Ubiquiti - ES vs US switches

[Chaniel]

Hello,

 

Looking at buying some new switches and following recommendations in previous threads, am probably going to look at getting some ubiquiti switches to see how they are (I'd usually would go with HPE Aruba).

 

One question - what are people using in their schools, the UniFi range (US-48-500W) or EdgeSwitch range (ES-48-500W)?

 

From what I understand, UniFi range is managed via a controller and is L2 only, EdgeSwitches are web/CLI managed and have L3 capabilities (not really required tbh).

 

Thanks

[lmgtfy]

I'm sticking with HPE Aruba wherever possible due to their lifetime warranty, I'm not sure what the Ubiquiti warranty is like but I'm sure its not lifetime. The newer 1930 POE switches 48 ports are not badly priced at around £500 https://www.ebuyer.com/983065-hpe-aruba-instant-on-1930-48g-class4-poe-4sfp-sfp-370w-switch-jl686a

[Primus]

I'm sticking with HPE Aruba wherever possible due to their lifetime warranty, I'm not sure what the Ubiquiti warranty is like but I'm sure its not lifetime. The newer 1930 POE switches 48 ports are not badly priced at around £500 https://www.ebuyer.com/983065-hpe-aruba-instant-on-1930-48g-class4-poe-4sfp-sfp-370w-switch-jl686a

 

On the flip side, the Unifi switches are way way cheaper so you can afford to have quite a few cold spares sitting ready and still save a fortune.

 

We use the Unifi switches everywhere but the core and they've been brilliant. Easy to manage, reliable and very cost effective.

[caffrey]

Any gotchas with the Instant On stuff ?

 

There is some very basic L3 stuff with the Unifi Pro switches I think, I do all my routing on a usg but it's not really intended as a layer 3 switch so everything is done via cli

[lmgtfy]

No the Instant On Stuff I don't use, I just use as a traditional switch. Prices very comparable to the Ubiquity switches.

[Davit2005]

Hello,

 

Looking at buying some new switches and following recommendations in previous threads, am probably going to look at getting some ubiquiti switches to see how they are (I'd usually would go with HPE Aruba).

 

One question - what are people using in their schools, the UniFi range (US-48-500W) or EdgeSwitch range (ES-48-500W)?

 

From what I understand, UniFi range is managed via a controller and is L2 only, EdgeSwitches are web/CLI managed and have L3 capabilities (not really required tbh).

 

Thanks

 

I have had both Edge/Edge Lite switches and Unifi switches at home before now and yes the ES-* are (Web/CLI) vs the US-* controller based (maybe there is way to access the CLI on US-*). There is a management software available that can do things like backup the Edgeswitches (was a few years back so may of gained some extra capabilities).

 

One thing also to bear in mind that with the US-* switches I don't think there is any out-of-band management but it is swings and roundabouts really and also may be an easier decision if you have the Unifi wireless as well as the management/visibility will be all there in one place.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Davit2005

[Chris_Cook]

We're loving the unifi stuff. We've got 37 switches across 3 schools.

 

Its simple, centralised, low cost and does what we want. Not problems with reliability so far. Over the years, we've had quite a few 3com/HP switches develop faults, although HP have taken care of all the ones we've reported. Even a fairly old 3com switch got replaced.

 

The little 5 port POE-powered poe switch was really helpful when doing a cctv project last year. Perfect for putting cameras in areas where there is limited cabling/power sockets and running new is time consuming.

 

The 10Gb options on the 48 port switches are also great and really well priced.

 

For core switches and routing, we had HP switches in place so haven't replaced them yet.

[Davit2005]

We're loving the unifi stuff. We've got 37 switches across 3 schools.

 

Its simple, centralised, low cost and does what we want. Not problems with reliability so far. Over the years, we've had quite a few 3com/HP switches develop faults, although HP have taken care of all the ones we've reported. Even a fairly old 3com switch got replaced.

 

The little 5 port POE-powered poe switch was really helpful when doing a cctv project last year. Perfect for putting cameras in areas where there is limited cabling/power sockets and running new is time consuming.

 

The 10Gb options on the 48 port switches are also great and really well priced.

 

For core switches and routing, we had HP switches in place so haven't replaced them yet.

 

Yeah if Ubiquiti could bring out some more features like for stacking (logical switch stacking not just management) and maybe some other features like IPv6 routing and dynamic routing protocols that would be interesting, alas it would push up the price.

 

At the moment I have some Aruba 2930f's as core at home and with the 4 SFP+ ports on the 24/48port models 2 of ports being used for VSF stacking it leaves only 2 SFP+ ports free. So as I have 2 of them I have bought 2 MikroTik CRS 10Gb switches to act as aggregation switches for my VM Hosts, 10Gb Storage and video editing PC, these 2 MikroTik switches are then connected to each 2930f in a trunk with the storage and the VM hosts/storage split between the 2 MikroTiks. Over kill for a home network or what, lol, but it has given me plenty to do thru the lockdown.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Davit2005

[Michael]

Yeah if Ubiquiti could bring out some more features like for stacking (logical switch stacking not just management) and maybe some other features like IPv6 routing and dynamic routing protocols that would be interesting, alas it would push up the price.

 

At the moment I have some Aruba 2930f's as core at home and with the 4 SFP+ ports on the 24/48port models 2 of ports being used for VSF stacking it leaves only 2 SFP+ ports free. So as I have 2 of them I have bought 2 MikroTik CRS 10Gb switches to act as aggregation switches for my VM Hosts, 10Gb Storage and video editing PC, these 2 MikroTik switches are then connected to each 2930f in a trunk with the storage and the VM hosts/storage split between the 2 MikroTiks. Over kill for a home network or what, lol, but it has given me plenty to do thru the lockdown.

 

The USW-Pro-48-POE vs. the USW-48-POE does have 4 x SFP+

 

Likewise the USW-Pro-24-POE has 2 x SFP+

 

They also support 802.3bt PoE++

 

There's also the US-16-XG which has 10 x SFP+ ports and 4 x 10GbE ports.

[creativemario]

Big fan of Unifi here - We use it at all three of the schools within our trust - I've also previously used one model of EdgeSwitch, but found Unifi to be much easier to deploy and manage.

 

At our secondary, we've got US-48-G1 and US-48-500W in most of our cabs, and use two US-16-XG for our core switches.

Everything is then managed from a UDM-Pro, which also acts as our controller/firewall/gateway.

 

The new Gen 2 (Pro) switches have L3 capabilities - a friend/former co-worker has just purchased a couple, so I'm keen to see how he gets on with the new features.

Edited March 12, 2021 by creativemario

[Davit2005]

The USW-Pro-48-POE vs. the USW-48-POE does have 4 x SFP+

 

Likewise the USW-Pro-24-POE has 2 x SFP+

 

They also support 802.3bt PoE++

 

There's also the US-16-XG which has 10 x SFP+ ports and 4 x 10GbE ports.

 

I had 2 ES-16-XGs few years back trouble was I wanted to do some IPv6, some OSPFv3 stuff and I was just starting to do video editing again. So I replaced them with one 2930f then another 3 eventually. Yeah I could of done in Packet Tracer but sometimes there is nothing like real physical kit and actually using it in anger on a daily basis.

 

In a 5-10 years I can see me going more cloud and reducing the setup at home considerably but not going to happen at the moment.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Davit2005