10Gb copper, Is it going to be available for home usage (sub $100 switches ) soon?

[Bert]

I am trying to wrap my head what will be the story around 10Gb copper. I was hoping that process improvements etc would bring down the power and price on 10GB networking but it is not happening. It seems like industry is also giving up on 10Gb as consumer market is moving at the direction of 2.5Gb or 5Gb.

I was watching video which was claiming that 10Gb on copper is a lost cause due to technical challenges. Now I understand Cat6A was designed for 10Gb so existing cabling has to be updated for 10Gb but it looks like to have support on Cat6, there is lots of noise handling is built into the standard. Apparently this makes the implementation of standard complex and expensive (power and price). Is this correct?

Do you guys predict that 10Gb finally becoming available with lower cost and power usage soon or are there fundamental blocking issues for 10Gb on copper (Cat6A)?

 

[vangoose]

10Gb runs fine on 5e.

 

[acquacow]

I've been running my home lab on 10Gig over standard cat5e for the last 5 years with no issue.

Picked up 3 aquantia 10gig nics for $90 total, I have a few intel 540-T2 Nics I got on ebay, a netgear XS708T and XS712T... and a few supermicro Xeon-D 1541 ITX boards with onboard 10gigE all playing nice together.

http://imgur.com/ZV1ydn4

 

[i386]

I don't think 10gbase-t will get cheaper (nics and switches). It's too slow for datacenters/enterprises (no investment in that technology) and too much for homeusers (companies invest in other standards like 2.5 or 5gbe)

 

[andrea87]

I don't see much of a near future on 10gbe copper in the home sector. We've just settled on 2.5gbe nics on many motherboards, and still most of the switches available are only gigabit. With the current scenarios and ISP speed / availability, I see anything above 2.5 unlikely to take hold soon.
The server market has already moved over to much faster systems, either 25/50/100gbps or above; mostly on fiber. What we're using in our homelabs as 10gbe nics are most often refurbished cards with new optics or transceivers.
Keep in mind also that 10gbase-t modules are significantly more power hungry than sfp+ short range optics, making them a difficult choice that might not work well in passively cooled switches due to overheating.

My home is currently wired almost entirely cat6, I've dropped a few fibers during remodeling in critical places to have future access to above gigabit speeds where I might need it. When the time comes I'll probably buy a 8x sfp+ switch like the mikrotik CRS309-1G-8S+IN and use it with direct attach cables to the server and sfp fiber modules to the other parts of the 10gbe network.

 

[ecosse]

http://imgur.com/ZV1ydn4

I thought that was the inside of a fridge for a second.

 

[jdnz]

NICs are cheap enough now ( either aquantia or x540-t2 ) - main issue is finding suitable switches at sane prices and in form factors and noise levels fit for home use ( I ended up going with QNAP for that reason ).

As others have already said cat5e is fine for short runs - my whole house was pre-wired with 5e, I only had one longer run where the error rate was a concern at 10gbe ( so I set the switch to run that link at 5gbe )

 

[mattventura]

I also ran a 10GbE across the house with a Cat5E. It worked, but they just run so hot. You're really just bumping into limitations of the cabling at that point. Fiber or direct attach are significantly better for the long term.

Now, that being said, I would still expect it to get better. One thing that neither fiber nor DAC can do is PoE. Once we start seeing Wifi APs that can actually use that speed, it will light a fire under manufacturers to improve the tech a bit.

 

[Railgun]

From what aspect are you looking? Modules? The switch itself? Modules are less than $100 today. Your best bet for the switch is to look at per-port cost instead of outright cost and pick something that best suits your needs.

To @i386's point, no enterprise will care about 10Gb copper anyway, nor will they care about 2.5Gb. Anyone looking at that from a performance perspective will be in the creative field and do fiber anyway. I did a similar setup 15+ years ago. Investing early in a fiber infrastructure is cheap as fiber costs have come way way down, and gives you the flexibility to choose about any speed. Could even go up to 400Gb on MMF.

 

[Bert]

It seems like consensus is 10Gb on copper is not going to get popular anytime soon. Give that fiber took over copper on the enterprise domain is the primary reason behind it.

Well, I thought I future proofed my house by wiring it with Cat6a; looks like I was wrong. I am going to invest into fiber based solution for my home network and avoid 10Gb copper.

 

[mattventura]

It seems like consensus is 10Gb on copper is not going to get popular anytime soon. Give that fiber took over copper on the enterprise domain is the primary reason behind it.

Well, I thought I future proofed my house by wiring it with Cat6a; looks like I was wrong. I am going to invest into fiber based solution for my home network and avoid 10Gb copper.

Watch out, it's possible to make the same mistake with fiber (SM vs MM, duplex vs MPO, and so on). LC SMF seems to be the most future proof and has cheap transceivers available.

 

[Railgun]

But SR optics will generally be less expensive (not a lot but still less expensive) and no one would generally run MTP/MPO cabling to various endpoints as structured cabling. Until you get to 40Gb+, LC optics are pretty cheap. Then, SR4 wins. As trunks and for breakout, MTP/MPO for sure, but not as structured cabling, in particular not in a home unless you have a very specific need.

 

[mattventura]

But SR optics will generally be less expensive (not a lot but still less expensive) and no one would generally run MTP/MPO cabling to various endpoints as structured cabling. Until you get to 40Gb+, LC optics are pretty cheap. Then, SR4 wins. As trunks and for breakout, MTP/MPO for sure, but not as structured cabling, in particular not in a home unless you have a very specific need.

The way I see it is:
1. LC SM: Compatible with pretty much everything (1/10/25/40/100 and beyond).
2. LC MM: Cheaper for 10/25, but difficult to find 40/100Gb transceivers at a reasonable price since most SR 40/100 MM transceivers use MPO instead of LC.
3. MPO/MTP MM: Cheaper for 40/100, but completely incompatible with 10/25.

 

[bitbckt]

The only reason I'd run MM in a home is for audio equipment that can't utilize SM. Otherwise, the most "future proof" option today is SM where you can, copper for delivering PoE to APs, and those rare occasions where a MM run goes to a home theater system.

 

[Bert]

Watch out, it's possible to make the same mistake with fiber (SM vs MM, duplex vs MPO, and so on). LC SMF seems to be the most future proof and has cheap transceivers available.

First I have to learn what those things are, never heard these abbreviations before. Unlike copper, the world of fiber looks very complex.

 

[presslab]

To me the future is PoE. It's not possible to do that over fiber. I use PoE for a number of devices around my house, it's great.

Even some APs already come with 10G PoE.

Another advantage with copper is that it's easy to field terminate CAT6, and even CAT8 is easy without special tools (Leviton Atlas X-1). Fiber termination is in another league.

For these reasons I think the future of home networking is with copper.

I picked up an N3248PXE switch a while back; this is multigig with PoE. White this switch isn't cheap, the technology is already there and will only come down in price with lower power consumption.

So, probably not sub $100 for both ends very soon. But sooner than most think.

 

[Propaganda]

The future of my home networking is whatever the datacenter/buisness decommissions.

 

[i386]

I don't think poe/aps will be a driver for 10gbase-t when I read that apple, meta, microsoft and many more companies have most of their employees in homeoffices and don't need the bandwidth or coverage in the offices anymore...

 

[Bert]

That's correct. Most of the companies are actually moving to provide better wifi and stop investing on the lan connection. Wifi also has better security solutions.

 

[CyklonDX]

while some people here managed running 10Gig over cat5e; I have not managed to get more than ~500MB/s (nvme -to- arc2 cache). Just changing it to cat6 cable made it run at 880MB/s (cat7 cable actually got me 1240MB/s). Still not great... bad exp with copper for me. (I didn't cheap out on the cables either.)

Fiber got me solid 1200MB/s on same system/setup.
I used it with QNAP QSW-M408-4C, and i did try to tune things.