed of the module and have to be matched pairs in terms of speed

 

[TechMinerUK]

Hey, I didn't see this post, but for the TL-SX3008F (I did mean that but typos caught me again!)

So, unfortunately I can't comment regarding if the switch will negotiate down to 100 Mbit/s as I've only tested it with SFP fibre modules from HP, SFP+ DAC modules and an SFP copper module running at 1 Gbit/s and 10 Gbit/s

What I can say is that it doesn't auto negotiate, I had to manually connect via serial initially to set a single port to run at gigabit ethernet speeds so that I could then get on the web GUI and do the rest, it will auto negotiate 10 Gbit/s but not lower.

That being said, many have advised that upgrading the firmware on the switch does sort this but I haven't found that to be the case, infact it seemed to not allow me to connect at all after the firmware upgrade so I've rolled it back.

The switch does have options inside the CLI to run at fast ethernet speed so logically I can't see why it wouldn't work, if you can wait I have a FE printer so I can try that on the gigabit copper to see if it works later this week.

In terms of the rest of the switch, its a cracking little unit considering it is fanless, I certainly wouldn't run it in the Omada admin center as whilst it seems to be attempting to replicate UniFi's controller it is definitely lacking and a lot of the best features about the switch and it's management are missing or are just generally worse in Omada (I found it had issues with SNMP usernames and passwords as well as VLAN tagging being a nightmare in Omada compared to directly on the switch)