Truely fanless 10Gb switch with routerOS + hardware accceleration [Fixed]

In that case, my fanless setup is:

CRS309 (8 x SFP+, 1 x GbE RJ45)
CSS610 (2 x SFP+, 8 x GbE RJ45)

Connected via a single SFP+ ↔ SFP+ connection. One could use a SFP+ DAC instead.

If more fanless RJ45 ports are wanted, the CSS610 can be replaced with either the CSS326-2S+ or either CRS326-2S+ variant.

If fewer SFP+ ports are wanted, one could just use the CSS610, CSS326-2S+, or CRS326-2S+. Each comes with 2 SFP+ ports, after all. One could also downgrade the CRS309 to a CRS305 (4 x SFP+, 1 x GbE RJ45)..

All of the suggested switches here are completely fanless. There are other Mikrotik fanless switches with SFP+, but I only suggested the ones that I feel are most relevant.
RouterOS Switches:
CRS309 (8 x SFP+, 1 x GbE RJ45)
CRS305 (4 x SFP+, 1 x GbE RJ45)
CRS326-24G-2S+ (2 x SFP+, 24 x GbE RJ45), -RM and -IN are the rackmount and desktop versions, respectively

SwitchOS Switch:
CSS326-24G-2S+ (2 x SFP+, 24 x GbE RJ45)

SwitchOS Lite Switch:
CSS610 (2 x SFP+, 8 x GbE RJ45)

To describe the situation, the switch is running with:

  • 2 S+RJ10 (10Gbit/s copper)
  • 8 S-RJ01 (1Gbit/s copper)
  • 2 SFP+ fiber modules

All are very cool around 30°C, except the 2 S+RJ10 10gbit/s, which are 70°C.
The S-RJ01 are not reporting any temperature, but are very cool.

So the sole reason why the fans are spinning at 7500RPM is the 10Gb/s copper.
This is insane.

Is there a way to fix this?
If there is no solution I will buy a CRS309-1G-8S and link it to a 1GB switch.

I purchased a CRS309-1G-8S, end of the story.

I will link it to a fanless L2/L3 switch with 2 SFP fiber connectors (LACP link aggregation).
Should work like a charm …

Thank you all for your comments.

CRS309 + CRS326 (-PC) here. Both fanless and you have 10Gb SFP+ interfaces… you can do LACP also.

It seems that all 10Gbps RJ45 SFPs consume relatively a lot of energy and thus run pretty hot. And they still have to remain under certain temperature threshold. For optical SFPs maximum environmental temperature is around 70°C, industrial temperature rating increases that to 80°C. And by environnent temperature it’s the SFP casing because that’s the environment to which SFP dissipates energy. So it’s only the right thing that switch/router tries to keep SFP case temperature below 70°C. In case of fanless designs, cooling of SFP+ RJ modules can be inadequate and can overheat and consequently malfunction.

We can agree that it would probably be possible to improve cooling of SFP cases with some advanced temperature engineering … but MT did what they did and we’ll have to live with that.

That said it seems that it’s only possible to have truly silent 10Gbps switch if ports are RJ45 and not SFP … because MII chips can be directly coupled with massive heat sinks … the closest Mikrotik offering is CRS312-4C+8XG-RM with 8x to 12x 10Gbps RJ45 (4 ports are combo RJ45 / SFP+). Doesn’t seem to be fanless design though. If you need silent operations, then generally your only alternative is to settle for 1Gbps connections.

Thank you for clarification.

In our datacenters we run dac cables to save energy instead of rj45 plugs that consumes a lot of power. Passive dacs use less than 0.15 watts. Singlemode short range uses around 1 watt and rj45 10gbe uses up 5 watts.

Thanks for clarification.

I purchased a MikroTik CRS326-24G-2S+in and a MikroTik CRS309-1G-8S+in linked with 10Gb fiber.
Tomorrow, I will ship back all other routers.

First of all, many thanks for your help (I could not make it alone).

I can report that the MikroTik CRS309-1G-8S+in is now operating fanless.
I guess “+in” in product name means home use but it is also rackable.

I returned all other hardware (and saved quit a bunch of money).
i will also sell my Mikrotik crs312-4c-8xg-rm on the second hand market.

The only issue is that the 10Gb copper SFP+ modules are getting hot, around 92°C.
The DAC cable runs very cool but does not report any temperature.
The fiber SFP+ are around 40°C.

The switch CPU is only 30°C in operation.

To describe my needs, I live in a building made of concrete and WIFI is very bad.
So I connect with copper wires and this makes a lot of wires which I will replace with fiber.

Copper wires are too thick and only fiber can coexist with electric wires.
On the long run, I plan to remove all copper.

KInd regards,
FF

IN stands for indoor enclosure …
https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ROS/Product+Naming

+IN replaces the old +PC label, but I thought the CRS326 +IN lacked rackmount ears?

I don’t use the IN version, but according to the products page no ears are included. https://mikrotik.com/product/crs326_24g_2s_in#fndtn-specifications
And i don’t think that rack mount ears can be placed in that model…

Thanks a lot for all the information.

I purchased the two fanless switches and sold the other.
My home room is now completely silent.
I use two passive DAC to link them with LACP.

The only issue is that sometimes the 10Gb copper connector goes beyond 92° and gets disconnected.
So I am planning to replace it with fiber or DAC only.