MS355-48X2 vs MS425-32

[amwjoe]

Hello,

I am looking to upgrade our Datacenter backbone to a 10GB network and am evaluating between MS355-48X2 vs MS425-32 switches. Essentially this is a Layer 2 switch with critical devices behind it. I am currently using all ethernet for my servers so going with the MS425-32 would require me to purchase individual SFPs that support this.

My plan with the MS355-48X2 would be to put my 1GB ethernet devices on the 1GB ports and 10GB ethernet devices on those ports so it's nice to have both on one switch. I don't need the POE features, it's just part of the switch but the advantage is I don't need a SFP to convert each port to ethernet and pricing.

My plan with the MS425-32 would just be to move everything to it with the SFP to convert to ethernet.

My biggest comparison between these 2 switches I can see may come down to performance and that's what I'm looking for some help from the community on. Any big performance differences between these 2 switches? I recall reading something about MS425 having shared buffering and 1ms latency(?). Is this true and what does the MS355-48X3 have in these areas? 

[cmr · Accepted solution]

@amwjoe we use MX355-24X and 48X (not X2) in our datacentres.  They have been very reliable and performant, though we aren't running storage (iSCSI or FCoE) protocols on them.  If your servers have 10Gb RJ-45 sockets on them I would go with the MS355s, but if your servers have SFP+ ports on them then the MS425 with DACs might be a better bet.  I say this as we have had variable results with 10Gb RJ-45 adapters in SFP+ ports on servers.  Sometimes they work like a dream for years, other times they are constantly troublesome, same server models and transceiver models...