SFP between switches - is it considered future proof / worth it ?

Donnie Fisher

Donnie Fisher

Donnie Fisher

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A few years ago, we moved to a thick walled house, and since that time I've persevered with powerline adapters between to connect devices around the house. This has managed for the most part, but its struggled at times as it tops out about 3Mb/s, and will definitely struggle more as we are moving away from satellite TV and more to on demand / NAS sourced media.

So its time to wire up the house properly. Given the layout / design of the house, I reckon my best layout is to essentially have 2 main switches, one for each floor which will connect up the various devices including wifi access points ... something similar to this:


Code: 
INTERNET <---> ISP MODEM/ROUTER <---> SWITCH <-------------> SWITCH
                                      |                      |
                                      Downstairs             Upstairs
                                      Devices                Devices


The link between the 2 switches is going to be a pain the hoop to run, and will involve a fair bit of work in terms of creating a hole between upstairs and downstairs in a cupboard. I'd like it to be a one-time install if possible. The run would be between 10 to 15m in length.

So I had thought that if I got 2x 1Gigabit switches with SFP ports and run a fibre cable between the 2 ... would that fibre cable likely be able to used for 10Gbit stuff if I were to upgrade the system later down the line ?

i.e. upgrade the switches, and the SFP modules, but leave the original fibre cable ?

( I cant really see me needing 10Gbe for a while though to be honest )
 
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If you pull in a single-mode fibre then that's as future proof as things can be. The most future proof would be to install flexible conduit giving you the ability to pull whatever you wanted in at a later date, but that needs more space.
 
Future proofing is one of the reasons i got a switch for home use with SFP+ connectivity.
I aint using them at the moment but somewhere down the line i will be hooking up a 10Gbe server or nas or some other rubbish i have concocted.
 
A copper run will be easier and still do 10 Gbit. Also single mode for a house is complete overkill when MM will do long runs.
 
Waste of money tech will move on by the time you need 10gb (20 years) it will be main stream cheap copper and your fibre will not be usable,. You would end up trying to source old enterprise kit to install..

Why not use cat6 cables that supports 10gb and is (for the amount you need) effectively the same price as 5
 
Thanks for the replies. Sounds like SFP may not be worth it then at the moment*. I'm not against running a copper cable by any means, I was just wondering whether I would benefit significantly by going fibre for the long term.

*That being said ... might be interesting to mess around with.
 
Stick with copper for that size run, its stronger and more forgiving in a home environment. I helped a mate run two fibre pairs to his garage both 10gb and that works fine. This removed the worry of bridging the two common grounds between the garage and house.
 
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As said above. Fibre is completely overkill, stick to copper and make it easier on yourself. Theres no point in the added expense of SFP's, etc when copper will do the job.
 
I'd agree with the above, *but* pull more than one feed - you can always do link aggregation for the S&G if you have a suitable server or managed switches, at worst you have spare feeds.
 
ChrisD. said:
A copper run will be easier and still do 10 Gbit. Also single mode for a house is complete overkill when MM will do long runs.
Click to expand...

+1

MM fibre will do hundred of meters, SM will do thousands.

If you want future proofed fibre, run OM3 for 10G, OM4 for 40G/100G. As mentioned though, copper will do 10G. Either option is very cheap, it's the hardware on either end that can get expensive.

What switches do you have?
 
I don't have any switches as yet. My downstairs switch will need a couple of Poe ports and so will the upstairs one. So when looking at them there are often sfp ports on them leading to the question of whether it's worth it to use them or not.
 
Yes, there is nothing coming down the line in the near-term that will compete with an optical fibre. A current optical fibre will run 40 or 100Gb speeds, so it will be a while before you have home level hardware to compete with that.

The only issue is finding someone to terminate your fibres. You can buy the kit and watch YouTube videos and do it yourself, but it’s not going to be cheap.
 
WJA96 said:
Yes, there is nothing coming down the line in the near-term that will compete with an optical fibre. A current optical fibre will run 40 or 100Gb speeds, so it will be a while before you have home level hardware to compete with that.

The only issue is finding someone to terminate your fibres. You can buy the kit and watch YouTube videos and do it yourself, but it’s not going to be cheap.
Click to expand...


Must be able to hire a splice kit and pig tails are dirt cheap.
 
It's a shame that there aren't more switches that have mostly 1 GbE ports with a few 10 GbE ports. The affordable ones all either seem to be low port counts (e.g. 8 ports) or use SFPs instead.
 
Donnie Fisher said:
Are pre made ones a no go then ? A 20m isn't crazy expensive online.
Click to expand...

I've used plenty in the past and had no problem at all (MM and SM) - just the lengths may not be 100% of what you want. If you find the lengths close enough to what you want, I see no reason not to use them. Just remember to not put too much of a bend radius into the surplus - a nice bundle is good.
 
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