Good evening,
In our new build, we plan to install two physically separate switches: one on the ground floor and the other on the upper floor.
Until now, I thought I would simply connect the two with the standard CAT cable that I have also run to the outlets.
Now I’ve come across the terms SFP and SFP+.
The two switches I want to use have these SFP ports.
My questions:
- What are SFP and SFP+?
- Why should one use them? Do they enable faster connection between the two devices?
- The two switches I want to use have these SFP ports. Do I just need the appropriate SFP cable, and it will work?
I’ve already searched online but haven’t really figured it out…
Thank you!
In our new build, we plan to install two physically separate switches: one on the ground floor and the other on the upper floor.
Until now, I thought I would simply connect the two with the standard CAT cable that I have also run to the outlets.
Now I’ve come across the terms SFP and SFP+.
The two switches I want to use have these SFP ports.
My questions:
- What are SFP and SFP+?
- Why should one use them? Do they enable faster connection between the two devices?
- The two switches I want to use have these SFP ports. Do I just need the appropriate SFP cable, and it will work?
I’ve already searched online but haven’t really figured it out…
Thank you!
A
Appel200026 May 2020 08:51Hello!
Thank you for your feedback.
2 switches = Because at first glance it seemed simpler to just connect those two instead of extending the entire upper floor to the ground floor.
Now a more specific question:
Should I connect the two switches using SFP, or does that not offer practical benefits?
The distance between the devices, assuming proper cable routing and not taking the "shortest path," is about 15m (50 feet).
If I want to connect them via SFP, what exactly do I need in terms of cables?
Thanks
Thank you for your feedback.
2 switches = Because at first glance it seemed simpler to just connect those two instead of extending the entire upper floor to the ground floor.
Now a more specific question:
Should I connect the two switches using SFP, or does that not offer practical benefits?
The distance between the devices, assuming proper cable routing and not taking the "shortest path," is about 15m (50 feet).
If I want to connect them via SFP, what exactly do I need in terms of cables?
Thanks
If I’m building new and absolutely need to install switches in two locations, I wouldn’t connect them with just 1 Gbps today. That’s 100 MB/s, which is already borderline for many applications. Whether I connect the two with RJ45 or SFP+ doesn’t really matter, but I would definitely avoid 1 Gbps for such an important connection.
A
Appel200026 May 2020 08:52FloHB123 schrieb:
For my part, 2x 1 Gbit is fine, depending on the switches you have, but you won’t need more bandwidth than that.Well, I understand this topic well enough to say that the idea of 2x 1 Gbit doesn’t simply work right away...
J
JoachimG.26 May 2020 09:03Buy 2 x 10G SFP+ SR multimode modules at 25 euros each
Buy 1 x 15 m (49 ft) fiber optic patch cable, duplex OM4 multimode at 20 euros each
Make sure the modules have the same connectors as the cable, for example LC and multimode or singlemode...
Then you have a 10G connection between both switches, and in the future, you can upgrade to 100G with the same cable in about 20 years.
By the way, the setup with the two switches does make sense. With floor distribution, you can easily unplug the cable between the two floors and rent out the upper floor even 20 years from now. Try doing that if your cabling always converges centrally somewhere—especially with Ethernet, which will remain the most important wiring method going forward.
Buy 1 x 15 m (49 ft) fiber optic patch cable, duplex OM4 multimode at 20 euros each
Make sure the modules have the same connectors as the cable, for example LC and multimode or singlemode...
Then you have a 10G connection between both switches, and in the future, you can upgrade to 100G with the same cable in about 20 years.
By the way, the setup with the two switches does make sense. With floor distribution, you can easily unplug the cable between the two floors and rent out the upper floor even 20 years from now. Try doing that if your cabling always converges centrally somewhere—especially with Ethernet, which will remain the most important wiring method going forward.
That’s why I said it depends on which switches you use. I really don’t understand why 1 Gbit would be insufficient here.
Maybe as a comparison (I work for a large IT service provider):
We have clients (around 1500 employees) whose core switches internally provide a maximum bandwidth of only 10 Gbit. Yes, the hardware is old and there are occasional performance issues. But the pain for the client doesn’t seem significant enough yet to justify a replacement.
Only a small portion of the 4000 servers in our data centers can actually fully utilize 1 Gbit.
Most of our VMware ESXi servers are connected with 10 Gbit links (for connection to client networks), and this bandwidth is shared by 15–25 virtual machines, which are simultaneously used by several hundred users.
And now someone really wants me to believe that in a single-family home, where most end devices only support 1 Gbit and are probably connected via Wi-Fi, more than 1 Gbit bandwidth between two floors (!) is needed? How is that supposed to be possible?
By the time that becomes necessary, 10 years will have passed and the switches will be broken or outdated.
Maybe as a comparison (I work for a large IT service provider):
We have clients (around 1500 employees) whose core switches internally provide a maximum bandwidth of only 10 Gbit. Yes, the hardware is old and there are occasional performance issues. But the pain for the client doesn’t seem significant enough yet to justify a replacement.
Only a small portion of the 4000 servers in our data centers can actually fully utilize 1 Gbit.
Most of our VMware ESXi servers are connected with 10 Gbit links (for connection to client networks), and this bandwidth is shared by 15–25 virtual machines, which are simultaneously used by several hundred users.
And now someone really wants me to believe that in a single-family home, where most end devices only support 1 Gbit and are probably connected via Wi-Fi, more than 1 Gbit bandwidth between two floors (!) is needed? How is that supposed to be possible?
By the time that becomes necessary, 10 years will have passed and the switches will be broken or outdated.
Most devices connected to the switches will never fully utilize 1 Gbps, that’s clear.
And if you still access them via Wi-Fi, it doesn’t really help either (although Wi-Fi now theoretically exceeds 1 Gbps, so how will this look in 10 years?)
But even in the home user sector, there are many cases where 1 Gbps is annoyingly slow. Whether it’s simple file transfers, backups, or working with larger amounts of data over the network. At 100 MB/s (about 330 Mbps), it’s often not very practical; at 500–600 MB/s (around 1.6–2 Gbps), it’s a completely different story.
And ultimately, as mentioned above, the price difference is basically non-existent. With copper cables, Cat7 cables already support 10 Gbps, and fiber optic can sometimes even cost less. So why not plan for 10 Gbps right away?
And if you still access them via Wi-Fi, it doesn’t really help either (although Wi-Fi now theoretically exceeds 1 Gbps, so how will this look in 10 years?)
But even in the home user sector, there are many cases where 1 Gbps is annoyingly slow. Whether it’s simple file transfers, backups, or working with larger amounts of data over the network. At 100 MB/s (about 330 Mbps), it’s often not very practical; at 500–600 MB/s (around 1.6–2 Gbps), it’s a completely different story.
And ultimately, as mentioned above, the price difference is basically non-existent. With copper cables, Cat7 cables already support 10 Gbps, and fiber optic can sometimes even cost less. So why not plan for 10 Gbps right away?
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