I have a CRS317 (idk the numbers, 16x sfp+ and one 1gbe rj45). I’ve had it running SwOS for years with my esxi hosts connected to it. My home network is a router on stick setup and it’s been awesome for ~10 years.

But with all this pfsense plus fees and money garbage, I’m thinking about putting the microtik crs317 into routeros L3 mode so I can buy a netgate box like 1100/2100 (and get pfsense plus with the appliance).

Wondering what people’s real-world experience is with routeros on the crs317 switch? I can currently saturate 10gbe and part of my battery backup and shutdown procedure is based on the timing of those transfers/migrations, etc. so while I don’t need to absolutely keep every bit of 10GbE, I can’t go down to something like 2.5GbE.

Thanks.

I guess if the mikrotik won’t work: Should I buy a router? Should I buy a Cisco sx550x 10gbe switch? Thx.

  • WrongColorPaintOPBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Why are you considering that?

    Because the Netgate appliances I’d need to replace my whitebox appliance are either the 6100 or the 8200. So if I offload most of the routing into a L3 switch, and I can put dhcp somewhere else too, then all I need is a little 1100 or 2100 appliance to just do firewall.

    My current setup has all my switches in L2 mode and all firewall/routing is done in pfsense. If I break out the routing portion (and dhcp) then I don’t need nearly as much hardware for pfsense.