In this video I’m taking a hands-on look at the MikroTik CRS504-4XQ-IN, which is a 100GbE switch with four QSFP28 ports. On paper it sounds like total overkill for a home lab, but once you compare the feature set and price to other 100G switches, the value starts to make a lot more sense. I walk through the external layout (dual redundant hot-swap PSUs, console, 100Mb management port, DC input, and the really cool PoE-powered option), plus the mounting options for rack, wall, or desktop. I also pop the lid so you can see what’s actually inside—nothing too crazy, but you do get a feel for how compact the power supplies are and how the airflow/heatsinks are laid out. Then I go through initial setup in the web UI, setting a static IP and using bridge mode. I show RouterOS 7.6, what’s useful for switching, and what I personally wouldn’t bother doing on this box since it’s a single-core 650MHz CPU. Finally, I connect two servers (Dell R730 and a Supermicro X10SRi) with Mellanox ConnectX-4 100G NICs and DAC cables, fix the FEC setting (FEC91) so the link comes up, and run iperf3. I couldn’t quite hit a clean 100Gbps and it looks CPU-bound, but with two iperf streams I was able to push into the high-80Gbps range, which is still pretty wild for a home lab.