10gb cat6a/cat7 pc to pc?

[fakeng]

So I heard that you don't need a crossover cable, since most patch cable for cat6a and cat7 already ????. So I just need 2 10gb nic card and a cat6a/cat7 patch cable to connect to pc together?

I would consider a switch but considering they are 100 dollar per port. I think crossover cable is better.

I went ahead and ordered 2 Mellanox ConnectX-2 (one for each pc). and a Cisco Twinax Cable 37-0962-03 SFP-H10GB-CU5M. Do i need more equipment or will it work? My OS will eventually be Freenas (soon still on windows server 2012) & windows 8.1 pro (64-bit).

 

[herby]

I think you're going to have driver issuses with the current release of Freenas and that NIC, but the upcoming release should have support.

 

[neo]

Many devices today support Auto MDI-X capability, wherein a patch cable can be used in place of a crossover cable, or vice versa, and the receive and transmit signals are reconfigured automatically to yield the expected result.

For FreeNAS, Chelsio cards are the best supported.

 

[CorvetteGS]

So I heard that you don't need a crossover cable, since most patch cable for cat6a and cat7 already ????. So I just need 2 10gb nic card and a cat6a/cat7 patch cable to connect to pc together?

I would consider a switch but considering they are 100 dollar per port. I think crossover cable is better.

I went ahead and ordered 2 Mellanox ConnectX-2 (one for each pc). and a Cisco Twinax Cable 37-0962-03 SFP-H10GB-CU5M. Do i need more equipment or will it work? My OS will eventually be Freenas (soon still on windows server 2012) & windows 8.1 pro (64-bit).

There is some confusion here, you initially bring up cat6a/7 which are used for a copper twisted pair connection (10GBASE-T). However, you then go on to say that you bought Mellanox ConnectX-2's and a SFP+ Passive Twinax DA cable.

To answer your question regarding crossover cabling, if you are using 10GBASE-T you will just use a straight through (typical) cat6a,7 cable since the standard requires auto-mdix. (May potentially have to enable it manually through driver config.) However, all SFP/SFP+ connections automatically "crossover" the connection, in other words the TX pins always get wired to the RX pins on the other side, so you don't have to worry about it there either.

 

[fakeng]

Yea I wasn't sure if the card can handle rj45 10GBase-T copper.

 

[CorvetteGS]

The card you ordered uses SFP+ cages for connectivity. At the moment there is no way to operate 10GBASE-T copper through an SFP+. This is contrary to the regular SFP cages in which some manufacturers allowed use of GBIC transcievers to convert to 1000base-t copper, this is not possible at the moment for 10G.

 

[fakeng]

yea I know. Wasn't sure much about the socket/plug compatibility. I mean learning about the 20+ sockets and then learning that network cards don't use them in terms of labelling sucks. It's like learning GPU output.. Dual Channel DVI-I vs. DVI-D. HDMI 1.2 vs. 1.3a etc...

Anyways here's some pics.
10GbE Networking PC to PC for $70 USD - Album on Imgur