Dell Networking S6010-ON 40GbE Switch

The Dell Networking S6010-ON is a 1RU switch with 32 line-rate 40GbE QSFP+ ports on a 2.56 Tbps cut-through fabric, forwarding 1,462 Mpps at sub-600 nanosecond latency. Breakout cables convert 24 of those ports into 96 ports of 10GbE while leaving eight at 40GbE.

It is the successor to the S6000-ON and the more capable of the two on buffer and CPU memory - but not on every axis, and the differences are worth understanding before you pick one.

Be honest about 40GbE: this is a legacy-fabric play

40GbE is not where new data centre builds go. A 40GbE QSFP+ port is four 10G lanes bonded together; the industry moved to 25G-lane serdes because a single 25G lane carries 2.5x what a 10G lane does on the same cable and the same cage. That is why 25GbE access with 100GbE uplinks displaced 10GbE access with 40GbE uplinks, and why a greenfield design today starts at 25/100G.

So we will not pitch the S6010-ON as a future-proof buy. Buy it if you already have a 40GbE estate. It earns its place when:

• You are expanding an existing 10/40GbE fabric and need another spine or aggregation switch speaking the same optics, DACs and breakout cables you already own.
• You need a large block of 10GbE ports cheaply - 96 of them from one rack unit, with eight 40GbE uplinks still available.
• You are replacing a failed unit in a live fabric and need matching hardware rather than a redesign.
• You want a lab, staging or DR switch that mirrors production without production budget.

If you are starting fresh, look at 25/100G instead - the S5048F-ON for 25GbE server access, or the current-generation S5248F-ON. The optics cost less per gigabit and the platform has a longer runway.

The physics has not changed, though. 2.56 Tbps and sub-600ns latency are still fast, and a fabric built on this generation does not slow down because a newer one exists.

Breakout: 32x 40GbE or 96x 10GbE + 8x 40GbE

Each QSFP+ port carries four 10G lanes, and a breakout cable splits one port into four SFP+ ports. Break out 24 of the 32 ports and you get 96 ports of 10GbE with eight 40GbE ports left over - which is the classic leaf configuration: 96 servers at 10GbE, uplinked at 320 Gbps to the spine.

Left native, all 32 ports run at 40GbE, which is the spine or aggregation role. A QSA adapter also lets a QSFP+ port accept an ordinary SFP+ or SFP module, and there is a QSFP+ to 4x 1000BASE-T RJ45 breakout cable for copper gigabit where you need it.

One planning note: breakout consumes the port. A port broken out to 4x 10GbE is no longer available at 40GbE, so the two layouts above are alternatives, not additive.

Fabric, latency and scale

2.56 Tbps of switching I/O bandwidth full-duplex, 1,462 Mpps forwarding capacity, sub-600 nanosecond latency in cut-through mode. Behind the fabric sit a 160K MAC table, a 128K ARP table, 128K IPv4 routes and a 16 MB packet buffer with 8 GB of CPU memory.

The IPv6 tables are where this model is genuinely constrained: 8K IPv6 routes and 24K IPv6 hosts. If you run a dual-stack network of any size, check that against your route count before you commit - the predecessor S6000-ON has 64K on both counts, which is eight times the IPv6 route capacity. The ingress ACL is also small at 716 entries against the S6000-ON's 2.5K. These are real limits, not marketing footnotes, and they are the reason the newer model is not automatically the right one.

How it differs from the S6000-ON

The two switches are the same size, the same port count, the same fabric bandwidth, the same forwarding rate and the same latency class. They get confused constantly. Here is what actually separates them:

Read that honestly and the choice is not "newer is better". Take the S6010-ON for the larger buffer, more CPU headroom and the widest choice of network operating system. Take the S6000-ON if you need serious IPv6 scale, a large ACL, lower power draw, stacking, or the 104-port 10GbE mode.

Operating system choice is the real feature here

This is the one switch in the family where "open networking" is more than a slogan. Dell's specification lists a supported-operating-systems table naming Cumulus Linux OS, Big Switch Networks Switch Light OS, Dell Networking Operating System v9 and Pluribus OS. The Open Network Install Environment on the box handles zero-touch installation of any of them.

That matters second-hand more than it did new. A switch tied to one vendor's software is worth what that vendor's licensing allows; a switch that will boot four different network operating systems has options. If you are running Cumulus or SONiC-style disaggregated networking, this is a sensible chassis to buy used precisely because the software decision is not locked to the hardware.

The factory software is Dell's modular Networking Operating System v9 with the full routing stack - OSPFv2/v3, BGP-4 with IPv6 multiprotocol extensions, IS-IS, RIP, VRRP, PIM-SM, IGMP and MSDP - plus the Open Automation Framework, OpenFlow 1.3 for SDN, and a Fastboot feature that allows a minimum-loss software upgrade on a standalone unit outside a VLT pair.

What you are buying from us is the hardware. Dell software entitlements are bound to a unit's service tag and to a Dell account and do not automatically travel on the secondary market, and third-party operating systems are licensed separately by their own vendors. A refurbished unit may arrive with software installed and fully functional and still carry no active entitlement or support contract. We do not promise a transferred Dell licence, a software subscription or a support contract with a refurbished switch, and you should treat any reseller who does with suspicion. Tell us what you intend to run and we will confirm the state of a specific unit before it ships.

Where it fits in a fabric

Dell positioned the S6010-ON for high-density 10/40GbE top-of-rack server aggregation, and inside its Active Fabric designs alongside the Z9500, S6100 and Z9100 for larger deployments. In a small-scale build it works as both leaf and spine, aggregating 1/10GbE S-series switches beneath it.

For multi-chassis redundancy it does Virtual Link Trunking and multiple VLT, giving an active-active pair with no spanning-tree blocked links. It is a VXLAN gateway at line rate for bridging virtualized overlays to non-virtualized infrastructure, does VRF-lite for multi-tenant Layer 3 isolation, and supports RoCE so RDMA can converge compute and storage onto the same fabric. The full Data Center Bridging set - priority flow control, enhanced transmission selection, DCBx and the DCBx application TLV for iSCSI and FCoE - is what makes lossless iSCSI workable alongside ordinary traffic.

Airflow: standard and reverse builds

This listing covers both airflow builds of the S6010-ON. Select the direction under the Airflow option: air 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 - a mismatched pair raises the switch's incompatible-airflow alarm.

Standard airflow (I/O to PSU)

Dell builds this model in both directions with direction-specific power supplies and fan modules under separate part numbers, so airflow is a property of the chassis rather than a setting. Unlike the S6000-ON, Dell's specification for the S6010-ON documents no in-field conversion procedure at all - buy the direction you need.

Reverse airflow (PSU to I/O)

Dell names airflow directions by where the air goes. I/O Panel to PSU airflow is the standard build: cool air in at the port face, exhaust at the power-supply and fan face. PSU to I/O Panel airflow is the reverse. This -RA SKU is the PSU-to-I/O-Panel unit.

Which one you need is decided by which way the switch faces in the rack, not by preference. In a hot-aisle/cold-aisle row, servers draw cool air from the cold aisle at the front and exhaust into the hot aisle at the back. Rack a top-of-rack switch with its port face toward the cold aisle and standard airflow is correct. Rack it with the port face toward the hot aisle - very common, because it puts the switch ports on the same side as the server NICs and halves cable runs - and a standard-airflow switch would be inhaling your own hot exhaust from the first day, running hot and spinning its fans harder for the rest of its service life.

Two practical consequences. First, power supplies and fan modules are direction-specific. Dell's specification for this model lists the AC power supply and the fan module twice, once per direction, under separate part numbers. A fan pulled from a standard-airflow unit will not convert this chassis, and every fan and power supply in the box must move air the same way. Second, unlike its predecessor the S6000-ON, Dell documents no in-field conversion procedure for the S6010-ON at all - buy the direction you need.

A quick field test if the unit is in front of you: stand at the port face with the switch powered on. Air blowing out at you means reverse airflow. Air being pulled in means standard.

Common questions

Is the S6010-ON 1U or 2U?

1U. The specification states 1 RU at 1.71 x 17.08 x 18.11 inches. If you have seen it listed as 2U anywhere, that is an error.

What is the difference between the S6010-ON and the S6000-ON?

Same ports, fabric, forwarding rate, latency and dimensions. The S6010-ON has a bigger buffer and more CPU memory and names four supported operating systems; the S6000-ON has far larger IPv6 tables, a bigger ACL, lower power draw and user port stacking. See the comparison table above.

How many 10GbE ports can it provide?

96, by breaking out 24 of the 32 QSFP+ ports, with eight ports remaining at 40GbE.

Does it stack?

Dell's specification for this model makes no user-port-stacking claim. It supports Virtual Link Trunking and multiple VLT for multi-chassis active-active pairs, which is the more common approach in this generation anyway. If stacking is a hard requirement, the S6000-ON explicitly supports up to six units.

Can I run Cumulus Linux on it?

Dell's specification names Cumulus Linux OS as a supported operating system for this model, alongside Big Switch Switch Light and Pluribus. Licensing comes from those vendors, not from us or Dell - ask us and we will tell you what state a specific unit is in.

Where it sits in the Dell S-series

Condition, testing and what ships in the box

This is a refurbished, professionally reconditioned unit. Every switch is powered up, inspected and functionally tested before it leaves us, and it ships with warranty coverage. Power supplies, fan modules, rail kits, console cables, optics and breakout cables are configurable above - choose the airflow direction that matches the chassis, because power supplies and fans are direction-specific parts.

If you need a specific firmware or NOS state, a particular breakout loadout, reverse airflow, or matched units for a VLT domain, tell us before you order and we will build to it.

Specifications