3 ms·

The main issue is switches, really. 5Gbps USB NICs are available for $30 on Amazon, or $20 on AliExpress. 10Gbps NICS are $60, so not exactly crazy expensive ei

by crote 2y ago

The main issue is switches, really. 5Gbps USB NICs are available for $30 on Amazon, or $20 on AliExpress. 10Gbps NICS are $60, so not exactly crazy expensive either. But switches haven't really kept up. A simple unmanaged 5-port or 8-port 2.5GigE isn't too bad, but anything beyond that gets tricky. 5GigE switches don't seem to exist, and you're already paying $500 for a budget-brand 10GigE switch with basic VLAN support. You want PoE? Forget it. The irony is that at 10Gbps fiber suddenly becomes quite attractive. A brand-new SFP+ NIC can be found for $30, with DACs only $5 (per side) and transceivers $30 or so. You can get an actually-decent switch from Mikrotik for less than $300. Heck, you can even get brand-new dualport SFP28 NICs for $100, or as little as $25 on Ebay! Switch-wise you can get 16 ports of 25Gbps out of a $800 Mikrotik switch: not exactly cheap, but definitely within range for a very enthusiastic homelabber. The only issue is that wiring your home for fiber is stupidly expensive, and you can't exactly use it to power access points either.

maccard 2y ago
> The only issue is that wiring your home for fiber is stupidly expensive What do you mean by that? My home isnt wired for ethernet. I can buy 30m of CAT6 cable for £7, or 30m of fibre for £17. For a home use, that's a decent amount of cable, and even spending £100 on cabling will likely run cables to even the biggest of houses.
- hakfoo 2y ago
  Isn't the expensive part more the assembly aspect? For Cat 6 the plugs and keystone jacks add up to a few dollars per port, and the crimper is like $20. I understand building your own fibre cables-- if you don't want to thread them through walls without the heads pre-attached, for example-- involves more sophisticated glass-fusion tools that are fairly expensive. A rental service might help there, or a call-in service-- the 6 hours of drilling holes and pulling fibre can be done by yourself, and once it's all cut to rough length, bring out a guy who can fuse on 10 plugs in an hour for $150.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    If you particularly want to use a raw spool, then yes that's an annoying cost. If you buy premade cables for an extra $5 each then it's fine.
    - hakfoo 2y ago
      A practical drawback to premade cables is the need for a larger hole to accommodate the pre-attached connector. There's also a larger gap that needs to be plugged around the cable to prevent leaks into he wall. My ordinary home-centre electric drill and an affordable ~7mm masonry bit lets me drill a hole in stucco large enough to accept bare cables with a very narrow gap to worry about.
    - inferiorhuman 2y ago
      Where are you finding them for that cheap? OP is talking about 20GBP for a run of fiber. If I look at, for instance, Ubiquiti their direct attach cables start at $13 for 0.5 meter cables.
      - Dylan16807 2y ago
        I was looking at patch cables. Ubiquiti's start at $4.80
        inferiorhuman 2y ago
        Right you're still going to need a module at each end, that's what really drives up the cost compared twisted copper pair. That means either direct attach cables (starting at $13 for a half meter) or standalone modules (starting at $38 for a pair of 10G modules).
        Dylan16807 2y ago
        But that also applies to a spool of fiber, and I was talking about the specific cost difference between fusing and premade. The price of modules was built into the first post mentioning fiber up here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41891559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41891559 The worry was that the actual fiber would be "stupid expensive", and nah it's fine.
spockz 2y ago
Apparently there is the https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/us-xg-6poe https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/us-xg-6poe from Ubiquity. It only has 4 10GbE ports but they all have PoE.

by crote 2y ago

maccard 2y ago

> The only issue is that wiring your home for fiber is stupidly expensive What do you mean by that? My home isnt wired for ethernet. I can buy 30m of CAT6 cable for £7, or 30m of fibre for £17. For a home use, that's a decent amount of cable, and even spending £100 on cabling will likely run cables to even the biggest of houses.

hakfoo 2y ago
Isn't the expensive part more the assembly aspect? For Cat 6 the plugs and keystone jacks add up to a few dollars per port, and the crimper is like $20. I understand building your own fibre cables-- if you don't want to thread them through walls without the heads pre-attached, for example-- involves more sophisticated glass-fusion tools that are fairly expensive. A rental service might help there, or a call-in service-- the 6 hours of drilling holes and pulling fibre can be done by yourself, and once it's all cut to rough length, bring out a guy who can fuse on 10 plugs in an hour for $150.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  If you particularly want to use a raw spool, then yes that's an annoying cost. If you buy premade cables for an extra $5 each then it's fine.
  - hakfoo 2y ago
    A practical drawback to premade cables is the need for a larger hole to accommodate the pre-attached connector. There's also a larger gap that needs to be plugged around the cable to prevent leaks into he wall. My ordinary home-centre electric drill and an affordable ~7mm masonry bit lets me drill a hole in stucco large enough to accept bare cables with a very narrow gap to worry about.
  - inferiorhuman 2y ago
    Where are you finding them for that cheap? OP is talking about 20GBP for a run of fiber. If I look at, for instance, Ubiquiti their direct attach cables start at $13 for 0.5 meter cables.
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      I was looking at patch cables. Ubiquiti's start at $4.80
      - inferiorhuman 2y ago
        Right you're still going to need a module at each end, that's what really drives up the cost compared twisted copper pair. That means either direct attach cables (starting at $13 for a half meter) or standalone modules (starting at $38 for a pair of 10G modules).
        Dylan16807 2y ago
        But that also applies to a spool of fiber, and I was talking about the specific cost difference between fusing and premade. The price of modules was built into the first post mentioning fiber up here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41891559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41891559 The worry was that the actual fiber would be "stupid expensive", and nah it's fine.

spockz 2y ago

Apparently there is the https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/us-xg-6poe https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/us-xg-6poe from Ubiquity. It only has 4 10GbE ports but they all have PoE.