CRS504-4XQ-IN and Breakout DACs

[CJRoss]

I'm looking at upgrading my network from unmanaged 10G to managed 25G. The CRS504 and breakout DACs seem to be the most cost efficient way to do it but I have a few concerns.

What is the longest length DAC I can expect to work? fs.com sells 5m cables but I've previously had issues with longer 10g passive DACs. What can I realisticly expect to work? And how long are the breakout sections for the longer cables? Are they always around .5m or do they get longer with longer overall cables?

If I want to run a dedicated storage segment with mtu 9000, etc, do I need to dedicate an entire connection to it or will the CRS504 handle a mix of VLANs?

Are there any other gotchas that I should watch out for? Thanks.

 

[SlowmoDK]

Maybe the new CRS510-8XS-2XQ-IN | MikroTik would be better, for pure easy of cabling, might be worth the extra about 100-150$

basically the same unit as 504 but with 2 of the QSPF already broken out

 

[CJRoss]

Maybe the new CRS510-8XS-2XQ-IN | MikroTik would be better, for pure easy of cabling, might be worth the extra about 100-150$

basically the same unit as 504 but with 2 of the QSPF already broken out

I considered that, but I have the same questions and concerns with it. I'm not sure how long a DAC I can use and I'll still need to breakout the other two ports.

 

[Chriggel]

Some people, me included, limit passive DACs to 3m, even if 5m is supported. Active DACs exist for a reason, but are a niche. If you need longer connections but still don't want to use optical transceivers, AOC is the way to go as a sort of middle ground between the two.

 

[xyvyx]

I had good luck w/ an optical breakout box from FS.com & using several different types of optical transceivers on the other end... 25Gb into an Intel/Supermicro/ESXi box, a couple Mikrotik switches, one ubiquiti switch & the 25Gb mellanox card in the PC I'm typing this on. So several different lengths & speeds w/ 100Gb transceivers in the 504