CRS226-24G-2S+RM performance as a switch

RouterOS Beginner Basics
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I get that the CRS226-24G-2S+RM hardware is focused at being a switch and not being a router. I enjoy the device for my home network, low power and decent speed.

However, I plugged the switch into my home lab and did some simple baselines as a switch against a very old Dell PowerConnect 5324 that is serving as switch in my lab.

  1. Simple pings were much slower on the CRS226, roughly 3x more latent than the 5324. I’ve include rough observations of ping times below. As you can see the CRS226 is much slower.
    CRS226 ~ .3 ms
    5324 ~ .07 ms

  2. I then tested ISCSI with an MTU of 9000. The CRS226 was 3x slower than the ancient 5324. Yes, I realize a test of standard MTU would be nice too. I didn’t feel like changing all the settings on the ISCSI infrastructure.

CRS226 tested regularly at 6837 read IOPS and 2256 write IOPS. CPU max at 12% so it does not appear that workload was being pushed out of the switching chip to the chip that handles bridging/routing.

5324 tested regularly at 21446 read IOPS and 7175 write IOPS


Am I doing something wrong with the CRS226? Is it really this slow compared to ancient switches like the 5324 that can be bought from ebay for under $50?