Meet the QNAP QSW-M2116P-2T2S switch, it is manageable and Multigigabit
When we talk about a PoE switch, it is very important to pay attention to the maximum PoE Budget, that is, the maximum power that it is capable of providing via the network cable as a whole. Generally, PoE switches provide between 65W and 130W, although there are other models like this QSW-M2116P-2T2S that are capable of providing up to 280W of maximum power, ideal for powering multiple WiFi 6 access points simultaneously without problems.
In addition to these ports, we also have a Gigabit Ethernet port for managing this switch locally, as a console. In this way, we will have the possibility to manage this switch at the network level out of band, without occupying one of the available ports of the switch.
This model has a MAC address table of up to 32K entries, it also has 160Gbps of switching capacity, but it has a total non-blocking throughput of 80Gbps. The QSW-M2116P-2T2S also has support for Jumbo Frames at 9K, ideal for maximum efficiency, especially when we are using 10Gbps ports, which is where we will lose more real speed if we use small packets of 1500 bytes. On the front of this switch we will find a RESET button, because this model has a configurable firmware.
This model has dimensions of 43.5mm high, 285mm wide and 234.8mm deep, of course, we have a rack format and inside the package we have the corresponding supports to rack the switch without problems, finally we also have a weight of 2.08Kg.
Once we know all the hardware features, we are going to explain what configuration options we have available in the QSS operating system:
software features
The operating system incorporated in this switch is the same QSS as always, which we have previously seen in other managed switches from the manufacturer QNAP. In this model we have similar configuration options, although we have interesting news and the occasional absence that we have missed.
In the firmware of this QNAP QSW-M2116P-2T2S model we will be able to see the status of all the ports along with their statistics, we will also be able to configure the ports at the speed and duplex level, as well as the flow control and also the maximum MTU per port, we must remember that this switch supports Jumbo Frames at 9K, so the default configuration allows this maximum frame size.
At the PoE level, this equipment is quite complete, we will be able to configure the PoE mode (PoE or PoE+ in the compatible ports) and also if we want to use PoE++ (in the two compatible 10GBASE-T ports). In the menu we can establish a priority of the different ports, just in case we go over the 280W of maximum power. We will also be able to configure the automatic switching on and off of the ports with PoE, ideal for turning off all the equipment that hangs from the switch at night, if we want to carry out this configuration.
The main features at the usual L2 level are also present in this model, such as configuring untagged and tagged VLANs on the different ports, configuring Link Aggregation with LACP of two or more ports, the possibility of configuring the outgoing and incoming bandwidth limiter , configure the access control lists at the IP level, we also have the possibility to configure the IGMP Snooping, the QoS at the port level or at the VLAN level, the LLDP protocol and also activate a protection against loops at the L2 level.
In this switch we can configure the DHCP client or put a static IP, we can also change the administrator password, the date and time based on an NTP server and even restore this equipment to factory settings. Other features are that we can see a complete record of everything that has happened in the switch, and even update the firmware over the Internet easily and quickly, although we can always update the firmware manually.
The absences that we have missed in this equipment are the STP/RSTP, other QNAP models have this protocol to avoid loops at the L2 level, and it is a fundamental protocol for small, medium or large networks. Although we have the "Loop protection" function, this is not the STP/RSTP protocol that we have in other models with similar characteristics. Another important absence is that we don't have access control lists based on MAC (L2), we only have them based on IP (L3). We believe that the manufacturer QNAP will incorporate these two important features in the next firmware versions, in this way, we will have all the usual L2 features.
Unboxing and first impressions
The first thing that has caught our attention about this new QNAP QSW-M2116P-2T2S is the quality of its materials, this model has a fairly robust metal casing, in addition, the equipment, although it has small dimensions, weighs a lot because it is PoE and its metal casing, and that is noticeable as soon as we take it out of the box, something completely normal in this type of device.
This model has two intelligent fans on the left side, which are responsible for extracting hot air from inside the equipment, in our tests we have verified that this switch with little traffic does not make any noise, but possibly as we begin to connect equipment via PoE and have traffic on the network, these fans will be able to work at higher rpm, so they will make noise.
In the video that you can see below, we explain all the parts of this manageable switch, including its physical ports and also the main firmware options:
Soon in RedesZone you will be able to see a complete analysis of this high-end manageable switch, and the fact is that the QNAP QSW-M2116P-2T2S model is one of the most versatile switches that we have seen so far, because all its ports are Multigigabit and they have PoE, in addition, we have a total of 4 10G ports in total, so they will allow us to make trunk links at high speed, and connect NAS servers with this type of connectivity to transfer files at the highest possible speed.
