4 ms·

CAT5e is not in-spec for 10 Gbps but it will usually do it for short runs. Under ten meters, worth a try. The official spec is 100m and the transceivers are p

by paulmd 7y ago

CAT5e is not in-spec for 10 Gbps but it will usually do it for short runs. Under ten meters, worth a try. The official spec is 100m and the transceivers are pretty solid at pulling a signal out of the noise. Personally I'm with the other guy, I think this is a dumb half-measure and we should just move straight to 10 Gbps. Right now the single biggest cost in your household multi-gig deployment will be switches, a switch with 4-8 10Gbase-T ports will run you around $500, and this figure is not really any cheaper with multi-gig. You are paying through the nose for something that is a watered-down version of the "real standard". Say you have two switches, one is upstairs and one is downstairs, are you really going to drop $1000 on a half-baked deployment? People need to try it, figure out if their existing cable is stable enough for their needs (maybe that segment can run at 5gbit speeds and it can be 10 gbit on your machines and on the switch), and just pull cable where it's not.

p1necone 7y ago
Will it gracefully degrade automatically to a slower speed if the cable isn't up to snuff, or will it just not work?
- ksec 7y ago
  In normal circumstances it should degrade just like 1Gbps to 100Mbps.
  - p1necone 7y ago
    In that case it does seem like there's no reason to keep anything at 2.5 because of compatibility.
mastax 7y ago
Multigig switches are expensive because they're new. The products have NRE expense to pay off and so do the chips inside them. There's not yet the volume to make them really cheap. They will get cheaper. The question is will they get cheaper faster than 10G? Perhaps. Despite being 14 years old 10G is just starting to get put into reasonably priced prosumer switches so it doesn't have that much of a head start practically.
- ksec 7y ago
  I have been thinking for a long time if having Switches that is limiting in total bandwidth would help save cost. Example you dont need 40Gbps on a 4 Port 10Gbps switch, or a 20Gbps on a 4 Port 5Gbps Switch. For Consumer usage, you only really need to be able to sustain Maximum speed on 1 port, while others working at a lower speed or next speed grade down.

by paulmd 7y ago

p1necone 7y ago

Will it gracefully degrade automatically to a slower speed if the cable isn't up to snuff, or will it just not work?

ksec 7y ago
In normal circumstances it should degrade just like 1Gbps to 100Mbps.
- p1necone 7y ago
  In that case it does seem like there's no reason to keep anything at 2.5 because of compatibility.

mastax 7y ago

Multigig switches are expensive because they're new. The products have NRE expense to pay off and so do the chips inside them. There's not yet the volume to make them really cheap. They will get cheaper. The question is will they get cheaper faster than 10G? Perhaps. Despite being 14 years old 10G is just starting to get put into reasonably priced prosumer switches so it doesn't have that much of a head start practically.

ksec 7y ago
I have been thinking for a long time if having Switches that is limiting in total bandwidth would help save cost. Example you dont need 40Gbps on a 4 Port 10Gbps switch, or a 20Gbps on a 4 Port 5Gbps Switch. For Consumer usage, you only really need to be able to sustain Maximum speed on 1 port, while others working at a lower speed or next speed grade down.