How to Buy Right 48 Port 10GBASE-T Switch?

For recent years, the advent of 10Gbase-t copper solutions has seen growing adoption. Compared to fiber optics, copper has made great advances in latency and power consumption. 10Gbase-t is thus becoming more popular in network switches and servers. If you have not got any 10G switches, you should get 10Gbase-t switches, such as 12 port, 24 port, or 48 port 10gbase-t switches which are cost-effective 10g sfp+ copper switches for data centers. This post mainly talks about 48 port 10gbase-t switch.

Why You Need 48 Port 10gbase-t Switch?

Like other BASE-T technologies, 10gbase-t uses the standard RJ45 Ethernet jack. 10gbase-t is backward compatible, auto-negotiating between higher and lower speeds, thereby not forcing an all-at-once network equipment upgrade. It means that the 10G copper connections can also work with 1 Gigabit Ethernet devices without requiring any expensive hardware replacements. The ability to autonegotiate between 1 and 10 gigabit speeds allows 10gbase-t server upgrades to occur on an evolutionary, as-needed basis. Cat5/Cat5e are supported for 10 Gigabit speeds up to 100 meters.

48 port 10gbase-t switches help to resolve the congestion issue between network edge and core, which is caused by the broader adoption of Gigabit-to-the-desktop. The utilizing of 48 port 10gbase-t switch provides more design flexibility and it can be used at the center of a small business network or as an aggregation/access switch in a larger organization. 48 port 10gbase-t switch is ideal for expanding network capacity, removing performance bottlenecks and support of premise expansion needs. In simply put, deploying 48 port 10gbase-t switch can be less expensive to install and maintain while meeting the requirements of most short-distance connections within a data center.

What to Consider When Buying 48 Port 10gbase-t Switch?

Once there is a need for 48 port 10gbase-t switch, you shall buy the right switch from multiple vendors on the market? Which should you buy? What to consider when buying 48 port 10gbase-t switch? Here would give some guidelines by providing a comparison among three 10gbase-t switches 48 port from different vendors—Cisco (Cisco SG550XG-48T), NETGEAR (NETGEAR XS748T-100NES) and FS (FS S5850-48T4Q).

 

Model	Cisco SG550XG-48T	NETGEAR XS748T-100NES	FS S5850-48T4Q
Ports	48x10 Gigabit Ethernet 10GBase-T copper port; 2x 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ (combo with 2 copper ports); 1x Gigabit Ethernet management port	44x10 Gigabit Ethernet 10GBase-T copper port; 4x10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+	48x 10 Gigabit Ethernet 10GBase-T copper port; 4x40 Gigabit Ethernet QSFP+; Management and Console Ports (RJ45)
Switching capacity	960 Gbps	960 Gbps	1.28Tbps
Forwarding performance	714.24 Mpps	714.2 Mpps	952.32Mpps
Packet Buffer	4 MB	3MB	9MB

From the table, we can see that they have different features and capabilities. In comparison, the third one FS 10gbase-t switch 48 port has the best switching performance. This 48 port 10gbase-t switch is built with 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, giving you the speed you need to share information quickly. Moreover, it supports low-latency, line-rate 10g copper base-t technology with backward compatibility to Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet. The 48 port 10gbase-t switch is also able to cost-effectively migrate current network to 10G capacity by utilizing the existing cat6 RJ45 short connections up to 30 meters and cat6a/cat7 connections up to 100 meters. In short, the 10gbase-t switch 48 port can deliver substantial productivity gains today and help future-proof your network for the demanding applications of tomorrow. Furthermore, it’s simple to manage and can get the fast data speeds, nonstop availability, and advanced security you need in LAN. Generally speaking, when buying such high-performance 48 port 10gbase-t switch, you should pay attention to the following aspects.

Port Density & Speed

When buying a 48 port 10gbase-t switch, you should also pay attention to other speed of ports besides the 48x 10 Gigabit Ethernet 10gbase-t copper port. Typically, the 48 port 10gbase-t switches also come with 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ ports or 40 Gigabit Ethernet QSFP+ ports. With different vendors, the port numbers vary. There are 48x10gbase-t + 4x40g qsfp+, and 48x10gbase-t + 6x40g qsfp+ in the market, or network switches with 48x10gbase-t + 2x10g sfp+ are also available. Normally, with too few ports and not enough capacity will prove ineffective and one that is too large can be a waste of money. It is prudent to have an extra port or two available for future demand. The 48 port 10gbase-t switch with four qsfp+ ports can meet next generation Metro, Data Center and Enterprise network requirements.

Power and Latency

Advancements have allowed switch vendors to significantly lower power consumption on 10gbase-t switch ports. While early versions of 10gbase-t switches required up to 12 Watts per port, switch vendors now offer a range of 1.5 to 4 W per port depending on distance. The FS 48 port 10gbase-t switch has rather low power consumption and low latency and remains relatively flat across all packet sizes.

Cost per Port

As power consumption has dropped, 10gbase-t switch prices have also dropped with per-port prices at less than $350. Take FS 48 port 10gbase-t switch as an example, its price is $4599 with 48x10gbase-t ports and 4x40 gigabit qsfp+ ports. So the cost per port would definitely be less than $350.

Conclusion

The 48 port 10gbase-t switch presents the right solution for extending beyond simple reliability to higher speed and performance while delivering unprecedented non-blocking 10 gigabit bandwidth at an affordable cost. When buying the 10gbase-t switch 48 port, make a network plan first and take into consideration what has mentioned above. If you are not aware of which 48 port 10gbase-t switch to buy, FS would be a good place to consult, who can help to make network planning by your requirements and recommend the suitable network switches.