New S12 – observations and temperature readings

Our local supply house got the S12s in a few days ago and we got one to test out!

So far, been super impressed with it – easy to install and get set up on a site. We’re currently running ports 1-8 with 10Gb copper transceivers (10GTek) and port 12 is a DAC to a S48 switch.

Some quick observations:

  • Super simple set up like all Alta devices. Got it added to our site and upgraded very easily.
  • Doing an iperf3 test between devices basically gets max speed for 10Gb.
  • Solid connections to devices with native 10Gb cards – Synology DS1821 and Mac Studio Pro
  • 10Gb Thunderbolt docks from OWC seemed to go offline every couple of minutes and back on. The logs reported an STP block. When I changed from Auto configure network interface (on MacOS) to manual with 10Gb full-duplex and jumbo frames, the connection stayed solid and has remained so. Not sure if what I was seeing was the dock, the SFP+ module, or the S12, or some combination of all three. Works fine with manual settings… so that is good.
  • Copper SFP+ transceivers get quite hot. I believe this is pretty normal for copper 10Gb, but it’s hot enough that you wouldn’t want to touch it very long – I’m guessing between 140-170 F (I don’t have an infrared thermometer).

All other Alta switches have a temperature reading, but I didn’t see on the S12 info card. Could this be added? I know most transceivers have temp sensors too. Could this be added as well?

Overall, great product! We’re going to use these for 10Gb networks and video distribution for our clients.

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Sounds good man, keep spam checking Wifigear here in the UK hoping they have one in stock for sale. Any day now.

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I also use 10GTek copper SFP’s and they get SUPER hot. I’m a bit worried about it affecting the longevity of the switches but so far so good.

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Yeah. Super hot is a good description. I wish the switch could read the temperatures from the sensors (assuming the 10Gtek include temperature sensors).

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