Last month, I started to update my lab network. The old Juniper EX ‘core’ switch was replaced by a FortiSwitch 108E-POE. The problem was that the Juniper had 14 * 1Gbps interface, and the FortiSwitch only 8, with an additional 2 * SFP Gb ports.
A couple of well known venders ship hardware that won’t allow offbrand (cheaper) SFP’s, but the FortiSwitch has no issues with a mix of vendors. Currently it hold an (ancient) Tippingpoint 1Gbps SFP (RJ45) and a new Ubiquity 1Gbps SPF (RJ45).
fortiswitch # get switch modules detail ____________________________________________________________ Port(port9) identifier SFP/SFP+ connector Unk(0x00) transceiver 1000-Base-T encoding 8B/10B Length Decode Common length_smf_1km N/A length_cable 100 meter SFP Specific length_smf_100m N/A length_50um_om2 N/A length_62um_om1 N/A length_50um_om3 N/A vendor UBNT vendor_oid 0x000000 vendor_pn UF-RJ45-1G vendor_rev vendor_sn X20092805573 manuf_date 08/18/2020 ____________________________________________________________ Port(port10) identifier SFP/SFP+ connector Unk(0x00) transceiver 1000-Base-T encoding 8B/10B Length Decode Common length_smf_1km N/A length_cable 100 meter SFP Specific length_smf_100m N/A length_50um_om2 N/A length_62um_om1 N/A length_50um_om3 N/A vendor AVAGO vendor_oid 0x00176A vendor_pn ABCU-5700RZ-TP1 vendor_rev vendor_sn AN1006ANNX manuf_date 02/13/2010
I wouldn’t advise this in any production environment, but for a home/dev environment it works (so far) and it’s (much) cheaper. The Ubiquiti SFP was around €25 (retail) here in the Netherlands, which is about a fifth of the official Fortinet SFP price.