Home Lab: 10G SFP+ vs 10G Base-T in 2017 Q3

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fmatthew5876

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Mar 20, 2017
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Do you guys still recommend SFP+ over 10g Base-T nowadays for homelab use?

Now that 10 gig networking is quickly becoming mainstream I expect 10G Base-T will become more common, especially on consumer desktop systems. That means also the cost of 10G Base-T switches will need to come down. It also means that other "IOT" home components such as game consoles, streaming boxes, etc.. that decide to offer 10g will probably go for 10G Base-T.

The 10G Base-T ports are physically smaller which is important for non-data center devices. They are also easier to use. You just plug in an ethernet cable and it works. No need to deal with optical transceiver compatibility and all of those problems.

Finally, 10G Base-T is backwards compatible with 1gig ports which will still be used for things like IPMI and other low bandwidth devices. You could just get one 10G Base-T switch and connect up everything you have to it. Going with SFP+ it becomes difficult to find something that juggles enough of both kinds of ports for all of your 10G and 1G devices.

If you were building out a 10g homelab system from scratch today, which technology would you choose for your 10g network connectivity?
 
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fmatthew5876

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I guess my issue (maybe unreasonable) is that I'd really like to just have a single switch in my already crammed 15U rack that can service everything.

2 switches means more money spent, more power consumed, more cabling, more configuration, more complexity, more points of failure, more rack units...
 

Marsh

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May 12, 2013
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You do not have to choose vanilla or chocolate , you could have both 10g Base-T + SFP+ in the same switch.
Check out
Ubiquiti Networks - EdgeSwitch™ 16 XG
or
Ubiquiti Networks - UniFi® Switch 16 XG
https://www.ubnt.com/unifi-switching/unifi-switch-16-xg/
I like Patrick's suggestion, brought my first Mikrotik CSS326 switch few months ago, really liking the CSS326 switch.
Switch is fanless, consumes 7w at idle, layer 2 managed switch with 24 1gb ports + 2 x 10gb ports.

The price is great $140 shipped , features beats out other switch with comparable price.

I'll pickup another CSS326 switch later this month.
 

fmatthew5876

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Mar 20, 2017
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The ubiquiti switch comes close, but 4 RJ45 ports isn't a whole lot. Usually we have a lot more legacy devices and ports laying around.
 

Aluminum

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Sep 7, 2012
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10 Base T is for suckers, at its core it is a marginal hack to get more bandwidth.

10BT is worse than 10G SFP+ per port by a lot, 40G QSFP isn't much more if you buy smart. Don't buy crappy nics or switches that are picky about transceivers. Use DACs for nearby stuff, pretend they are cheap patch cables.

Home user has a lot more buying options, and a lot less actual need for LAN bandwidth. Also unless you are really extreme, most actual high bandwidth needs could be done with a few p2p links (get dual port cards) which removes the expensive/loud/hot/noisy switch problem while the rest of your network will barely stress a nice cheap fanless 24 port 1Gbit switch.

/signed, 40/56Gbit home user
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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You do not have to choose vanilla or chocolate , you could have both 10g Base-T + SFP+ in the same switch.
Check out
Ubiquiti Networks - EdgeSwitch™ 16 XG
or
Ubiquiti Networks - UniFi® Switch 16 XG
I like Patrick's suggestion, brought my first Mikrotik CSS326 switch few months ago, really liking the CSS326 switch.
Switch is fanless, consumes 7w at idle, layer 2 managed switch with 24 1gb ports + 2 x 10gb ports.

The price is great $140 shipped , features beats out other switch with comparable price.

I'll pickup another CSS326 switch later this month.
While promising and priced well, the 10Gbase-T ports on the Ubiquiti switches actually don't work reliably at 10Gbe speeds. There is a very lively discussion on their "Beta" forums about it (but you have to be signed up as a Beta member to read them).

I cannot recommend this switch to anyone who expects 10Gbase-T to be useful and reliable. You should really think of them as 12x SFP+ switches with 4 1Gbe copper ports.

SFP+ is still best for 10Gbe. 10Gbase-t still has limited use cases and remains more expensive.
 
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K D

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The 10Gbase-T on the unifi switch is currently useless even using the latest alpha firmware. Connections negotiate at 10gb when the switch is restarted but drops down to 1gb in a few minutes. The edge version supposedly has a beta firmware that fixes these issues but it is not available on the unifi line yet.

The SFP+ ports are working without issues though.
 
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AFisher

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Jun 2, 2017
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It's Funny, I was just able to get into 10G, all said and done for under 500$!
I got a deal on a Dell PowerConnect 8024F 24-Port 10GB 200$, then another 300 for 7 NICs and Transceivers (all SFP+ ) and Cables

now I may have made a mistake on the NICs, as I got Myricom 10G-PCIE-8A-R Network Interface +10GbE Transceiver, and since I'm still learning. But to have my 6 Servers, and my NAS on 10G..I'll take the risk!

I had looked and looked for the 10GbT and nothing, was out there even close to affordable, with the closeset being a netgear ProSafe but still over or near 1K$
 
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CookiesLikeWhoa

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It might be because I already use SFP+ and QSFP, but I don't care for 10G Base-T. It might also be my use case as well.

Personally I think it's cheaper to go the SFP+ route since you can find so many used 10G switches for deals, along with decent NICs. Also found that there is more support, driver wise, for SFP+ NICs than the Base-T. Optics and Fiber can be found for a steal at FS.com.

Again my personal feeling on it.
 

saivert

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I would also go with SFP+. That way you can move to QSFP and keep the existing cables. Even OM4 can do 100Gb up to 150m.
No idea if Cat6a, Cat7 or even Cat8 will be able to pull off anything above 10Gb. I'm pretty sure this will be stuck at 10Gb for quite some time if Gigabit is any indication. I mean the primary goal now is to get 10GBASE-T cheaper and more power efficient and bring the cost way down so it can finally replace Gigabit as the next base level networking. And NBASE-T is here as the solution for any existing Cat5e infrastructure.
 

fmatthew5876

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Mar 20, 2017
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It definitely seems like SFP+ is the preferred and superior technology.

However, despite that you see a lot more onboard 10G-BaseT then you do 10G SFP+ in some places.

For example at Supermicro we see these motherboard options:
* X11 UP LGA 3687 Xeon Boards: 5 10G BaseT options, 2 10G SFP+ options
* X11 UP LGA1151 Xeon Boards: 5 10G BaseT Options, no SFP+
* Atom C3000: 5 10G BaseT, 1 SFP+ (which also has 2 BaseT as well)

If SFP+ is the better technology, why do you think Supermicro is providing a lot more 10G BaseT in their motherboard offerings?
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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Customers are demanding the rj45 options for simplicity, power saving and reduced latency seems not to factor.
I love SFP+ for the Low latency, reduced power consumption, greater than 10G options... but if I have TOP of rack switches and servers have 1G rj45 for management how do I accommodate that in an all SFP+ switch.... glc-t/te sure but not that elegant, it's easier just to have all one medium.

Cost wise with DAC cables it's a wash, really no different at all.

There is still places like blade center pass through for example that SFP+ is the way to go no question but that's less common than normal rack servers for most enterprises.
 
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brentsg

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As someone that's currently adding 10Gbase-T, it's just about limited needs and simplicity (or familiarity). Initially I started digging into the various forums to augment my knowledge regarding SFP+ and the various cables and modules that I'd need. I was initially excited to learn something new, but reality and time constraints kicked in. I need a faster link between a couple of workstations and a NAS. Perhaps at some point I add another device. Unless I start bonding, I'm using 4 ports tops. For now I can get by with a faster link between my main workstation and the NAS. The rest of the network is fine at 1G.

Yeah maybe I could have shaved off a bit of latency and power, but in the end I left my existing CAT6 cabling in place and added 2 NICs. I'm guessing that when I next add a server or replace a motherboard, I'll have the option to have the 10Gbase-T controller onboard.

I haven't even done any tuning and I'm already pleased with the difference.
 
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ServerSemi

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Jan 12, 2017
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Correct me if I am wrong but aren't sfp+ cables limited in how long they can carry the signal? I decided 10g base T was less hassle all around(just plug and play plus long cables +50m no issues) and purchased this hp 2920 plus 2 10G modules for really cheap and i'm really pleased with how good this switch performs and how stable it is.
 

_alex

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Trouble will kick in if you need more 10G ports than the mixed switches offer, what happens soon in any type of cluster.
10G RJ45 Switches are still expensive and there is a very limited choice of those that actually work. Also 10G Base-T NICs add a premium over SFP+ (Connectx-2 can be found for as low as USD 20 or even less).
Not to mention the increased overall power draw.

I'll go the route with RJ45 SFP's (can be found cheap, and also work with QSA's on QSFP Ports) for the Links that absolutely need 1G, i.e. Uplink. Everything else will be either SFP+ or QSFP. For IPMI/RJ45 Management i use a separate small 1G Switch.

Cable length on copper / DAC is limited, but with SFP's and Fibre there is practically no Limit that affects home use.
SR SFP's should be fine and fibre is also cheap.
 

i386

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For a homelab I would use the fastest technology I can get, like fdr or faster infiniband or 40+ gbe with qsfp+ connectors.

My homeserver on the other side is connected to a fanless (quiet :D) switch with 4sfp+ and 24 1gbe copper ports.
 
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K D

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For a homelab I would use the fastest technology I can get, like fdr or faster infiniband or 40+ gbe with qsfp+ connectors.

My homeserver on the other side is connected to a fanless (quiet :D) switch with 4sfp+ and 24 1gbe copper ports.
What is the fan-less switch that you are using? I'm converging "lab" and home and looking to replace my 48port unifi switch with 2 24port ones


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