Hey all, I'd like your opinion on this GBIC and to know what you guys think as well.
The GBIC is HP branded and came out this year. It goes into a 10GB SFP+ port on either a switch or an SFP NIC and converts it into an RJ45 ethernet port. Now I know that 1GB converters are extremely common, but this one is 10GB to 10GB, which in my opinion is a game changer. So far I haven't seen these from any other manufacturers and when I asked some old colleges about this, they hadn't heard of one of these yet either.
Essentially, this is extremely helpful if you have an SFP (10GB+ per port) ToR switch in your rack, but you happen to have some 10GB RJ45 NICs in your servers that you need to utilize (or you need to connect your ToR switch to a 10GB RJ45/Ethernet switch somewhere else). Before this, you'd either need to use a 1GB converter (losing 90% of your bandwidth), or you'd have to fork over the money and rack space to put in another ToR switch with RJ45 ports instead of SFP (or for smaller projects, just change or add a NIC to your servers).
Now here's where it gets all fuzzy and confusing to me... HP charges roughly $1000-1300 per GBIC. Yes, a single GBIC that costs over a grand. Before I continue, check out this link where I posted an album of pictures of it. When I saw something this small and simple associated with such a huge price I just had to ask others about this...
Pictures!! Click here -----> 10GB SPF+ to RJ45 GBICs
So obviously this device is extremely convenient to have, but I can't see how it would make sense for 95% people to buy one. Clearly you would just buy a different NIC for your server, or if you need lots of both types of port, you'd just buy a second switch for around that same cost, right? So my opinion is that these are only useful for seriously large enterprise-grade data centers where each rack's U-space is extremely valuable and they "need" to have this sort of flexibility (no matter the cost).
My Questions
- Do you guys agree that only large companies would even consider buying these?
- Have you ever heard of these before AND/OR know of any other manufacturers that are selling these?
- Do you think these are so expensive due to their rarity? (I would think once the market is flooded with them, they'd be much cheaper...)
- Lastly, do you think these will ever have a place in the home-lab environment?
I know this is is probably really boring to many people, but I had been using several of these at my previous job for the sake of convenience (no, I didn't suggest buying them). When I learned how rare/expensive they were, I was honestly fascinated since I thought they were common-place already. I've got a few of these at home, but now I'm considering contacting an HP re-seller to sell or trade these for a switch.
I'd actually really love to see a review of these on STH if people were interested. (I'd totally be willing to send the hardware to Patrick if he were interested)
The GBIC is HP branded and came out this year. It goes into a 10GB SFP+ port on either a switch or an SFP NIC and converts it into an RJ45 ethernet port. Now I know that 1GB converters are extremely common, but this one is 10GB to 10GB, which in my opinion is a game changer. So far I haven't seen these from any other manufacturers and when I asked some old colleges about this, they hadn't heard of one of these yet either.
Essentially, this is extremely helpful if you have an SFP (10GB+ per port) ToR switch in your rack, but you happen to have some 10GB RJ45 NICs in your servers that you need to utilize (or you need to connect your ToR switch to a 10GB RJ45/Ethernet switch somewhere else). Before this, you'd either need to use a 1GB converter (losing 90% of your bandwidth), or you'd have to fork over the money and rack space to put in another ToR switch with RJ45 ports instead of SFP (or for smaller projects, just change or add a NIC to your servers).
Now here's where it gets all fuzzy and confusing to me... HP charges roughly $1000-1300 per GBIC. Yes, a single GBIC that costs over a grand. Before I continue, check out this link where I posted an album of pictures of it. When I saw something this small and simple associated with such a huge price I just had to ask others about this...
Pictures!! Click here -----> 10GB SPF+ to RJ45 GBICs
So obviously this device is extremely convenient to have, but I can't see how it would make sense for 95% people to buy one. Clearly you would just buy a different NIC for your server, or if you need lots of both types of port, you'd just buy a second switch for around that same cost, right? So my opinion is that these are only useful for seriously large enterprise-grade data centers where each rack's U-space is extremely valuable and they "need" to have this sort of flexibility (no matter the cost).
My Questions
- Do you guys agree that only large companies would even consider buying these?
- Have you ever heard of these before AND/OR know of any other manufacturers that are selling these?
- Do you think these are so expensive due to their rarity? (I would think once the market is flooded with them, they'd be much cheaper...)
- Lastly, do you think these will ever have a place in the home-lab environment?
I know this is is probably really boring to many people, but I had been using several of these at my previous job for the sake of convenience (no, I didn't suggest buying them). When I learned how rare/expensive they were, I was honestly fascinated since I thought they were common-place already. I've got a few of these at home, but now I'm considering contacting an HP re-seller to sell or trade these for a switch.
I'd actually really love to see a review of these on STH if people were interested. (I'd totally be willing to send the hardware to Patrick if he were interested)