Dell Networking N4064 10GbE Switch

The Dell Networking N4064 is a 1U 10 Gigabit Ethernet aggregation switch presenting 48 x 10GbE RJ45 auto-sensing (10Gb/1Gb/100Mb) fixed ports, 2 x 40GbE QSFP+ fixed ports, rated by Dell at a 1.28Tbps non-blocking switching fabric and a 952Mpps forwarding rate. Two 80PLUS-certified 460W power supplies are fitted from the factory, so the chassis is redundant out of the box rather than as an upgrade.

Where this switch belongs in a network

The N4000 is the aggregation and distribution tier of Dell's N-Series campus line - the layer that N1500, N2000 and N3000 access switches uplink into. It is also a credible small-network core: full Layer 3 routing at line rate, 4,094 VLANs, 131,072 MAC addresses and 9MB of packet buffer. In a wiring-closet design, a pair of these in the MDF terminates the 10Gb uplinks from every access closet and routes between them. In a server room, the 10GbE ports land hypervisor hosts and iSCSI storage directly.

10GBASE-T versus SFP+ - which variant you want

All 48 ports here are RJ45 running 10GbE over structured copper, auto-sensing down to 1Gb and 100Mb. If your building is already cabled with Cat6a and your runs are inside 100m, this is the cheaper and simpler switch - no transceivers to buy, no fiber to terminate. The trade is power and heat: 10GBASE-T PHYs draw meaningfully more than optics, and this model's 395W maximum against 220W for the SFP+ variant is that difference showing up on the power bill. For longer runs or lower draw, the fiber equivalent is N4064F.

Uplinks, breakout and port maths

Beyond the 48 fixed 10GbE ports, two fixed 40GbE QSFP+ ports provide the northbound uplink or a high-bandwidth inter-switch link. Each 40Gb port can also be broken out to 4 x 10GbE with a QSFP+-to-4xSFP+ cable, and the hot-swappable expansion bay adds a further 4 x 10Gb SFP+, 4 x 10GBASE-T or 2 x 40Gb QSFP+. Dell rates the resulting maximum at 64 x 10GbE ports in one rack unit. The 24-port equivalent of this switch is N4032.

Stacking works differently here

This is the single most important architectural difference between the N4000 and the N3000 below it. The N3000 has two dedicated rear stacking ports and a short mini-SAS-style stacking cable. The N4000 has no dedicated stacking ports at all - it stacks over its own 10Gb or 40Gb user ports, using ordinary twinax direct-attach cable or optics, at distances up to 100 metres. Practically, that means two things.

First, stack members can sit in different racks or different rooms, which a 3m N3000 stacking cable can never do. Second, every port you commit to the stack is a port you cannot sell to a server: this model gives 320Gbps of full-duplex stacking bandwidth and that capacity comes out of the front panel. Twelve members can be managed as one IP address, for up to 672 10GbE ports in a single logical switch. The N2000/N3000 stacking cable (W508F) does not fit an N4000 and cannot be used.

Converged and storage traffic

The N4000 carries the full Data Center Bridging set - Priority Flow Control (802.1Qbb), Enhanced Transmission Selection (802.1Qaz), DCBx and iSCSI TLV - which is what makes lossless operation possible for iSCSI and FCoE-adjacent traffic on the same wire as ordinary LAN. Dell tested and validated the series against its EqualLogic PS-Series arrays, and one-command iSCSI setup is built into OS 6. The N3000 series does not carry DCB; if converged storage is on your requirements list, that alone decides the tier.

Routing, software and scale

Dell Networking OS 6 gives one CLI and one web GUI across the whole N-Series. Layer 3 is line-rate and non-blocking: static routing, RIPv1/v2, OSPFv2 and OSPFv3, VRRP, PIM-SM and PIM-DM, policy-based routing, BGP (RFC 4271) and VRF-lite. Multi-chassis LAG provides active/active redundancy without spanning tree. Scale figures that matter at the aggregation layer: 131,072 MAC addresses (four times the N3000), 1,024 ECMP groups (against 64), 8,160 dynamic IPv4 routes, 4,094 VLANs and 2GB of CPU memory. Interoperability with Cisco RPVST+ is available from OS 6.1 onward, and ISDP interoperates with CDP.

Power, cooling and rack planning

Two 460W hot-swappable supplies are included and give N+1 redundancy as shipped. Maximum draw is 395W with a thermal output of 1,353.53 BTU/hr. Airflow is I/O-to-power-supply, so the port face must sit in the cold aisle; there is no reverse-airflow variant of this chassis. The unit is 1U at 18.11 in deep and weighs 24.07 lbs, and it takes a standard C13 cord - the C15 cord used by the PoE N-Series models is the wrong part here. ReadyRails mount without tools.

Buying this on the secondary market

Dell has exited the N-Series entirely, which puts a 10GbE campus core within reach at secondary-market pricing with no new-unit listing competing above it. The practical consequence is that spares are a design decision rather than an afterthought - power supplies, expansion modules and rail kits are all field-replaceable and all worth acquiring alongside the chassis. Every unit is refurbished, tested and supplied with warranty. Compare against N4064F, N4032, N3048.