MikroTik's $1,100 400GbE Switch: 1.6Tbps in a Desktop Box
Cheap Desktop 400GbE Switch MikroTik CRS804-4DDQ-HRM Review
ServeTheHome reviews the MikroTik CRS804-4DDQ-hRM, a half-width desktop switch with four QSFP56-DD ports delivering 1.6Tbps of switching capacity. Priced around $1,100, it costs under $0.70 per Gbps, making it an affordable entry into 400GbE networking. The review covers hardware details, including redundant power supplies, hot-swappable fans, and port-splitting options, based on months of use in an RDMA backend for an 8x NVIDIA GB10 cluster.
While $1100 is not a low number, on a $/Gbps basis, this is actually really cheap for a new switch.
- wrs
I haven’t been directly involved in networking for a while, so it was funny to tune back in and see that now not only is 10Gbps apparently no big deal, they even put it on the management interface!
- nubinetwork
> The exciting part of this is that there are four 400GbE QSFP56-DD ports for a total of 1.6Tbps of network bandwidth.
That I can't break down to 10gbit or 1gbit without another switch...
> The list price is $1295, but these often sell at a street price of $1100 or so, making this under $0.70/Gbps
It doesn't work that way...
I like mikrotik, but who is this switch really made for?
- iso1631
I'd really like them to take one or two of those 400G ports and split them into internal port splitters to generate a 32x10/25g switch with 400g uplinks for $2k. They do a 8x50G one (crs812_ddq)
Ultimately this is a Marvell 98dx7335 with a mikrotik management interface on the top. Most switches you tend to encounter use Broadcom chipsets rather than Marvell.
Setting aside what features routeros exposes, This chip seems to be somewhere between a Trident 3 and Trident 4 in capability (hardware support for things like evpn/vxlan, q-in-q, mpls, macsec etc)
Last mikrotik switch I tried only supported PTP Transparent clock, this chip does do boundary clock, but I don't think it's implemented through the linux layer let alone exposed via the RouterOS layer.
I think the chip is mainly aimed at service providers, which fits in well with mikrotik's main customer base (ISPs)
- iso1631
> While $1100 is not a low number
It really is when you're talking 400G.
OK there's very few ports on this, but in general if you're looking at 400g interfaces. $1100 won't even get you a genuine Arista 400G passive DAC.
- avidiax
Is there an actual use for this in a homelab? Isn't 25gbps enough that no SSD will saturate it?