3 ms·

Thanks! 10Gb Eth is insane for exactly this reason (optical SFP+ modules are way cheaper and more reliable)

by thefz 5mo ago

oakwhiz 5mo ago
Minor nitpick but they are both considered Ethernet. The 4 pair copper one is 10GBASE-T.
apelapan 5mo ago
I don't agree that it is insane. It is less efficient than ideal, but 10gbit over copper is not necessarily dangerously hot or difficult to power. I have a MikroTik CRS304-4XG-IN on my office desk with three out of four ports at 10gbit and it is perhaps 20 degrees above ambient on the outside. Warm but not hot. Passively cooled design. A normal Windows laptop runs hotter than that when idle.
- gerdesj 5mo ago
  I have several 48 port 10G copper switches in my computer room with 40G uplinks. Dell OS9 jobbies. They are a bit noisy, but they don't actually run that hot. I also have some HPE 1G 48 porters and they run roughly the same temperature. I used to daily drive Gentoo on my laptop. Lovely in the winter!
  - pama 5mo ago
    Yes the noise is my main complaint for my 10G switch. I didnt expect that high frequency part.
rayiner 5mo ago
Yeah but home users already often have 75-100 foot runs of cat 5e in the walls, and those work fine for 10G-baseT.
crote 5mo ago
The main issue is that it is ancient. The cost, power, and length issues meant that it wasn't exactly well-received by the datacenter market back in 2006(!) when it was first released: DAC was the far more attractive option for a link from server to top-of-rack, and fiber was obviously superior (if not plain required) for anything beyond a hop to the next aisle over. This left an incredibly tiny market, so obviously beyond the initial investment very little effort was put into developing new products for it. So now the prosumer market is hitting the limit of 1Gbps, 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T (both based on the techniques of 10GBASE-T, by the way) are becoming the norm, and suddenly network vendors remember that box of ancient 10GBASE-T transceiver chips that has been collecting dust in their warehouse. Aaand suddenly you've got people buying what they think is a brand-new technology, but which is actually designed and manufactured using technology from a decade and a half earlier, and 10GBASE-T gets a bad name for being "hot" and "power-hungry". Turns out it is actually reasonably well-behaved if you actually make use of modern technology! I expect we'll be using it for quite a while. 25GBASE-T and 40GBASE-T are even deader: A standard from 2016, which a decade later doesn't have a single available product? Mandatory switching to Cat8 cabling - and only a 30 meter range??? And no forwards-looking compatibility? Yeeaah, no thanks.
- rconti 5mo ago
  Right, but for example my fiber ONT only has an rj45 port so I'm stuck using one of these for the link to my UDM Pro. The router and my core switch use cheap DACs.
  - eurleif 5mo ago
    Have you looked into using an unofficial ONT instead of the one supplied by your ISP? See: https://pon.wiki/guides/install-the-8311-community-firmware-on-the-was-110/ https://pon.wiki/guides/install-the-8311-community-firmware-...
    - rconti 5mo ago
      I have not. I'm not sure what this does for me. My ONT is not an optional expense and I'm not bothered by using cat6 here.
chaz6 5mo ago
What's really insane is 40G - nobody wants it so you can buy kit for next to nothing. I got a 72×QSFP Cisco Nexus (with EVPN & VXLAN) for £50 inc P&P.
- justsomehnguy 5mo ago
  Old, hot and loud. Industry went for 25G and 40G gear is long EoS and EoL.
Havoc 5mo ago
Problem is you get X1 pcie gen4 cards for 10g eth but not sfp …and a lot of consumer boards have spare x1s
- ssl-3 5mo ago
  They're out there. Search engines are just ubiquitously poisoned to the point of uselessness for common terms[1]. But searching for specific gen4 x1 10-gig chips (like RTL8127) does produce some reasonably-inexpensive options for cards with sfp+. Give it a whirl. :) [1]: I wrote this like it's a new problem, but looking back it may be an issue as old as the hills. I distinctly remember searching for any-brand 10-meg cards with DEC Tulip chips ~30 years ago, because that was the inexpensive PCI chip that actually worked. :)
  - thommo101 5mo ago
    In your searching did you find any "mainstream" pcie gen4x1 SFP+ cards? I only found the H!Fiber model - which looks perfect, except that our work won't buy from that supplier.

Thanks! 10Gb Eth is insane for exactly this reason (optical SFP+ modules are way cheaper and more reliable)

by thefz 5mo ago

Thanks! 10Gb Eth is insane for exactly this reason (optical SFP+ modules are way cheaper and more reliable)

oakwhiz 5mo ago

Minor nitpick but they are both considered Ethernet. The 4 pair copper one is 10GBASE-T.

apelapan 5mo ago

I don't agree that it is insane. It is less efficient than ideal, but 10gbit over copper is not necessarily dangerously hot or difficult to power. I have a MikroTik CRS304-4XG-IN on my office desk with three out of four ports at 10gbit and it is perhaps 20 degrees above ambient on the outside. Warm but not hot. Passively cooled design. A normal Windows laptop runs hotter than that when idle.

gerdesj 5mo ago
I have several 48 port 10G copper switches in my computer room with 40G uplinks. Dell OS9 jobbies. They are a bit noisy, but they don't actually run that hot. I also have some HPE 1G 48 porters and they run roughly the same temperature. I used to daily drive Gentoo on my laptop. Lovely in the winter!
- pama 5mo ago
  Yes the noise is my main complaint for my 10G switch. I didnt expect that high frequency part.

rayiner 5mo ago

Yeah but home users already often have 75-100 foot runs of cat 5e in the walls, and those work fine for 10G-baseT.

crote 5mo ago

The main issue is that it is ancient. The cost, power, and length issues meant that it wasn't exactly well-received by the datacenter market back in 2006(!) when it was first released: DAC was the far more attractive option for a link from server to top-of-rack, and fiber was obviously superior (if not plain required) for anything beyond a hop to the next aisle over. This left an incredibly tiny market, so obviously beyond the initial investment very little effort was put into developing new products for it. So now the prosumer market is hitting the limit of 1Gbps, 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T (both based on the techniques of 10GBASE-T, by the way) are becoming the norm, and suddenly network vendors remember that box of ancient 10GBASE-T transceiver chips that has been collecting dust in their warehouse. Aaand suddenly you've got people buying what they think is a brand-new technology, but which is actually designed and manufactured using technology from a decade and a half earlier, and 10GBASE-T gets a bad name for being "hot" and "power-hungry". Turns out it is actually reasonably well-behaved if you actually make use of modern technology! I expect we'll be using it for quite a while. 25GBASE-T and 40GBASE-T are even deader: A standard from 2016, which a decade later doesn't have a single available product? Mandatory switching to Cat8 cabling - and only a 30 meter range??? And no forwards-looking compatibility? Yeeaah, no thanks.

rconti 5mo ago
Right, but for example my fiber ONT only has an rj45 port so I'm stuck using one of these for the link to my UDM Pro. The router and my core switch use cheap DACs.
- eurleif 5mo ago
  Have you looked into using an unofficial ONT instead of the one supplied by your ISP? See: https://pon.wiki/guides/install-the-8311-community-firmware-on-the-was-110/ https://pon.wiki/guides/install-the-8311-community-firmware-...
  - rconti 5mo ago
    I have not. I'm not sure what this does for me. My ONT is not an optional expense and I'm not bothered by using cat6 here.

chaz6 5mo ago

What's really insane is 40G - nobody wants it so you can buy kit for next to nothing. I got a 72×QSFP Cisco Nexus (with EVPN & VXLAN) for £50 inc P&P.

justsomehnguy 5mo ago
Old, hot and loud. Industry went for 25G and 40G gear is long EoS and EoL.

Havoc 5mo ago

Problem is you get X1 pcie gen4 cards for 10g eth but not sfp …and a lot of consumer boards have spare x1s

ssl-3 5mo ago
They're out there. Search engines are just ubiquitously poisoned to the point of uselessness for common terms[1]. But searching for specific gen4 x1 10-gig chips (like RTL8127) does produce some reasonably-inexpensive options for cards with sfp+. Give it a whirl. :) [1]: I wrote this like it's a new problem, but looking back it may be an issue as old as the hills. I distinctly remember searching for any-brand 10-meg cards with DEC Tulip chips ~30 years ago, because that was the inexpensive PCI chip that actually worked. :)
- thommo101 5mo ago
  In your searching did you find any "mainstream" pcie gen4x1 SFP+ cards? I only found the H!Fiber model - which looks perfect, except that our work won't buy from that supplier.