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10Gb/s Ethernet: switching to a Broadcom SFP+ module

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Re: 10Gb/s Ethernet: switching to a Broadcom SFP+ module

#131

Post by jiveturkey »

Fnoord wrote: post #94
tombert wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have ten gigabits throughout most of my house, and you're right: copper is not happy pushing ten gigs. My 10 gigabit thunderbolt dongle weighs about a pound, and I think 90+% of that weight is just heatsink. If I've had it plugged in for awhile, if I accidentally touch that dongle it actually hurts because it's so hot. I cannot image that much heat is good for, well, anything. I have another Thunderbolt dongle that…

> I have ten gigabits throughout most of my house, and you're right: copper is not happy pushing ten gigs. DACs are copper, and they're happy. > I have another Thunderbolt dongle that has an SFP+ module, so I ran a fiber line from my switch to my computer, and that runs considerably cooler. That's what I use nowadays. This is also what I am doing, and I love it. Much better and more reliable than WLAN. I want as much…

> DACs are copper, and they're happy.

Well come on. GP really means category cable (twisted pair copper) is not happy at 10Gb distribution lengths (so-called horizontal cabling, although in a home it may span multiple floors without IDFs). That's kind of obvious context.

DACs are not category cable; they are twinax, short, and bulky.

Re: 10Gb/s Ethernet: switching to a Broadcom SFP+ module

#132

Post by Keyframe »

fooblaster wrote: post #77
Keyframe wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did just that relatively recently in a house we bought. OS2 single mode duplex throughout the house, all converging to a trunk which is available in three locations for equipment. It's basically future proof, but also has its own well, things. You can't really plug into a duplex (I wish though), you have to put a small switch to it with SFP+ or 28 or whatever the speed you want. Higher speed switches are also a tad…

So tell me... how much did you spend? Is fiber doable without insane money.

You can check out FS (.com) it's quite cheap. For distribution from my attic (where all conduits converge to) to rooms I ran OS2 LC UPC duplex patch cables together with CAT6A. There I have a small rack with a patch panel and a PoE switch (to run APs) and from there I have a 48-strand trunk going to my basement where I have a bit of a larger rack with equipment. That way my APs are connected to main network via PoE switch which is connected via fiber and all the wall outlets with fibers are connected directly to main rack with equipment. Furthermore, I also ran another trunk from basement to garage where eventually I'll run everything from (with full height racks.. yeah, overkill) - with a wall patch panel I can just rewire trunk to trunk, close the panel and that's it.

If we're not accounting for switches, we're talking maybe few hundred euros at most including cables and outlets both for fiber and CAT6A, maybe 400-500 total or so where majority was CAT6A since I opted for the more _industrial one_, includes 150 I paid for help to run the cables through conduits. Fiber was all patch from distribution to walls, and trunk mainlines are _industrial_ fibers where in a single small diameter cable you have 48 strands of single mode. Actually in one I have 72 strands since guys didn't have 48 at the time and diameter is the same and price difference was small. This is for a three story house + basement and a run to the garage. I did the crimping myself, you do NOT "crimp" fiber yourself.. you get pre-made cables or for trunks you ask for pros with equipment to splice/fuse it for you.

Network equipment is a range of course. I opted for dream machine gateway for net and then the backbone is Switch pro XG Aggregation where most equipment is at with Switch Pro XG 10 PoE for APs (has dual 10GBit uplink), and a few smaller switches on the edges like Flex 2.5G for cameras etc. Yeah, I went full ubiquiti on that one and my mainline is basically 25Gb network, but it doesn't matter and that's the beauty of this setup - I could've easily gone full 1Gbit, 10, 25, 100, 400, even Nvidia/Mellanox 800Gbit OSFP with appropriate transcievers if one wants to go way overboard. Idea was to run this through to be future-proof cable-wise for another 10+ years (probably more), and for network setup to be for next 10 years (probably more) with 10/25G.

Re: 10Gb/s Ethernet: switching to a Broadcom SFP+ module

#133

Post by Keyframe »

cortesoft wrote: post #90
fooblaster wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So tell me... how much did you spend? Is fiber doable without insane money.

Fiber optic cable itself isn't that expensive. You can easily get it for less than $0.20/foot. It shouldn't be that much different in price to run fiber verse running cat6. The expensive part is the labor, not the cable.

I forgot to say this, but you said it. Fiber is cheaper than CAT6A, and labor is the expensive one. If you have conduits, you don't need much labor then. Ask an electrician or a buddy to help out for a hundred or two for an hour or two and you can do it yourself. It's not a big deal (IF YOU HAVE CONDUITS IN GOOD CONDITION / SHAPE).

Re: 10Gb/s Ethernet: switching to a Broadcom SFP+ module

#134

Post by Keyframe »

toast0 wrote: post #101
fooblaster wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I was more referring to the switches with sfp and the transceivers themselves. I have never tried to get something "low end".

At 10g, sfp+ switches are cheaper and more available than 10gbase-T switches. Fiber transceivers seem reasonable, but I could be off; I've only looked a little at fiber prices, I already have cat5 in the wall, so I'm on DAC for nearby stuff and twisted pair for other rooms for the forseable future. I don't really need 10G, but it provides a bit of fun.

for shorter runs you might even get 10G on cat5.

Re: 10Gb/s Ethernet: switching to a Broadcom SFP+ module

#135

Post by thefz »

drnick1 wrote: post #42
thefz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever ran a single mode bidi fibre in a conduit? Push a wire puller, cleave and terminate ends, done. Zero effort unlike pulling a jacketed CAT7 cable, zero worries from electrical interference too, future proofing up to 40GBps. I ran double strands in my house so in case one breaks, there's another. The floors where native fibre is not needed have a cheap ethernet media converter from fs.com, everything else (3 floor…

The issue with this setup is that you need an extra switch with an SFP+ uplink or media converter in each room or place where Ethernet will be used. And then you still need Ethernet cables anyway for the end devices. I can't justify this complexity for 40Gbps when I can now get 10Gbps inexpensively and conveniently.

Each floor's fiber terminates in a CRS310-8G+2S+IN except where I mentioned, there's a single 1G media converter.

Re: 10Gb/s Ethernet: switching to a Broadcom SFP+ module

#136

Post by thefz »

throw0101c wrote: post #63
thefz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever ran a single mode bidi fibre in a conduit? Push a wire puller, cleave and terminate ends, done. Zero effort unlike pulling a jacketed CAT7 cable, zero worries from electrical interference too, future proofing up to 40GBps. I ran double strands in my house so in case one breaks, there's another. The floors where native fibre is not needed have a cheap ethernet media converter from fs.com, everything else (3 floor…

If your walls are ripped open, then sure run some OS2 everywhere, but Cat 6A gets you 10GbE at 100m, but even 'only' Cat 5e or (plain) 6 gets you that speed up to 55m (per 802.3an): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_Gigabit_Ethernet#10GBASE-T * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_over_twisted_pair#Var... Why the need for faffing about with media convertors, at least with-in your domicile? (Fibre outside / to the…

> Why the need for faffing about with media convertors, at least with-in your domicile? (Fibre outside / to the garage certainly makes sense.)

For all the benefits I mentioned above, plus no electrostatic shielding required, and all fibers end in a CRS310-8G+2S+IN.

Re: 10Gb/s Ethernet: switching to a Broadcom SFP+ module

#137

Post by collabs »

toast0 wrote: post #104
collabs wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be grateful and happy to have gigabit Ethernet with cat 6A in every room instead of this single landline phone jack and/or coaxial cable. The most important thing is a good conduit in place when the house is built.

Depending on when your landline phone jacks were put in, you might be able to reterminate with rj45 and run something-baseT, although you'll need four pair to hit gigE or better. Works better if your house was wired with home runs to somewhere useful, but even daisy chained runs can go room to room with a switch per room.

> Depending on when your landline phone jacks were put in, you might be able to reterminate with rj45 and run something-baseT, although you'll need four pair to hit gigE or better. Works better if your house was wired with home runs to somewhere useful, but even daisy chained runs can go room to room with a switch per room.

This is very useful and actionable information. At the very least I think it will be useful to plug in the mesh WiFi access point thingy if I actually have four pair in there. I will check. Thank you!

Re: 10Gb/s Ethernet: switching to a Broadcom SFP+ module

#138

Post by AshamedCaptain »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #27

I feel like we have moved into the era now where if you were putting cabling in the walls for networking you should be choosing fibre now. Not necessarily because we are definitely at the stage where the home needs it, but because the off ramp is clearly happening for ethernet at 10gbit/s and its really high consumption and heat. Switching to fibre after 2.5gbit/s seems like the thing to do now and plenty of us now h…

"High power consumption" is debatable, since even these hot transceivers are consuming about 3W, and the replacement ones are closer to 1W. At 1W per port, the switch you'll put them in likely has higher overhead...

It is difficult, but possible, to find a SFP+-capable switch where idle consumption scales at around 1W/port, but less than that I have not found.

Re: 10Gb/s Ethernet: switching to a Broadcom SFP+ module

#139

Post by AshamedCaptain »

tiffanyh wrote: post #51
PaulKeeble wrote: post #27

I feel like we have moved into the era now where if you were putting cabling in the walls for networking you should be choosing fibre now. Not necessarily because we are definitely at the stage where the home needs it, but because the off ramp is clearly happening for ethernet at 10gbit/s and its really high consumption and heat. Switching to fibre after 2.5gbit/s seems like the thing to do now and plenty of us now h…

> ethernet at 10gbit/s and its really high consumption and heat Do you mean Ethernet cables get hot? Or just the networking equipment pushing that data. I ask because I’ve never heard of Ethernet cables getting hot.

No, the transceivers get hot. This is because of plenty of small metal surfaces, so even if they do not consume too much they will immediately get warm to the touch.

Re: 10Gb/s Ethernet: switching to a Broadcom SFP+ module

#140

Post by throw0101a »

oofabz wrote: post #114
Keyframe wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did just that relatively recently in a house we bought. OS2 single mode duplex throughout the house, all converging to a trunk which is available in three locations for equipment. It's basically future proof, but also has its own well, things. You can't really plug into a duplex (I wish though), you have to put a small switch to it with SFP+ or 28 or whatever the speed you want. Higher speed switches are also a tad…

Why not multi-mode? The transceivers are a lot cheaper, especially for 100G and above.

> Why not multi-mode? The transceivers are a lot cheaper, especially for 100G and above.

OS2 transceivers are not that expensive anymore with the rise in third-party modules: sure, first-party, OEM SKUs are pricey, but a home user is not going to go that route.

Standard /r/networking advice is to go single-mode basically everywhere due to price drops over the last 10+ years.

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