Fiber Uplink Question

[CablDeViL 5]

Instead of running 24 cables from my top floor to my switch closet and add to the 24 runs from the lower 2/3rds of the house, wouldn't it be better to find 2 gigabit switches with a fiber uplink?

 

How common are these?

 

I dont want to send one cat 6 to a switch and reduce my throughput to the main switch from the top floor.  It would also reduce my cabling. 

 

Any network pros want to weigh in on this.

 

 

TY

 

Bill

[schoondoggy 762]

Almost all the Netgear Smart Switches have fiber ports, but they run at 1Gb just like the RJ45 ports. 

The upside to running fiber, some day switches with 10Gb uplinks will be affordable.

[CablDeViL 5]

I hate to choke 24 ports to 1Gb.... Even though I know the top floor should never pull that much.  Hmm or I do 2 24 ports and 2 fiber runs this way my lab is on its own.

 

Or maybe install another nic in the pfSense box for the lab only ... But do I want to have another subnet or node.....

 

To many options.

 

I will search the netgear site for some of these switches you speak of.

 

TY

[schoondoggy 762]

I moved my lab to a separate network, that helped a lot. 

Let me look to see how much money you need to spend to get a switch that will let you bind ports.

[CablDeViL 5]

ty... did you have much of a problem accessing the other part of your network from the lab (when you had to)  I know I can do it somehow in pfsense using dual Lan networks.

I see that netgear also has copper 10gb switches in the wild now =)

[CablDeViL 5]

Looks like

 

http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-ProSAFE-GS748T-48-Port-1000Mbps/dp/B00I5W5M12/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1427142532&sr=1-2&keywords=switch

 

And a GS724T for the lab and a GS718T for the rest of the top floor.  If I dont segment out the lab.

[ikon 438]

I agree with schoondoggy. The real point to using fiber in the situation you describe is to aggregate the top floor ports onto 1, or even 2, 10Gbit links. Unfortunately, switches with 1 or more Gbit fibre ports are pretty expensive.

 

The reason companies make switches with fibre ports that are the same speed as the RJ45 ones is for situations where there is a need to link switches over distances greater than 328 feet. This happens quite frequently in campus situations.

[schoondoggy 762]

Sorry I should have said link aggregation instead of binding.

The 3rd gen Netgear switches support LAG. Up to 4 ports on a 24port switch. It appears if one Gb uplink is not enough, you could add another.

 

Here is a link to the Admin guide:

http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GS716T_GS724T_SWA_15Feb12.pdf

 

The GS724T V3 supports LAG, I am not sure if V1 and V2 switches do.

You can find GS724T V3 on ebay for under $100.

[Drashna Jaelre 157]

What about those cables that bundle 4 cat6 connections? Run 6 of those?

[schoondoggy 762]

What about those cables that bundle 4 cat6 connections? Run 6 of those?

Every time I look at those they seem like a good idea, but they are expensive and not very flexible.