I’m looking at CRS304-4XG-IN to start wading into 10G networking - not that I need it, but it’s nice to be ready in case I ever upgrade my ISP speed package or get into moving large amounts of data around my LAN. It seems the perfect solution for cabling <50m
Can I just install SwitchOS instead of RouterOS? (Maybe this is more a question to determine what the differences are between the two OS choices…help!)
The CRS304-4XG-IN Is anyway NOT among the dual boot devices:
https://mikrotik.com/products/group/switches?filter&s=c&os=[%22dual_boot%22]#!
So if you want to go down that road you need to choose another device model.
There is no reason why you can’t configure your router to act as a switch using RouterOS (I did a couple of years ago to try it out) but you willl need to make all of the configuration changes manually. The main thing is to move eth0 to the bridge and remove the firewall rules, turn off dhcp server, etc so that it only acts as a switch.
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Backups are your friend. Always make a backup!
/system backup save encryption=aes-sha256 name=MyBackup
Please, export and attach your current config to your post if you want help with a config issue:
/export hide-sensitive file=MyConfig/export file=MyConfig
Adding to that comment from jaclaz and tangent:
SWOS or ROS is not going to change anything regarding performance of the device. Main difference is what you can configure and how (hint: it’s a LOT LESS using SWOS).
It can handle around 40Gbps as a switch.
It can handle just under 1Gbps as a router (rule of thumb: 25 filter rules, 512 byte packets).
The device name already hints at it: CRS = Cloud Router Switch which in MT speak means: switch to be placed behind a router.
Yes you can use it as a router but it’s not optimally used then.
yours are consistently the simplest, clearest and best answers, friend. Thank you for enlightening me in in your ways!
More fantastic information - thank you, I’ll wade through and make my own decisions.
I think you missed the word “just” in the subject, or misinterpreted that I want to keep things as simple as possible
It was more a reply to your question:
Can I just install SwitchOS instead of RouterOS?
Let me rephrase the answer:
No, that device can only run RoS and not SwitchOS. Other devices that can dual boot exist.