15m Active Optical w/ SFP28 - $25

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richardm

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Sep 27, 2013
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Mellanox MFA2P10-A015 Compatible 25G SFP28 Active Optical Cable 15m - NEW | eBay

This listing is titled "Mellanox MFA2P10-A015 Compatible" and the seller is named "itreplay". It's a 15m 25gb active optical and for $25 it seems way too cheap. Free shipping and the seller accepts returns.

The picture shows an fs.com product so I figured somebody coded the transceivers for Mellanox. OK, cool.

Turns out the seller was actually Ingram Micro and the cable assembly is almost certainly genuine Mellanox. It's sold as "new" and I believe it.

Not affiliated with the seller; just happy with the deal I got and wanted to share...
 

richardm

Member
Sep 27, 2013
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And I just bought four transceivers the other day when this would have done the job perfectly for a little less!
Honestly I'd rather have transceivers and four meter cables. These are too long so I have coils of excess to hide somewhere. But they were too cheap to resist.
 
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vbcurtis

New Member
Jan 21, 2024
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I haven't bought 25G cards because the cabling and connectors were more expensive than the card.
Now I have a cable, thanks ( I guess...)!
 
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Mar 12, 2020
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But I skipped over 25G, 40G, 56G and went to 100gb when the Intel 100G qsfp's were 5$. And then I bought two mellanox dual 100G cards for 130$ each. Just saying...
 
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davad

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Jun 23, 2024
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But I skipped over 25G, 40G, 56G and went to 100gb when the Intel 100G qsfp's were 5$. And then I bought two mellanox dual 100G cards for 130$ each. Just saying...
I'm just now setting up 10G. I think the next network upgrade I do will be to 100G, but we'll see when that happens.
 

Jaket

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Jan 4, 2017
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Seattle, New York
purevoltage.com
We used a lot of these for 40G and to be honest are replacing everything with optics and 40/100g and proper fiber cables as upgrading racks from 40G to 100G otherwise requires removing the AOC cables which then becomes a massive pain. Granted this is for data center work. It's a lot easier to swap out a pair of optics keeping the cable in place rather than having to re-run everything.

For the few years we used 40g AOC cables it's been quite amazing but the extra slack is also quite annoying. We're still working on our process right now of migrating to our new cores to make this active. 144x100g optics and cables currently in place and ran. Next step is migrating configs arggg lol.

Edit, I should note 40g and 10g optics are around $4-8 each right now + 4-12 for a cable depending on the size works out quite cheap.
You can also find some 40/100g AOC cables for $20-40 as well.
 
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richardm

Member
Sep 27, 2013
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I'm not sure why AOCs exist. The assembly is clearly a pair of slightly modified SFP28 transceivers welded to a fiber cable. What's gained by making the attachments permanent? This product wasn't my first, second, or third choice. But for $25 it's the connectivity easy-button for my shiny "new" Cx-4 cards.
 

Cruzader

Well-Known Member
Jan 1, 2021
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What's gained by making the attachments permanent?
This takes skill to get dust etc onto end of cable or into transceiver.

No more "Did you clean that? you will need to go back and clean that" when installing or disconnect/reconnect.