Dell PowerSwitch N3248TE-ON 1GbE Switch

The Dell PowerSwitch N3248TE-ON is a 1RU campus access and aggregation switch with 48 auto-sensing 10/100/1000Mb RJ45 ports, four 10GbE SFP+ uplinks and two 100GbE QSFP28 rear stacking ports, forwarding at 800 Mpps across a 576 Gbps non-blocking fabric. This listing is the standard-airflow build, drawing air in at the port face and exhausting it at the power-supply face.

It is the 48-port 1GbE workhorse of Dell's current campus generation, and the model that replaced the long-serving N2048 and N3048 in wiring closets.

The case for a 1GbE access switch in a multigig era

Most campus endpoints are still gigabit endpoints and will remain so for the life of this switch. Desk phones, printers, badge readers, door controllers, fixed cameras and docked laptops do not saturate a gigabit port and never will. Paying for multigig copper across all 48 ports to serve them is spending money on a capability nothing plugged in can use.

What has genuinely changed is the aggregation side, and that is where the N3200-ON generation earns its place. Where the previous campus generation stacked at 20 to 80 Gbps, every N3200-ON carries two rear 100GbE QSFP28 stacking ports delivering 400 Gbps of stacking bandwidth, and up to twelve switches join one stack under a single IP address. A full twelve-unit stack of these is 576 gigabit access ports behaving as one logical switch, with an interconnect that is no longer the constraint.

The sensible campus design that falls out of this is: 1GbE access where the endpoints are 1GbE, multigig only in the closets that feed Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 access points, and one stack per floor rather than three.

Airflow: standard and reverse builds

This listing covers both airflow builds of the N3248TE-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 names airflow by where the air goes. This product is I/O Panel to PSU airflow: intake at the port face, exhaust at the power-supply and fan face. That is the correct direction when the switch is racked with its ports facing the cold aisle, which is the conventional layout.

Power supplies and fan modules are direction-specific parts on this platform, and Dell only offers the PSU-to-I/O fan module for the N3224T-ON, N3248TE-ON and N3248X-ON. The direction is set when the chassis is built. Tell us which way your row faces and we will confirm the build before anything ships.

Reverse airflow (PSU to I/O)

Dell builds the N3248TE-ON in two airflow directions and names them by where the air goes. I/O Panel to PSU airflow pulls cool air in at the port face and exhausts it at the power-supply and fan face. PSU to I/O Panel airflow - this product - is the reverse: intake at the power-supply face, exhaust out of the port face.

Which one is correct is decided by which way the switch faces. In a hot-aisle/cold-aisle row, equipment pulls cool air from the cold aisle and exhausts into the hot aisle. A switch racked with its ports toward the cold aisle needs standard airflow. A switch racked with its ports toward the hot aisle - very common, because it puts switch ports on the same side as the server NICs and halves the cable runs - needs reverse airflow, or it will inhale its own row's exhaust and run hot for reasons that have nothing to do with the switch.

On this platform the power supply and the fan module are both direction-specific parts, and Dell only offers the PSU-to-I/O fan module for the N3224T-ON, N3248TE-ON and N3248X-ON. The direction is therefore set when the chassis is built rather than swapped in the rack. Choose the power supply and fan options above to match the direction your row needs, and tell us if you are unsure - we will confirm the build before anything ships.

OS6, OS10 and NO-OS on identical hardware

The N3248TE-ON is an ONIE switch, and Dell's own ordering table lists it in three builds on the same chassis: with OS6 pre-installed, with OS10 pre-installed, and NO-OS for use with Enterprise SONiC Distribution by Dell Technologies. This is the only model in the N3200-ON family Dell offered in all three, which is worth knowing if your standard is OS10 rather than the campus OS6.

OS6 is what most units in circulation run. It shares the CLI, the web GUI, the SNMP behaviour and the Dell OpenManage Network Manager integration with the rest of the N-series, so it drops into an existing campus without retraining anyone.

A Dell software entitlement is bound to the unit's service tag and to a Dell account and does not automatically transfer on the secondary market. A refurbished unit may arrive with a working image installed and without an active entitlement or support contract. We do not promise a transferred Dell licence, a software subscription or a support contract with a refurbished switch. Tell us what you intend to run and we will confirm the state of a specific unit before it ships.

Layer 3 without a licence tier

Advanced Layer 3 is standard on this platform, not an upsell: BGP, VRF-lite, BFD, PIM-SM/DM/SSM, IGMP/MLD, RIPv1/v2 and OSPFv2/v3, all at line rate on all ports. VRF-lite is the feature most campus buyers end up using - it partitions one physical switch into multiple virtual routers with isolated control and data planes, which is the clean way to separate guest Wi-Fi, building management and corporate traffic without buying separate hardware for each.

Scale is campus-sized and stated plainly: 1,024 static and 8,158 dynamic IPv4 routes, 1,024 static and 4,096 dynamic IPv6 routes, 6,144 ARP entries, 4,094 VLANs, 128 VLAN routing interfaces, 16-way ECMP across 1,024 groups. Comfortable for a campus; not a service-provider edge platform.

Why this is a secondary-market product now

Dell still lists the N3200-ON by name under PowerSwitch Managed Campus, but the product page no longer resolves to a buyable configuration. The series has moved to the secondary market while remaining a current-generation design - the spec sheet is dated 2023, the family supports 802.3bz multigig, the stacking is 100GbE and the chassis is Dell Fresh Air compliant to 45 C.

That is an unusual position and it is the argument for buying refurbished here. This is not an end-of-life design bought to save money; it is the current campus generation available from the channel that still supplies it, with published firmware and mainstream optics.

Common questions

What is the difference between this and the -RA version?

Airflow direction only. This is I/O Panel to PSU (standard); the N3248TE-ON RA is PSU to I/O Panel (reverse). Ports, fabric, software and scale are identical.

Are the 100GbE QSFP28 ports usable as uplinks?

Dell describes them as integrated rear stacking ports. Plan your uplinks around the four front-panel 10GbE SFP+ ports and treat the QSFP28 pair as the stack interconnect.

Does it support PoE?

No. Within this family the 802.3at 30W PoE models are the N3224P-ON and N3248P-ON, and the 802.3bt models running to 90W are the N3208PX-ON, N3224PX-ON and N3248PXE-ON.

How much onboard storage does it have?

32GB of SSD - the only model in the N3200-ON family with 32GB rather than 8GB. That matters if you intend to keep multiple operating-system images on the unit.

Choosing within the N3200-ON and N2200-ON campus families

All of these share OS6, the same 1RU chassis and the same 2-post mounting. You are choosing port count, copper speed and PoE class.

If your requirement is data-centre out-of-band management rather than campus access, the Dell PowerSwitch S3248T-ON has a near-identical port layout but runs SmartFabric OS10 and uses its 100GbE ports as uplinks rather than stacking.

Availability, condition and how to buy

This model is supplied to order. Availability, airflow direction, power-supply count and optics loadout are all confirmed at quotation, so use the quote request on this page and tell us the configuration you need.

Every unit is refurbished, professionally reconditioned, powered up, inspected and functionally tested before it ships, and it ships with warranty coverage. If you need a specific firmware or operating-system state, or matched units for a stack, say so with your request and we will build to it.

Specifications