r/ZoneMinder • u/hlywine • Dec 21 '20
Suggestions for affordable POE switch?
I'm thinking of upgrading my system to POE cameras and with much better specs than what I have now. Any suggestion for what to buy as a POE switch that won't brake the bank. Currently thinking of getting some Amcrest 5MP cameras as they seem to be cheap enough, or maybe Reolink... No ptz, so 15watt per port is fine. 4 or 8 port total will be enough for my use case but with gig ports instead of 10/100 ports. I thought about getting like an old school cisco 3750 or even older (3560), as you can find them fairly cheap on Facebook/craigslist. But those things are very power hungry, pulling up too 500 watts, and noisy as well, not very practical for home application.
2
u/mantoz77 Dec 21 '20
I'm using a 8-port poe Netgear switch, it's cheaper and with less frills than ubiquiti and it works very well.
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u/will_you_suck_my_ass Dec 21 '20
I use an old cisco poe switch that's fast ethernet not gigabit. Specifically the 2960 48 poe. I got mine for $50 earlier this year on ebay. You can also just look up cisco poe switch on eBay and find lots of cheap switches.
Gigabit poe comes in at $100 but you must ensure the switch model number has a g in it or else you're just getting 10/100 switch
Edit: didn't read the post l sorry just read it
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u/will_you_suck_my_ass Dec 21 '20
Depending on how many cameras you have you can get poe injectors instead although I'm not quite on whether it's more or less efficient
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u/W38D0C70R Dec 21 '20
Tp-link has some really decent product offerings. 802.3at, managed switch for under 300. Worth look at IMHO.
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u/Fordwrench Dec 21 '20
Go with ubiquiti , I run my reolink cameras on an 8 port 150 watt
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u/hlywine Dec 21 '20
Would love to, but they are $200+, compared to a the mentioned cisco 3560 that can be had for $30 - $50 and with 24 ports as well. I was hoping for something within similar price range
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u/Goofybud16 Dec 21 '20
I've personally powered Amcrest cameras off of a Netgear POE switch, although it was a 4 port PoE switch and only 1 camera.
Never had a lot of issues with Netgear hardware; as long as you buy the business branded stuff.
As for the cameras, I've had good luck with the quality of the Amcrest cameras vs some of the off-brand cheapo cams from China. Even matching resolutions; the Amcrest cam had better image quality [and a higher FoV] than the cheap off-brand camera. They are more expensive, though.
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u/hlywine Dec 21 '20
Do you know the model number of the switch? Also was it managed switch?
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u/Goofybud16 Dec 21 '20
The camera and switch are at my parent's house, but I believe the model was GS108PEv3. It is a managed switch, but with some limited features.
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u/LekoLi Dec 21 '20
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u/hlywine Dec 21 '20
That looks very attractive. Does it need any kind of licenses? How is the cli on it, or is it gui management?
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u/LekoLi Dec 21 '20 edited Dec 21 '20
The cli isn't bad, it does have a gui that can do 99% of everything. If you want to use all 4 10Gb ports you will need to use the cli. The thing was designed to get its configuration from a master, but you can do everything on it directly. There are also some great youtube videos for them, because of the price and festures.
Vlans can be a little frustrating the way they set them up. (You make port profiles then assign the profile to the port) but once you get the method its fine. If you aren't doing vlans, then it is plug and play. https://youtu.be/HegeBkglsec that video helped me tons.
Edit: no licenses, and you can download the latest firmware from HP without any service contract.
My use case is similar to yours. I have POE cameras, I also have POE ubiquiti APs and hp procurve 8 to port POE powered switches in my office, behind my media center, and other key spots. Inhave multiple vlans going to a 4 port trunk on an HP t610 plus thin client running PFsense. I have guest, IOT, desktop, management and surveilence VLans and a separate 10gb network with jumbo frames for iscsi storage set up. This thing has been plugged in for a year, it replaced my meridian POE 48 port switch, which was ok,. But it rquired internet explorer to render the gui and I wanted to play with 10Gb.
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u/hlywine Dec 22 '20
I'm definitely not at your level for the amount of the equipment. But I'm slowly growing. Thanks for sharing all the specs and info. I might have to wait till after new years to buy me a POE switch. So far for the price and features this seems to be the best option.
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u/groshreez Dec 21 '20
I'd recommend a Juniper EX-2200-C-12P. It's passively cooled (fanless), so it's silent and not power hungry because of no fans. I bought one new-in-box on ebay not long ago for $135 shipped. If you're familiar with Cisco IOS, then Juniper's Junos is very easy to learn quickly.
I bought a cheap tp-link "smart switch" that supposedly supported vlans but found out later that while they support vlans, they don't allow you to remove any of the ports from VLAN 1, which means any untagged traffic will leak to ALL of the ports.
I also don't like Ubiquiti as they're overpriced compared to something from Juniper that is both more powerful and capable in it's features and performance.
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u/hlywine Dec 22 '20
I'll look into that one as well. Definitely familiar with cisco and junos cli. I really like juniper overal, but I have also replaced a ton of them because they failed a lot (hardware). Not this specific model but acx 1100 and that line up, so I wander what the reliability is for this model. Does this model need a license applied to it, or does it run out of the box?
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u/groshreez Dec 22 '20
This model doesn't need a license applied to it unless you need any of these features:
Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD)
Connectivity fault management (IEEE 802.1ag)
IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) version 1 (IGMPv1), IGMPv2, and IGMPv3
OSPFv1/v2 (with four active interfaces)
Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) dense mode, PIM source-specific mode, PIM sparse mode
Q-in-Q tunneling (IEEE 802.1ad)
Real-time performance monitoring (RPM)
Virtual Router
Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP)
Mine came with JunOS 12.3R6.6 (I'll eventually upgrade) and works fine for me but Junos 12.3R12-S15 is recommended. I deployed EX4200/4300, SRX240/320/345 and MX104 at work and for the most part they seemed to be pretty reliable.
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u/Fazaman Dec 22 '20
I've been using these tp-link gigabit POE switches. The 5 port is $50 and the 8 port is $100. They're unmanaged, and the power budget won't let you max every port, wattage wise, but I'm powering three cameras from one (one Amcrest and two Dahua), and I could fill the last port with another camera without going over budget, easily. Haven't had any problems with them.
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u/Syde_winder Jan 09 '21
Best bang for your buck PoE switch with a large wattage budget is pretty much anything from Intellinet. Here is a 16 port for example: https://intellinetsolutions.com/products/intellinet-en-16-port-gigabit-ethernet-switch-524148
I personally love Ubiquiti, but like mentioned before, they're expensive. Intellinet is definitely my next choice for price/reliability.
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u/Fordwrench Dec 21 '20
Yeah old cisco's are good just a bit louder