So, I found an Elitedesk 800 G5 i7-9700 at a price I was willing to pay, have ordered it, and it will be here next week. Now on to replace switches to save power.
Again, working for an MSP, I have enterprise grade switches for the basement distribution and garage access switches.
I try to keep one access switch in the same hardware class as the distribution switch in case of hardware failure. I don't really need that level of switch in the garage, but if the SHTF, I can do without internet in the garage for a few days, not so much in the house.
I'm currently running a HP 3500-48G-PoE+ yl Switch (J9311A) for the distribution switch, and a HP 3500-24G-PoE+ yl Switch (J9310A) as the garage switch. My 2nd floor access switch is a USW-FLEX-MINI, though I'm looking to add a second one of these in the attic.
My current distribution and garage switches together idle at 226 watts, according to their spec sheets. I want to reduce that.
After doing a hardware inventory, I can get by with 8 ports for the basement distribution switch, with at most 3 for PoE/PoE+, though I may need to move a raspberry Pi from the Distribution switch to an access switch.
In the garage, the access switch is only hosting a PoE camera and access point, so there 8 ports is overkill, but hardware redundancy.
I'm spec'ing PoE+ over straight PoE for future-proofing, Wifi 7 etc.
I'm looking at the Netgear GS308EP or the TP-Link TL-SG108PE V5 as good enough replacements, as they both seem to do PoE+, QoS, and VLANs, which I use to keep IOT things separated.
Anybody here have a preference between those, or something I haven't pondered which would be a better fit for my needs?
litchralee@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
From my limited experience with PoE switches, how much power being drawn in relation to how much the switch can supply has a notable impact on efficiency. Specifically, when only one or two ports on a 48-port switch are delivering PoE, the increased AC power drawn from the wall is disproportionately high. Hence, any setup where you’re using more of the PoE switch’s potential power tends to increase overall efficiency.
My guess is that it has to do with efficiency curves that are only reasonable when heavily loaded for enterprise customers. In any case, if either of those two candidate switches meet your needs today and with some breathing room, both should be fine. I would tend to lean towards Netgear before TP-Link though, out of personal preference.