MikroTik CRS418-8P-8G-2S+5axQ2axQ-RM Internal Hardware Overview
Inside, we can see a fairly neat layout. At the back of the switch, we have the power inputs and fans. In front of the switch, we have the switch PCB and the power supplies.
The 250W power supplies are in the front of the chassis. These are not hot-swappable, but a replacement part is available should you need it.
Inside, we also have the fans. Unlike some of MikroTik higher-end switches, these are not hot swappable.
There are four fans inside, all connected via 4-pin PWM headers. We know some readers will think about fan swaps, but these are very quiet in practice thanks to distributing the cooling workload over a larger number of fans. In that respect this is a bit of a premium feature – a larger number of fans will cost marginally more to implement, but the payoff is in acoustics. That is a great trade-off in our book. Also, having more fans means that if one fails, there is still airflow through the chassis.
On the main switch PCB, you can see the WiFi radios. Unlike the non-WiFi model which has empty spots for these, this model has the WiFi hardware populated. You can see the Qualcomm QCN-5024 for 2.4GHz and QCN-5054 for 5GHz WiFi 6 radios. These provide 4×4 MIMO capability on both bands.
Often on these switches, we get only one switch chip plus possibly a few PHY chips. But this specific switch has more going on because of the Qualcomm chip. You can see the Qualcomm IPQ-8072A below the WiFi area. There are visible PCB traces to the WiFi radio area and DRAM packages just off to the side.
Above ports 9-16, we have the PoE+ board. This is a fairly common way to add PoE to switches that we have seen from a number of vendors.
Let us get to the block diagram to see how this is all connected.
