Fiber link between switches

GeX

GeX

GeX

Soldato
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Manchester
I have most of my networking gear (inc fileserver) under the stairs. My office is upstairs and now that I've finalised which room it will be, I want to run cabling to it.

There are already cables that run downstairs to upstairs close to where my networking kit is. However, these are all from the meter cupboard and so carry lot of noise mains AC. There is also not a great of room to run a bundle of CAT5e upstairs.

Does it make sense to replace my downstairs switch with something that can take a fiber module and add a switch upstairs that can connect to it? Or is fiber rather pricey still?

I've had a quick look around, but am not really sure what I should be looking for or avoiding.
 
I have used shielded cable for downstairs runs that go near the mains cable, and I simply don't think I'd have the space to run what's needed upstairs with cable like that.
 
Fiber is pretty cheap now... you can get even 10gbit SFP+ modules for about £35 now, 1gb will be even cheaper.

As for switches... depends on how many ports you want... ZyXel do a good 10 port layer 2 managed switch (8 1GbE & 2 1Gb Fiber) for about £100 a pop.

You could run fiber including modules and switches for about £300.

But terminating fiber is a bit of a pain, so you usually buy pre-terminated cables... if you're worried about space running some ethernet - you might not have a much easier job with the terminated fiber.
 
ah, cool. So £300 isn't that bad. I can lift floors and poke holes to run the cable - my concern was with running all of the required network cable from upstairs to downstairs ending up with a big thick bundle of cable right next to the mains cable. Running one single shielded cable as an uplink would work.. but then that would be capped at 1GbE I guess... which is likely *fine* - but who wants fine when there's faster to be had :D
 
GeX said:
ah, cool. So £300 isn't that bad. I can lift floors and poke holes to run the cable - my concern was with running all of the required network cable from upstairs to downstairs ending up with a big thick bundle of cable right next to the mains cable. Running one single shielded cable as an uplink would work.. but then that would be capped at 1GbE I guess... which is likely *fine* - but who wants fine when there's faster to be had :D
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You're still going to capped at 1 Gigabit with fibre unless you get switches withe SPF+ ports.

I'm pretty sure the kit crinkleshoes is describing for your £300 isn't going to be SPF+.

For what distance would the network cables need to run close to the mains wiring?
 
About 5metres or so with the supply for upstairs rings and lighting.

But if fiber is only going to be 1GbE I'll just run one CAT6A as an uplink.
 
If you don't mind a 2nd hand switch, a Cisco 2960G can be had for about £60.

24 GigE copper ports, 4 of which double up as Gig SFP ports. Very basic L3 capability.

I've used cheapest of the cheap OM3 fibre at home and it's been absolutely fine. No errors/CRCs on any ports. Probably wouldn't use it for a mission critical network though.
 
Why bother with fibre if it isn't going to be any better (faster) than copper?

The 'rules' you see for network cabling can be bent in a domestic environment. While I'd try to avoid running mains and network cables together I wouldn't be too concerned if they have to for short distances.
 
bremen1874 said:
You're still going to capped at 1 Gigabit with fibre unless you get switches withe SPF+ ports.

I'm pretty sure the kit crinkleshoes is describing for your £300 isn't going to be SPF+.

For what distance would the network cables need to run close to the mains wiring?
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That’s right, just 1GbE at that price.

Cheapest to do 10GbE would be maybe £500 and you’d need a card for PC and other devices too which will push price up somewhat.

Those are the Netgear 10GbE Ethernet switches.

That would be copper link too... for fibre 10GbE it would be exceeding £1000 and the switch isn’t horribly loud but it’s too loud for my office.... the Ubiquiti is good for “cheap” 10GbE fibre and ethernet

Depends what devices you have and whether they would benefit or not.
 
bremen1874 said:
Why bother with fibre if it isn't going to be any better (faster) than copper?

The 'rules' you see for network cabling can be bent in a domestic environment. While I'd try to avoid running mains and network cables together I wouldn't be too concerned if they have to for short distances.
Click to expand...
Yeah, could also just run one shielded Ethernet for 1GbE and have a new small switch for upstairs... that would be the cheapest option.
 
ok, thanks all. Think I'll just run some CAT6 as an uplink and see how that goes. It's a pretty much zero cost option as I have the cable. If it suffers due to mains cable, I'll revisit this.
 
Even with noise from mains, cat6 I think you’ll still manage a gig or close to it very easily.

It’s more industrial power where you have to be more concerned about noise.
 
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