Opening the switch, we can see a more complex layout than we probably would have expected. An example of this is that you can see airflow being guided through the SFP+ ports.
First, instead of a 40mm 1U fan, we get a blower-style fan. This is just something different that we were not expecting.
Then we have the internal AC to DC power supply.
Here is the switch PCB.
Here we see a Lattice LCMXO2-1200UHC, a Lattice MachXO2 FPGA.
Next, we found a Marvell 88E1512 which is a PHY.
There is Micron NAND.
Here is the Marvell 88X3310 10Gbase-T transceiver.
Nanya supplies the DRAM.
Unfortunately, the heatsink was glued onto the switch chip. Cisco told us they use Marvell Prestera in the C1300 series, but there are different SKUs used.
Next, let us reassemble the switch, power it on, and check the management.
In future network switch reviews, can you include a shot of the power draw when the switch is under full load testing?
I know you do the idle + a single port additional and (math exercise left to the reader). But it might be visually interesting enough to show the switch when it’s wired up for testing, and the power draw during that time.
Interesting Cisco use Marvell parts. I always assumed they designed their own silicon, so interesting to see they use the same parts as MikroTik and others. I had always assumed Marvell was a bit of a budget option since so many lower cost vendors use them but evidently the secret sauce is in the FPGA and firmware rather than the physical port controllers.
Hopefully we’ll start to see more 25G reviews coming, as 10G is getting a bit long in the tooth now.
On the label on the back it says that this switch is stackable. Stacking does have some drawbacks in an enterprise environment (firmware upgrades will typically require the whole stack to reboot at the same time, yielding a network outage), but this is another feature of this switch that most other ‘cheap’ 10Gbit switches don’t offer.
For people who are mislead by Cisco marketing:
This is Cisco SG300/SG350/SG550/CBS250/CBS350 Small Business Switch Series. These do NOT have IOS on them, but a custom linux. The feature set from the Web UI very similar since SG300 times with some more modern design. Works well for some setups, 40+ switch topologies work just fine. Often main drawback: not hardware PTP support in the whole series.
Advantage: no licenses or recurring license fees.
C1200 (ex-CBS250) and C1300 (ex-CBS350) is called Catalyst but is a complete serparate series with different target group than C(atalyst)9200, C(atalyst)9300 and the like..
My entreprise network as mostly D-Link except one FS S3900-48T6S-R, a switch Cisco like this one can handle VLAN in conjunction with D-Link and FS switches ? I know there are issues between D-Link and TP-Link on same network
This one (C1300-12XS) does not have rack ears and there are not mounting points for it.
The bigger C1300-24XS does have rack ears.
I must correct myself.
You can order rack ears for the smaller units such as the C1300-12XS & the C1300-8T-2G.
The part nr is: RCKMNT-CMPCT-1K=
I ordered a few and mounted both types with it in a 19″ rack.