Dell PowerSwitch S4810P-AC 10GbE Switch

The Dell Networking S4810P is a 1U top-of-rack switch with 48 ports of 1/10GbE SFP+ and four 40GbE QSFP+ uplinks, delivering 1.28 Tbps of non-blocking, cut-through switching at 800 nanoseconds of port-to-port latency. It was the low-latency 10GbE ToR switch of its generation, and it remains a capable one.

Where the S4810P sits today

Be straightforward about the generation. The S4810P predates the S4000 and S4100 families and runs the older Dell Networking OS9 (FTOS) rather than OS10. It has no 25GbE, no 100GbE and no ONIE open-networking support. If you are designing a new fabric, this is not the switch to design it around.

What it is good for is precise and worth stating plainly. It is a like-for-like replacement in an estate that already runs S4810s and is not ready to re-platform - a failed unit swapped for an identical one keeps the configuration, the runbook and the spares pool intact. It is a lab and staging switch where 10GbE at 800 nanoseconds is more than adequate and the budget belongs to production. And it is a cost-effective aggregation layer for an existing 1GbE estate that needs 10GbE uplinks without a fabric redesign.

At 800 ns it is genuinely quick - the same latency figure Dell quotes for the far newer S4148F-ON. Latency was this platform's headline feature, and that has not aged.

Port layout and breakout math

The port face is 48 SFP+ cages, each running 1GbE or 10GbE, plus four QSFP+ cages. Each QSFP+ port carries 40GbE or breaks out to four 10GbE lanes with a breakout cable, so a fully broken-out switch presents 64 ports of 10GbE from one rack unit - the figure Dell quotes on the sheet.

Uplink capacity is the platform's real constraint against modern gear: four 40GbE ports is 160 Gbps of uplink for 480 Gbps of access, and there is no path to 100GbE on this chassis. If your spine has moved to 100GbE, the S4810P attaches to it only through a 40GbE-capable port on the spine side.

Unusually for this catalogue, the S4810P stacks: up to six units over user ports, managed as one logical switch. The entire S4000 generation that replaced it dropped stacking in favour of VLT. Stacking is simpler to operate for a small deployment; VLT is more resilient because each chassis keeps an independent control plane. Which you prefer is a real architectural choice, and the S4810P is one of the few switches here that offers the first option.

Airflow: standard and reverse builds

This listing covers both airflow builds. Select the direction under the Power Supply & Airflow option: direction is set by the power supplies and fan modules physically fitted, so it is chosen when the unit is built rather than switched afterwards. Power supplies and fans must both face the same way.

Standard airflow (I/O to PSU)

The normal-airflow build, also written I/O-to-PSU or front-to-back. Air enters at the port face and exhausts at the power-supply end. Fit it when the switch is mounted with its ports facing the hot aisle.

Reverse airflow (PSU to I/O)

The reverse-airflow build, sometimes written PSU-to-I/O or back-to-front. Air is drawn in at the power-supply end and exhausted out of the port face. Fit it when the switch presents its ports to the cold aisle.

Base configurations ship with one power supply and two fan modules. The second supply is the redundant half of a 1+1 pair and is selected above; both supplies must face the same direction as the fans.

Operating system and management

The S4810P runs Dell Networking OS9, the operating system also known as FTOS. It is a mature, conventional CLI-driven NOS with a full L3 stack - OSPF v2 and v3, BGP with 4-byte ASN, policy-based routing, VRF-lite - plus VLT for multi-chassis link aggregation and the data-center-bridging set (PFC, ETS, DCBx with iSCSI and FCoE application TLVs) for converged storage traffic.

It also carries Dell's Embedded Open Automation Framework, including an in-box Puppet agent, which was ahead of its time and still means the switch can be configured from existing configuration-management tooling rather than by hand.

What it does not have is ONIE. This is a closed platform: it runs OS9 and cannot be re-imaged with a third-party network operating system the way the S4000 and S4100 families can.

Choosing between this and a newer switch

• S4048-ON - the direct successor. Same 48x 10GbE SFP+ shape but six 40GbE uplinks instead of four, 1.44 Tbps instead of 1.28, and ONIE for OS10 or a third-party NOS. This is the upgrade if you want to stay on 10GbE access.
• S4148F-ON - two generations on: 48x 10GbE SFP+ with 4x 100GbE QSFP28 uplinks and 1.76 Tbps. The right choice if the spine is 100GbE.
• S4820T - the copper contemporary of the S4810P: 48x 10GBASE-T instead of SFP+, same 1.28 Tbps fabric and same four 40GbE uplinks.

Choose the S4810P when matching an existing deployment matters more than the feature gap. Choose the S4048-ON or S4148F-ON when it does not.

Condition, testing and warranty

Refurbished units are cleaned, inspected and functionally tested before they ship: every port is link-tested, the power supplies and fan modules are verified, and the unit is booted and checked for fault codes. Configuration is cleared. Units ship with warranty; the coverage tier is selected on this page.

Specifications