Mini-GBIC to SFP+ ?

[randman]

I'm not familiar with Cisco's Mini-GBIC so I just wanted to verify...

I've got two switches that I need to connect:

1. A Cisco SG200-26 Gigabit switch. This is a 26 x 1TB switch. This switch also has 2 mini-GBIC ports.
2. A Zyxel XS1930-10 Multi-gigabit switch. This has 8 x 10GbE RJ45 ports and 2 x SFP+ 10GbE ports.

Currently, I'm using an RJ45 ethernet cable to connect the two switches. I'd like to have 2 cables to connect the two switches (using link aggregation), but I don't
want to use up 2 10GbE RJ45 ports on the Zyxel switch. Currently, I don't have a need for the 2 SFP+ ports in the Zyxel switch.

So, I'm wondering if I can connect the two 10GbE SFP+ ports on the Zyxel switch to the 2 1GBE mini-GBIC ports on the Cisco switch. I haven't used mini-GBIC before, but I think it's just SFP? Will Mini-GBIC to SFP+ work okay in this case? I suppose since they're right next to each other DAC would be fine and don't need fiber.
I know, they're right next to each other, so using plain old RJ45 cables would work just as well, but I'd prefer to not use up two of the Zyxel's multi-gigabit RJ45 ports. Since I"m not using any SFP+ devices with the Zyxel, I might as well use them for the uplinks to the Cisco switch.

 

[randman]

I did more testing. At first, I connected an SFP+ DAC cable between the Cisco switch's 1GbE miniGBIC port and one of the Zyxel switch's 10GbE SFP+ ports. There was no connectivity between them. The LEDs of the ports did not light up, and ports were down according to the switches' GUI. The link speed of the Cisco's miniGBIC port was set to auto negotiation. Likewise, the link speed of the Zyxel's SFP+ port was set to "Auto". When I changed the link speed of the Zyxel SFP+ port from "Auto" to "Auto-1G", then connectivity was established between the two switches. Both switches reported link speeds of 1GbE, Full Duplex, as desired.

Anyway, this allows me to at least use the SFP+ ports of the Zyxel switch as uplinks to the Cisco switch, without having to use the Zyxel switch's multi-gigabit ports (in this particular room, I don't have a need for the SFP+ ports other than to use them as uplinks). In the future, if I replace the Cisco switch with one that supports SFP+ ports, that would be better, but for now, this allows me to reuse the Zyxel's SFP+ ports and use LACP for both SFP+ ports to the Cisco's two miniGBIC ports.

 

[randman]

I found this article regarding connecting an SFP+ switch to an SFP switch:

Is SFP Compatible With SFP+? Can 10G SFP+ Run at 1G SFP Port? | FS Community

Everything you should know about the issue of SFP to SFP+ compatibility. Will 1G SFP optics work with 10Gb SFP+ ports on a 10Gb switch? Or will 10Gb SFP+ run at 1Gb to link gigabit switches? What if using SFP+ ports on a switch but SFP on the other? Let's find out.

community.fs.com

Basically, it says that it's best to get an SFP cable (instead of an SFP+ cable). I did a quick online search, and it seems finding an SFP cable is much harder than finding an SFP+ cable, and the SFP cables that are around would be a bit more expensive than SFP+. But anyway, I was able to use an SFP+ DAC cable between my Cisco's miniGBIC (SFP) port and the Zyxel SFP+ port, as long as I change the Zyxel's SFP+ port's speed from "Auto" to "Auto-1G". DAC is fine for me. Don't need fiber, since the two switches are right next to each other.