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#sfp#ethernet#cable#where#fiber#need#mode#cables#copper#high

Discussion (42 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
The floors where native fibre is not needed have a cheap ethernet media converter from fs.com, everything else (3 floor switches) are interconnected with 10Gbps SFP+ modules and 2.5G ethernet for the hosts.
All done thanks to the great https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2020-08-09-fiber-link-ho...
(if you are reading this, I owe you several beers)
You should be running both.
If you are being smart about it your planning distributed switching (fiber to media boxes with power).
From a pure networking stance, fiber is the way to go. But POE continues to have more and more uses (doorbells, cameras, sensors, lighting controls).
But for cabling, OS2 clear bend rated cable … pre-terminated is like the same price and currently have 25gb optics but I’m able to run over 100gb in my house without having to drill holes etc. (runs along the baseboards)
The cables are super thin… and clear/transparent
And I never have to replace the cable again I’m pretty sure haha
The bidi sfp28s $25 are awesome :)
And worst case if your service loop just … loops …. Eh haha
Gonna try using it for other things like hdmi etc too with a cassette :)
https://www.ui.com/us/en/integrations/accessory-tech/sfp-wiz...
Previously seen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45732874
Especially handy for specific Intel NICs where they refuse to link up if the module isn't in the driver-allowed list and those modules are hard to come by
Replaced a wifi bridge that way...30m run across multiple rooms & hallway...zero drilling.
https://www.fs.com/c/gpon-xgspon-sticks-5607 (I think this is what you're looking for?)
10baseT (!0Mbps) came out in 1990 (there were non-twisted pair earlier versions). "Fast Ethernet" (100Mbps) came out in 1995. Copper 1GbE came out in 1999. Copper 10GbE came out in 2006. Ethernet seemed addicted to 10x'ing every version and 10GbE is really where everything fell apart. Or at least, it's where it got hard. We never really got mass market 10GbE. The controllers were too expensive. The cable requirements were quite high. And heat was an issue.
1GbE really was fast enough and 10GbE was a massive jump that I even remember thinking at the time that there should've been intermediate steps, which is what happened in 2016 with 2.5GbE and 5GbE.
Now compare to Thunderbolt, introduced in 2011, which has completely surpassed Ethernet bandwidth, in part by putting chips in the cables, but of course the big difference is cable length. A copper cat 6/7 cable can get to ~100 meters, which is also why the power is so high: attenuation.
but I guess my point is that 10GbE over copper was a mistake. We'd reached the point where you really had to swap over to fiber.
[1]: https://www.ebay.com/itm/127178476193
I'd say 10GbE has arrived. It is relatively cheap, most of the time works over existing 1GbE cabling, and gracefully degrades to 5/2.5/1Gb based on conditions when it can't reach 10Gb.
Yes to be 100% guaranteed of getting 10Gb even in bundles of 100 cables running over noisy fluorescent ballasts to a full 100m you need Cat6A but in many environments Cat5e or Cat6 is more than sufficient. It works so well if you fail to get the full 10Gb I humbly suggest you re-do the terminations on both ends before considering replacing the cable.
You are correct that 10GBASE-T really shouldn't be the default choice, fiber and DAC both have advantages over it. But compatibility is important, and there are a lot of situations where 10GBASE-T is just more convenient.
Also personally, if you can get away with a copper DAC, I would rather use that instead of fiber because you don't need any special modules.
Regular people also are not buying DACs.
If you are in the line of work where you need to know what SFP is and the difference between DAC and Optical, a quick "what's OM3 vs OM5 and when do I use either?" to your favorite LLM/Search engine will get you sorted.
Regular people don't know whether to get Cat5, Cat5e, Cat6, or Cat7. So... yeah.
> ...OM3/OM4/OM5? Single mode/Multi mode? LC/SC?...
My answer is OM4, Multi-mode [0], LC. OM3, 4, and 5 will all work at 10gbit for any run you'd expect to make in most houses. I chose cable grade based on what was in stock at the local store. I chose connector type based on what fit into my NICs. I went with multi-mode because it was cheaper than single-mode and I wasn't going to be making multi-km runs.
[0] That's what the "M" in in the cable designation means.
Biggest install cost is labour. The cable and optics are cheap now, and with the future (200Gbps+) being multiple wavelengths in parallel[1], we’ve pretty much hit the end of the road for MMF.
[1] https://www.tiafotc.org/ieee-802-3-ethernet-standards-update...