Verifying that new HeX Refresh (en7562ct chip) can do bridge vlan-filtering (HW Offload) on all 5 ports.

[bcbigb]

I have two questions:

1. Can the EN7562CT chip do bridge VLAN-filtering?
   The three resources for this do not agree:

• https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/spaces/ROS/pages/15302988/Switch+Chip+Features → Claims YES, but superscript “3” only confirms “7.1rc1 (for RTL8367) and 7.1rc5 (for MT7621)”, NOT this chip.
• https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/spaces/ROS/pages/328068/Bridging+and+Switching#BridgingandSwitching-BridgeVLANFiltering → Does NOT mention this chip at all in the list under “Bridge VLAN Filtering” section.
• https://mikrotik.com/download/changelogs → Development release tree – 7.1rc1 does NOT mention this chip, unlike what is claimed by the first link’s superscript. The chip (nor “hex refresh”) is also not mentioned in ANY of the four release trees except for IPSEC hardware offload/acceleration.

So I’m thinking it is unlikely it supports Bridge VLAN filtering. Can I please get an official answer?


2) Can the EN7562CT switch (and do VLAN-Filtering) on all 5 ports? In other words, can it act as a wirespeed 5-port switch without using the CPU?

• The block diagram suggests it can’t. https://cdn.mikrotik.com/web-assets/product_files/E50UG_241016.png, but given the 750Gr3 https://mikrotik.com/product/RB750Gr3#fndtn-downloads had separate block diagrams for “with switching” and “without switching” it makes me wonder if the same is true for the HeX Refresh but they were not posted as such.
  
  
  Thanks!

[gabacho4]

Given that ether1 is not connected to the switch chip you won’t be able to get line rate switching if you use it as part of the bridge. That traffic will have to traverse the CPU.

[CGGXANNX]

The switch chip inside the EN7562CT is the same switch chip as in the MT7621 of the old hEX. Earlier version of RouterOS even reported the switch chip as MT7621, see:

http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/datasheet-for-new-improved-hex/179509/65

So, it has exactly the same feature switch-wise as the switch chip in the old hEX. The different is that ether1 is connected to the CPU, and the switch chip only manages the 4 other ports. Which means you cannot have HW Offload on all 5 ports.

In this post http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/hex-refresh-e50ug-router-for-gigabit-internet/180511/1 @holvoetn has done switching benchmarks with VLAN filtering with the four ether2-ether5 ports and the results seem to confirm hardware offload working with Bridge VLAN Filtering (“Hex wasn’t even sweating”). But when he used ether1 as switch port in the bridge with VLAN filtering then performance dropped to 363 Mbps average. Understandable because ether1 is connected to the CPU and has no hardware offload.

[bcbigb]

Given that ether1 is not connected to the switch chip you won’t be able to get line rate switching if you use it as part of the bridge. That traffic will have to traverse the CPU.

Yeah I was hoping there might be a chance the block diagram was incomplete, particularly as it doesn’t show any info on the connection between the switch and the CPU, OR had a missing pair (again, like the RB750Gr3 I mentioned) with an alternate “all-ports-switched” type of setup.

[bcbigb]

The reason I asked about switching all ports is because it’s very nice to have the option of turning a 5-port device into a “dumb” VLAN-supporting switch when needed, rather than having something that only runs at wirespeed on 4 ports and can never be fully reused as a managed switch when it’s replaced.

[mkx]

The reason I asked about switching all ports is because it’s very nice to have the option of turning a 5-port device into a “dumb” VLAN-supporting switch when needed, rather than having something that only runs at wirespeed on 4 ports and can never be fully reused as a managed switch when it’s replaced.

We’ve already determined that hEX refresh is a decent 4-port switch with one OOB management port.

[CGGXANNX]

MikroTik must have read your opening post because they just updated the documentation a few hours ago:

https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/pages/diffpagesbyversion.action?pageId=15302988&selectedPageVersions=86&selectedPageVersions=85
https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/pages/diffpagesbyversion.action?pageId=103841826&selectedPageVersions=11&selectedPageVersions=10
https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/pages/diffpagesbyversion.action?pageId=328068&selectedPageVersions=131&selectedPageVersions=130