Effectiveness of Short Run of Fiber Optic cable.

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On 7/22/2020 at 7:26 PM, Crwilli57 said:

The input I have received is use a minimum of 15’ of Fiber Cable.    I don’t know why but perhaps it is to insure the ‘light’ is not too bright.  

 

With MM and 10Km SM cabling you don't need a minimum. If you are using 40Km or stronger optics then you need attenuators to pad the levels with.

 

I'm putting in 480 1310nm MM LR transceivers in a 100 closet campus in the next three months. Even for ISL we are using 10Km modules with 2 meter patch.

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3 hours ago, ericuco said:

The reason is that fiber optic cable comes in different flavors (multi-mode, single mode, LC, SC) so you will be “stuck” 

 

Going with OS2 Single Mode Fiber will solve any foreseeable future proofing since it supports 100GB/Second. It's very cost effective with cabling being pennies a foot (65 foot for under $20) and 10Gbe SFP+ BiDi LC adapters being $35-$50 and NIC's being $20.

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3 hours ago, Confused said:

Picking up the posts above, if I were to try a short run of fiber, simply to provide electrical isolation between ethernet and the audio kit, which would be most appropriate to use, multi-mode, single mode, LC, SC?

 

For home use it really doesn't matter on MM vs SM cable. SM applications are going to be your most cost effective approach and still give you 10GBe performance.

 

SM gives you 980 feet of run.

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54 minutes ago, MarkusBarkus said:

I found reading around on the FOA  site to be interesting. It could be a very deep hole for sure, so if you have better lay-resources, it might help others.

 

I try to keep stuff simple where I can:

 

For the Home, purchase pre-terminated OM4/5 LC Multi-Mode cabling and LC Short Range (SR) SFP+ modules from FS.com. Solar Flare adapters are $20 left and right and have two SFP+ most of their PCI-E adapters.

 

For home use there isn't much of a deeper dive than being aware that you need to purchase SFP that have the eeprom coded for the vendor switch you have.

 

54 minutes ago, MarkusBarkus said:

 

 

Professionally, you probably run cable, connect, test and leave it alone. I'll bet audio folks are moving this stuff around all the time.

 

If you put a spool of fiber in my hands with a termination kit I wouldn't be able to if you had a gun to my head. I leave that for our cabling partner. I do the route/switch configs, design, install, validation and hopefully no troubleshoot.

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14 hours ago, skipspence said:

Hi guys, 

I just wonder if anyone has encountered the Emulex LPe12000/LPe12002 HBAs, and if they are worth to consider?

 

 

Those aren't network cards, they are HBA (Host Bus Adapter) Fiber Channel Cards for storage arrays.

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42 minutes ago, skipspence said:

Thanks, that's my bad😔

Other question, are the 3.0 PCIe Solarflare back compatible with PCIe 2.0? Or better to take older ones (SNF5122) for 2.0 bus?

Are the Dell transceivers marked as Finisar (FTLX8571D3BCL) made by Finisar?

Thanks again!

 

 

PCIe 3 should work in older 2.0 but at the 2.0 speeds. I would assume that finisar badged trancievers are finisar.

 

I would make it easy on myself and hit fs.com and just search for the SFP you need and then drill down by manufacturer compatibility.

 

I wonder what a finisar and fs.com module would look like if you cracked them open.

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5 hours ago, skipspence said:

Well, but I'm expecting to get 2 above-mentioned dell modules open box with specifications tested by solarflare compatible shipped free for the price of 1 fs.com + they want a near full module price for shipment to where I'm🤔

 

As long as you know they are validated. That's why I like FS as they make it clear.

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1 hour ago, Confused said:

I have always used an unmanaged switch for my audio and AV gear.  Simple, and I have never had any issues with this approach.

 

I wonder if there might be any advantages to using a managed switch and prioritising one port for audio?  Or is this a case of adding complexity for no gain? 

 

In practical terms I have been using an unmanaged switch with zero issues, which makes me wonder about the pro's and con's in this regard?

 

Prioritization only works where you have wire contention. Most don't understand that their network utilization is in the single digit %.

 

We routinely over subscribe 24:1 on uplinks.

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3 hours ago, Confused said:

As another aside, when looking for a basic switch with a SFP port, I cannot find anything that looks more suitable than the MikroTik RB260GS as recommended earlier by @ericuco.  Most of the other options seem to have PoE or other stuff I just don't not need or want.  I am quite temped to give one a try.  Or maybe there is a better option? 

 

Cisco 2360 48 port copper 1GBe / 4 SFP+ 10GBe for $60 on ebay shipped.

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6 hours ago, Confused said:

That is certainly an interesting idea.  Unfortunately I am in the UK, so not only a bit more to pay for shipping, but the larger issue of presumably only being suitable for 120V.

 

Well that certainly changes your range of options.