M4300-96X - L3 96-Port Modular Switch for IT Pros with Fiber & Copper Options
What is the M4300 Layer 3 Switch Platform?
The NETGEAR M4300 is a line of 13x 1gb and 10gb fully managed L3 switches. Small to large IT installers worldwide pick M4300 because it is ideally positioned in education, government, hospitality, large business, and even specialized industries such as ProAV. With a vast collection of port-counts, speeds, redundancy, flexibility, stacking capabilities, non-stop forwarding, and more, M4300 strikes a perfect balance of features and value. That’s the special sauce that makes M4300 a great choice when it comes to L3 managed switches.
A recent Business Blog discussed the multitude of features of the NETGEAR M4300 Layer 3 Switches, along with their professional IT use cases. Why do we have so many sizes and formats of M4300? Simple: whether it’s top of the rack, or the edge of your network, you need options. If a switch isn’t available with the port-count, port-type, and features you need, you’ll be forced to build a network on an array of compromises. With that in mind, we’d like to use the blog as a springboard for a more in-depth on the M4300-96X Modular Switch model and help you understand what makes it so special and useful.
Some call the 96X the flagship of the M4300 family, so as you might expect, the M4300-96X has some big shoes to fill. This versatile switch model was created to solve several IT deployment challenges in ProAV, Power over Ethernet, and core and edge connectivity. How often do you wish you could have a switch with the perfect number of port numbers and types for any deployment type, or options for future expandability?
With the 96X’s modular configuration, you get all of that. The base model 2U M4300-96X switch contains 12 expansion bays with 4 options for each bay. Option #1 is 8-Ports per bay of 10gb copper (specifically, multi-gigabit ports with Fast,1Gb, 2.5Gb, 5Gb, or 10Gb). Option #2 is 8-Ports per bay of 10G PoE+ (6x cards of 48 ports PoE+ with max PSU option). Option #3 is 8-Ports per bay of 1G/10G SFP+. Finally, if massive performance is needed, network engineers may choose Option #4 with 2-Ports per bay of 40Gb QSFP+. All of these port-cards can be mixed and matched in any configuration, making the switch incredibly user-configurable for practically any IT deployment opportunity. And as the 96X’s fabric is 1.92Tbps, any and all configurations can be used without sacrificing overall performance. If you want to design your own M4300-96X, use our online configurator and design your own modular switch: www.netgear.com/96x-config
M4300-96X PoE Options
Modern network deployments often demand PoE+ options, and the 96X and several M4300 models are ready to power your PDs. If you need the flexibility of the 96X and PoE, up to 6 bays of 8-Port cards can fully provision 30W of PoE+ for a total of 48-Ports of PoE+. Visit the M4300 Switch family page for more PoE options, including the M4300-16X (16-Ports of 10Gb copper), or the M4300-52G-PoE+ with 48-Ports of fully managed 1Gb PoE+. Just take a look and you’ll see that the M4300 platform’s got you covered when it comes to PoE options!
Uses of M4300-96X in IT Applications
Deploying or migrating servers to a 10G backbone with M4300-96X. Without a doubt, the capabilities of basic PCs, attached storage, security cameras, and more are growing at an exponential rate. In many cases, 1Gig switches (or even 10G uplinks) cannot provide the quality of services needed for these applications. Many small and medium-sized servers are upgrading to 10G copper, 10G, or even 40G fiber to ensure the free flow of data. With a full 1.92Tbps fabric, M4300-96X easily fills this role and keeps data flowing.
M4300-96X can power 10G/40G Core/Aggregation in Spine and Leaf topologies. Modern network architectures must support modern connectivity and modes of operations such as spine and leaf topologies, non-blocking backplanes, non-stop forwarding, and switch stacking. Line-rate spine and leaf stacking topologies offer multiple possibilities in server rooms and branch collapsed cores, or at the edge of growing networks. To learn more, visit the What is Spine and Leaf Networking blog for additional discussion of the M4300 in the Spine and Leaf role.
![stack_31-300x158[1].jpg](https://community.netgear.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/40622i97896E812CEACD34/image-size/medium?v=v2&px=400 "stack_31-300x158[1].jpg")
M4300-96X Connecting Copper Multi-Gigabit Ethernet devices. New ethernet devices are being deployed that go beyond the limitations of 1Gb. Helping to avoid the need to rip and replace infrastructure, these devices can communicate beyond 1Gb using existing Cat 5e and Cat 6+ cabling. The Multi-Gig capable M4300-96X is ideally positioned to not only Power (with PoE+), but also supply next-gen WiFi 6 APs and other devices with 2.5Gb or faster connectivity. Learn more about Multi-Gig switching here.
M4300-96X as a flexible media converter. If a deployment needs to easily convert between 10Gb Copper and 10Gb SFP+, it can do it in a very low-latency and flexible manner as port-cards can be added in any order or configuration, expanding as your network grows.
M4300-96X for AV over IP Switching and powering PoE+ RX/TX end-points. Thanks to advances in video CODECs and low-latency compression/transmission, 4K+ video is quickly moving to the data center. As a founding member of the SDVoE Alliance, NETGEAR Business has played a key part in this with the M4300 switches. Take heed ProAV integrators; M4300-96X is designed for you! More and more RX/TX are requiring 10Gb connectivity, (or multi-gig in some cases), and the lowered complexity and flexibility of PoE+ powered endpoints cannot be discounted. Additionally, with its 40G fiber options, 96X can act as a backbone in many deployments. We will be discussing M4300 in the ProAV space in a future article, but in the meantime, we invite you to visit the NETGEAR ProAV page for more information on this exciting use case.
HDMI ProAV Port-Card for SDVoE Deployments. Thanks to M4300-96X’s popularity with ProAV deployments, a truly amazing convergence has taken place in the form of 3rd party 96X port-cards featuring 4x HDMI ports. The M4300-96X can support up to six 4-Port HDMI cards for a total of 24 HDMI ports! HDMI Port-Card options exist from ZeeVee, DVI Gear, and other ProAV manufacturers, letting you mix HDMI and Ethernet ports on the same switch and seamlessly transport latency free SDVoE 4k+ Video.
M4300-96X - Lifetime warranty, Support and Community
NETGEAR Business stands by the M4300 switches product line and provides a robust lifetime warranty. In addition 90 days of Technical Support via phone and email and lifetime chat support. Additionally, if you need it, there is a lifetime next business day hardware replacement. Visit the NETGEAR ProSafe Lifetime Warranty page for additional details.
Is the M4300-96X the right switch for your next deployment? Find the right NETGEAR M4300 Switch models for your next IT project. Design your own M4300-96X using our online configurator and design your own modular switch: www.netgear.com/96x-config. Also, discuss this article in the NETGEAR Managed Switches forum.
