MikroTik CRS504 Review: 100Gb/s Networking in My Homelab

For a while, I’ve been looking to update the networking at the core of my homelab. I have had some great results with the current setup utilising a number of DACs but there were a couple of things that were annoying me.

Then MikroTik dropped the CRS504-4XQ-IN and if the price wasn’t horrendous then that was the route I was going to go to alleviate these issues. Yes, it’s 100Gb/s and only has 4 ports but that should be all I need… I managed to locate one in stock for £587 plus VAT

As you can see the switch has redundant power not often found at this price point. It actually has 4 ways to power it. 2 AC supplies, a DC input and then strangest of all, it can be powered by PoE in. This last point showcases how power efficient it is which is a huge win for a homelab.

My plan is to utilise the existing Intel 25Gb NICs I have and split the 100’s on the switch into 4×25. This technically gives me 16 usable 25Gb ports which are way more than I need. This will allow me to accommodate the TrueNAS box and the 2x Supermicro nodes I usually run for my lab. The other 2 nodes will get an upgrade at a future date.

Initial impressions are that the switch is very quiet and also incredibly power efficient. (It can be powered just from PoE). However, the config is way more complex than I have seen before. This is because it’s basically a router that can switch at wire speed. The other challenge I have had is connecting my legacy 1Gb/s network. This is still a work in progress but for now, Storage and vMotion have been migrated.

I will report back when everything has been migrated.