I’m making this post simply because I had this question and could not find a conclusive answer. Here’s the back story.
I have a project where I needed 2 Toughswitches. And I needed the 8 port units as the 5 port switch was too small. However when I went to order the switches, every single seller of them had them listed as ‘back ordered’. I could get the 5 port models or the 16 port models, but those aren’t what I needed. That’s when I had the idea, since their ’16 port’ carrier model is nothing but two 8 port switches in a rack-mountable carrier, can they be taken out of the carrier and used separately? I didn’t want to take a $400 gamble to get one, and find out that they were difficult or impossible to take out of the carrier. Or that maybe that ran a special firmware that required them to work as a pair. The web provided no assistance on this question.
So I started calling some distributors to ask. What I found out right away was that the 8 port switches are back ordered because at this time there are labor issues and ships are not able to get in to port in Los Angeles. Secondly no one was able to specifically answer my question, but believed that what I wanted to do, could be done. So I went ahead and ordered a Ubiquiti TS-16-CARRIER.
I’m hear to say that it can done, and done easily. The face plate can be simply be popped off and the 2 8 port switches slide right on out. At that point, the are completely independent of each other. See photos below.
