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Comment by runjake | Hacker News Reader

> TAC would more or less laugh at you and hang up if you sought support.

This is common belief and even a dire warning when filing TAC tickets. However, unless the third-party SFP is the prime suspect, I have never experienced a TAC from any major networking vendor[1] refuse support, let alone "laugh and hang up," even metaphorically.

It's good SOP to keep at least a couple SFPs for each networking manufacturer on the shelf, but third-party SFPs are normally in the ballpark of 10% of the cost of OEM and tend to be manufactured better[2].

1. Mostly Cisco, Juniper, HPE, Fortinet

2. I've had a far greater failure rate on OEM SFPs than SFPs from third-parties like Fs.com and USCritical. That and they feel much less flimsy than OEM.

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Before I comment, a disclaimer about my small scale. I am running probably three hundred SFP+s running and less than five years of experience with optics. I don't have stock tracking for the individual manufacturers, and the failure rate comments here are based on gut-feel only. (there will be other people here used to far larger scales)

I bucket it into there being three options: genuine, clone, and good-clone.

We had a bad run with fs.com QSFP+s. Their SFP+s have been better to me, but reckon I have had a couple fail.

Atgbics SFP+s have been a reliable clone supplier for us. I don't think I have had any of those fail, and they have been my main vendor for a while now. You can order them programmed with personalities for Cisco, etc.

Part of the edge of fs.com is that it is so easy to place an order and get fast delivery. My main site is in another country to where I live, and I do a few trips a year. Several times they have made low-notice projects possible.

> Atgbics SFP+s have been a reliable clone supplier for us.

With the caveat that I'm a USian and my scale is even lower than yours (10 10gbit SFP+ modules in my apartment combination home, office, and lab, running trouble-free for the past three years) I've found 10Gtek to be a reliable supplier. You can order 10gbit SFP+ modules straight from them for 14USD per per module. Though, shipping costs straight from them is currently pretty terrible: $35 if you're spending less than $800.

Stores like Newegg will often meet or beat that per-module price and offer free shipping if you buy a bundle of four or more... but modules with the personality you want may not be in stock.

We accidentally ordered a load of “Generic brand” 100G QSFP from FS. Everything worked and appeared fine from the perspective of the switch and cards, reported OK status for everything, _except_ the lasers never turned on. Switching to an Extreme switch made the switch end work fine, but not the server.

Turns out Mellanox/NVIDIA hardware are _really_ picky about their cards. We bought a box from FS that reprogrammed the compatibility firmware and they worked instantly (FS also offered to return and reprogram but we needed it fast).

This was a big shock after dealing with nothing but CAT5/6/RJ45 that has been stable and common for decades (?).

Don't think I ever had a case there TAC said anything about my sfps. Most of the time if it's the SFP you replace it, code it correctly with a device like the one linked, or it's the wrong kind of SFP anyway.

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