Mikrotik CRS310-8G 2S in: L3 Smart Switch Géré 2.5G Ethernet (100/1000/2500) Connexion Ethernet, Support

I was a bit worried after reading other reviews about purchasing this, but the specs are fantastic for my home lab as we migrate from an old Mikrotik RB2011iL-IN. The fan IS loud, and it's intentionally loud, and it also only runs audibly for ~30 seconds when it's first power-cycled (software reboot doesn't trigger it); the fan runs extremely fast to give a hard push to any dust which might be inside the router, it slowly ramps down in speed, and then it's done. -So long as you aren't over-restricting its environmental airflow or pushing it to its limit 24/7, you're never going to hear it until you have a power outage or otherwise power-cycle the device. I have it running in a rack in my bedroom, and it's essentially inaudible in normal operation. Old router was stuck on 6.X version of RouterOS, while this ships with 7.16 (or .14; I forget) and can be upgraded to latest version without issue. Note this substantially changes the GUI and also overhauls a lot on the backend, so in my case, I did have to manually redo a lot of my setup and it took a half-hour or so trying to understand the changes between RouterOS 6.X and 7.X. I use MikroTik exclusively for my most insular servers, everything I want very tight control over. It's a great brand from the baltics, very NATO-aligned, and the support team's great; the whole company sees their products as much more than electronic slop to shovel onto a boat. Note the default password's on a sticker on the "user manual" (which is, excepting the sticker, printed in such small font as to be a joke; but that's fine, you want the online documentation anyway).

These are nice switches, and are working very well for me. 10G fiber and 2.5G copper without breaking the bank. The RouterOS on them is quite full featured for such a device as well, with several options for how you want to manage it. I like being able to manage it over a webui, but also being able to manage and monitor it via a full featured ssh environment. They handle everything from 10G fiber down to 10Mbit half duplex with no fuss. The LEDs on these things are BRIGHT! The single fan can get loud, but under normal operation is tends to stay throttled down pretty well.

This switch has a pretty steep learning curve but will reward your time and effort. It can do wire speed L3 once configured and even some limited local routing. It’s not a router though, more of a small aggregation switch. I use it to attach my 2.5gbps devices to a 10gb backbone that goes into a router/firewall setup. It is loud with stock fan in swOS but routerOS is much quieter. I replaced the fan with a noctua and now it’s virtually silent. This is a perfect router for people who are looking to step up their homelab setup from a basic one or two switch setup to something slightly faster/larger. I think it’s important to set an expectation for the capability of the device beyond a homelab setup as it is complex to configure and will require time to learn, some customers looking for a plug and play solution will want to look elsewhere. TLDR: GOATed device for small/medium homelab and people who like to learn/tinker. Crazy feature set for the price. Not as plug and play as other options.

I got this swicth because I was running out of ports in my TRENDnet switch. I needed a swicth with vlan support, 2.5 Gigabits and able to boot fast. To get fast boot, I installed, and currently using, MikroTik SWOS. On this mode the switch becomes a fast and simple L2 switch. I added 3 vlans, conected the trunk and I was ready to go. With SWOS the fan was there, remainding you that it was working, so I replaced it for a Noctua NH-L9x65. Now, an already awesome device, became better.

This would be a 5 star unit, if it weren't for the fact that it has a fan and a terrible one, as far as noise is concerned. I was warned of that by various reviews on the web and ordered a quieter fan from Noctua ( Noctua NF-A4x20 PWM, Premium Quiet Fan, 4-Pin (40x20mm, Brown) ) to replace the stock fan. I also had to order some different screws (and nuts/washers) to mount the Noctua fan. Like all devices of the Mikrotik CRS series, this unit comes with both RouterOS and SwitchOS. (The CSS series' units only come with SwitchOS.) Mine shipped with SwitchOS 2.16, which had some problems with the SFP+ ports, so I requested a newer version from support, who within one day provided me with version 2.17RC2. That version worked without a problem. If the unit ships with SwitchOS 2.17 or later, that problem should be gone. While I would have liked to use SwitchOS (since it's a bit easier to navigate than RouterOS), the fan settings are minimal to nonexistent, so I switched to RouterOS, which allows for a setting of the default fan speed and a ramp-up temperature. As you can tell, there was quite a bit of trouble initially, but now it works quietly and flawlessly. However I still can't understand why Mikrotik just didn't spend 10$ more on a decent quiet fan and charge more for the unit. This would have made the product so much more appealing. So I'm deducting one star for that nuisance. So if you can do the fan swap yourself, then this is a 4-star unit. If you can't (or are not willing to) do that, then this might only be a 2 - 3 star unit and you shouldn't have it in your living or working area.

The noise level complaints in the reviews have to come from people that are not allowing proper air flow. The fan on mine doesn't even turn on while this is sitting between a firewall and another switch on a network rack in a 68 degree Fahrenheit room, but yes, the fan is very loud and very annoying when it does turn on. I had to use netinstall to wipe and reconfigure my switch just to get it working, which means the instructions and password that came with the pamphlet are totally useless, they may as well say to get this working, install netinstall and wipe it first... Other then that no complaints. AND IT COMES WITH MOUNTING EQUIPMENT, I wasted some filament preemptively printing mounting brackets but it comes with a kit for a 19inch rack. 5 stars, thanks!

I'm really enjoying these devices. It's my first taste of Mikrotik and after getting the first one of these I came back and bought a second one. Great for getting 10gb to my homelab as well as letting me make better use of the 2 runs from my basement to second story to get 5gb with a bonded pair. RouterOS is a bit of a head scratcher at first but there is a lot of good content online as well as in their documentation. So far after using one switch for a month and adding in a second one this week I would say these are a good value to add speed to your network.

I have two other. Mikrotik switches that are fine. This is a brick after about one week and attempting to run SWos. Winbox, netinstall, serial all failing. Can't get a single port to light up. Not alone in this I've learned. Don't see myself going any further into the Mikrotik ecosystem after this. What a dud. Mikrotik UI is trash for me.