Please help me out with my 10G-100G home network upgrade/topology

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

Un Nameless

New Member
Aug 17, 2021
9
0
1
Hello people,

I'm trying to upgrade my home network and hopefully soon also my internet fiber to 10G. But first things first the LAN upgrade:

I recently scored a good deal on a brand new SN2010 switch! This will be the core switch in my server rack. I bet most of you know but it supports (18)x 1/10G/25G SFP28 ports and (4) 40G/100G QSFP28 ports. I would like to use one of the QSFP28 port with the server 100G NIC. I would also want to run 4-5 fiber strands into the furthest points of the house in both horizontal and vertical axes. The 4-5 connections can go into the SFP28 25G ports as I would like to get some cheaper 10G switches for those 4-5 locations. I would have been excellent if I could find a decent priced switch with 10G ports and 25G uplinks and still be silent enough to sleep in the same room, so if you guys know of such a switch I'd appreciate if you'd let me know.

So now the quesitons:

What kind of fibers (premium and money is no object) should I use? Simple double? Corning glass? I plan to route the fibers from the main switch to the 4-5 location by the external of the building and it will sit in a protected cable channel.

Can I just buy the long fiber strands for inter switch connectivity with transceivers already attached so that everything is plug and play?

What kind of transcievers? Sorry but in terms of high end networking I'm a complete noob! I have no idea what to get, what LC stands for or other acronyms in the transciever lingo and can't believe I can but 100$ 100G transceiver just as well as 3500$ or more.


Thank you!
 

nickf1227

Active Member
Sep 23, 2015
197
128
43
33
Hello people,

I'm trying to upgrade my home network and hopefully soon also my internet fiber to 10G. But first things first the LAN upgrade:

I recently scored a good deal on a brand new SN2010 switch! This will be the core switch in my server rack. I bet most of you know but it supports (18)x 1/10G/25G SFP28 ports and (4) 40G/100G QSFP28 ports.
First, I'm jealous :) But I have to ask why lol
Unless you have some seriously large all-flash storage arrays with millions of IOPs, I can't see a reason why you would need 100gig in your house.

I would like to use one of the QSFP28 port with the server 100G NIC. I would also want to run 4-5 fiber strands into the furthest points of the house in both horizontal and vertical axes. The 4-5 connections can go into the SFP28 25G ports as I would like to get some cheaper 10G switches for those 4-5 locations...

So now the quesitons:

What kind of fibers (premium and money is no object) should I use? Simple double? Corning glass? I plan to route the fibers from the main switch to the 4-5 location by the external of the building and it will sit in a protected cable channel.
Patrick/Rohit's articles on this topic should be helpful
APC and UPC in Fiber Connectors and Why This Matters - ServeTheHome
Fiber Optic Networking Guide SC or LC Connector - ServeTheHome
What is Plenum Fiber Optic Cable and What is OFNP (servethehome.com)
Patrick's 2021 Fiber Build-out | ServeTheHome Forums

I would have been excellent if I could find a decent priced switch with 10G ports and 25G uplinks and still be silent enough to sleep in the same room, so if you guys know of such a switch I'd appreciate if you'd let me know.
AFAIK what you are talking about is still years away and doesn't exist. The only switches that fit that requirement are not going to be quiet.

Can I just buy the long fiber strands for inter switch connectivity with transceivers already attached so that everything is plug and play?
No. That is not a thing.

What kind of transcievers? Sorry but in terms of high end networking I'm a complete noob! I have no idea what to get, what LC stands for or other acronyms in the transciever lingo and can't believe I can but 100$ 100G transceiver just as well as 3500$ or more.
You don't want to use LC. You want to use MTP/MPO.
5m (16ft) 12-Fiber OM4 50/125 MTP® Trunk Cable, OFNP - FS

Then you break it out to whatever connectors you need with a cassette
mtp®-lc cassettes - FS
 

Un Nameless

New Member
Aug 17, 2021
9
0
1
First, I'm jealous :) But I have to ask why lol
Unless you have some seriously large all-flash storage arrays with millions of IOPs, I can't see a reason why you would need 100gig in your house.
100G only with the server! Since the server already has a 100G NIC, why not?! Just yesterday I had a write onto the server SSDs of 14G/s. The rest of the home could simply stay at 10G for the uplinks as various clients connect wired via RJ45 at either 1G or 10G. Of course if the uplink is at 10G and there are for example two clients concurrently maxing the bandwidth, the uplink will pretty much fall in half. That's why I thought 25G would be best for uplinks as it even avoids those very rare occasions.

Since I'm trying to future proof the home, I thought fiber would be the best candidate, instead of going the copper way with RJ45 10G which will have probably no future in 10-20 years.

Thanks for the references! Will certainly try and dive into them! I had no idea that the fiber world is such a complex and vast universe.


AFAIK what you are talking about is still years away and doesn't exist. The only switches that fit that requirement are not going to be quiet.
That means I'm stuck with a Dell like this: and be content with 10G uplinks.

No. That is not a thing.
Gotcha! Is this a good quality fiber? Does the LC black terminal connect into a transceiver?

You don't want to use LC. You want to use MTP/MPO.
5m (16ft) 12-Fiber OM4 50/125 MTP® Trunk Cable, OFNP - FS
Does this cable have 12 fiber strands? I'm confused...

Then you break it out to whatever connectors you need with a cassette
mtp®-lc cassettes - FS
So, what kind of fiber do I need to connect to the cassette after I split that 12 fiber cable into 4-5 connections?