Hey LeeSter! Welcome to STH! We are glad to have you! So you want to get into Fiber? Great!
So first things first. Are you looking at the LB6M? Depending on the switch you get, you will have to get cables and transceivers for it. If you are looking to purchase the LB6M, there is good news in that you can actually
start your 10Gb network without having to buy fiber cables and separate transceivers. There has been a great listing on eBay that has a single port Mellanox 10Gb card bundled with a 3 meter (10ft) DAC (direct attached cable). See this link/thread my friend:
Mellanox Single Port with 3m DAC
The cable itself is made of copper, but works the same as Fiber for 10Gb. The ends of the cable have a transceiver built onto the cable, so no need to get separate transceivers, which is good. If you need cables lengths longer than around 20ft, then you will probably have to get a fiber optic cable and buy separate transceivers and "
make" your cable.
For fiber cables, I believe the type you are looking for is
LC-LC multimode 125/50 fiber optic cables. This type is the best type of cable in use now for fiber and 10Gb, although they do have other types that are still in use.
As for transceivers, most transceivers work well for the LB6M 10Gb switch. Avago, Cisco, Juniper, Solarflare and even cheapo generic ones from China. If you are gonna grab the LB6M, but you have need for long cable lengths, and you wanna make your own cables, then you can pretty much search for the cheapest branded transceivers you can find on eBay. If you can run your network with 10ft cables or less, then its probably better to grab a DAC cable instead. It's less of a headache.
Also, as a quick note my friend, I believe DAC's have lower latency than optical fiber cables. So you can't go wrong with DAC's for cables if you need less than 10ft or so. For Direct attached Cables, I believe the limit for length of the cable runs to about 7m or 23ft. After that, latency and other naughty things happen to the signal with a DAC cable. So if you will need long runs greater than 20ft or so, then you must make a fiber cable. If short cables can be used, then a DAC is excellent.
Here is a link to a listing with LC-LC multimode fiber cables: (if you search around, you can definitely snag them cheaper)
10m LC-LC 10Gb 50/125 OM3 Duplex Multimode PVC Fiber Optic Cable - Aqua NEW
Here is a link to the cheapest 10Gb transceivers I can currently find:
Juniper 10GB SFP+ SR Transceiver Gbic 740-021308
Here is another direct link to the listing on eBay for the 10Gb card with the 3m (10ft) DAC bundled with it:
671798-001 666172-001 MNPA19-XTR HP 10GB ETHERNET NETWORK INTERFACE CARD W/CABLE
Remember, seller will take $18 bucks best offer for the listing, so don't give 'em $20. Save the $2 bucks! Heheh!
Hope this info helps you out my friend, and if you have any other questions, feel free to ask anytime!