USW Pro HD 24 PoE - UPGRADE TIME
TL;DR - Ignore my poor choice of tea placement and bask in the glory of my new USW Pro HD 24 PoE!
The journey begins when my paranoia about leaving my Servers in my HVAC closet 24 inches from my water heater / floor drain gets the better of me. I must move the servers to my office where they will be safe. But then they won't be connected to my main switch and I don't want bottlenecks. The OBVIOUS answer is to change my Main switch from a Flex 2.5 PoE to my first rack switch - the Pro HD 24 PoE. Then I can move the Flex 2.5 to my office and keep a good 10GbE backbone between my servers and everywhere else. With a few freak outs that my cables weren't long enough (they just needed a firm tug to get a few more inches), we eventually have everything all set up and now my servers and my new switch are very happy.
BONUS - the existing cat5e in my home that was powering my top floor U7 Pro XG was a short enough run and a good enough cable that with the Pro HD 24 I was able to get it to negotiate to a 10GbE uplink! ....do I need this? Of course not - but do I have it.....yes....yes I do. Anyways - just wanted to share my excitement at the new gear and I hope this switch will give me plenty of room to grow into over the next many years - please last a decade baby!