I recently picked up a CRS 317-1G-16S+ to go behind my RB2011UiAS and connect a Synology RS3617xs to a few VMWare Hypervisors.

I need to take advantage of LACP and vLAN tagging. My primary objective is throughput and fail-over. I don't strictly need the layer 3 features in the device, but it would be nice to have.

It looks like SwOS provides all the core features I need, but I have to sacrifice all layer 3 functionality. I'm also not a big fan of the web interface; I prefer WinBox.

I've been trying to set up the switch in RouterOS, but I'm concerned that by using a bridge, it forces all traffic through the CPU, limiting my throughput. I haven't been able to find much online that's clear on how to set it up correctly.

Can someone please point me in the right direction? Do I just need to break down and move over to SwOS to best serve my needs?

Thanks!

As long as you use a single bridge on the ports, hardware acceleration (hardware switching) will work 6.41+. LACP though is just getting added in the latest 6.42rc's, but is already in SwOS.

I tried to boot into SwOS and it never came back online; didn't even get the usual beeps. After a factory reset, I'm back in RouterOS. I've upgraded to 6.42rc39. I can't add a bond without removing the interfaces from the bridge but once I do, it shifts into 'Router' mode. Is there any documentation on how to set up bonding without loosing switch chip offloading?

Check the 6.42RC thread: viewtopic.php?f=21&p=647092#p647092

and CRS3xx vlans and bonding: https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:C ... ds#Bonding

Remove the bonded slave ports from the bridge, then add the bonded interface back to the bridge.