10Gbps Fiber Between 2 Computers

[Niksal12]

I have a Plex media server that has about 10TB of movies that are in the MKV format. This computer has a quad core AMD Phenom II processor, not the best for converting all these movies to an h.264 format. That is why I have an HP Proliant Ml150 g6 with dual quad core Xeons that I plan on using for converting all of these movies using handbrake. I would like to convert movies over the network, as I do not have enough storage on the converting server to copy over more than half a dozen bluray rips at a time. Ideally I would like to setup a system like Linus has with his home server, I attached a diagram of what I am looking to do.

I have two Qlogic BR-1020s (Tech sheet) that I pulled from servers that were decommissioned. First of all I want to ensure that these cards are capable of doing what I want to do. Then how would I configure the Gigabit and Fiber networks to be able to communicate with each other?

[SMURG]

Why do you seem to think you need >1gbps? I doubt Handbrake will saturate a gigabit link when doing encodes - it doesn't for me even when dealing with 30GB blu-ray rips or pushing ~200fps. The only possible reason why you could need link aggregation is if you have a lot of machines hitting the same server with downloads/uploads at the same time - and the 10gbps link is totally unnecessary unless you regularly move files between the two outside of Handbrake, and have SSDs (or possibly a RAID 0/10 or fast RAID 5/6) at either end to make use of the bandwidth.

Getting that 10gb link to work in ad-hoc is likely to be far more effort than it's worth (with 10gbps switches being notoriously expensive), and to get link aggregation working you'd need a smartswitch between the server and the other machines.

[KTFO|SGTmoody]

Smurg is probably right with the network usage.   Best thing to do is see if it works fine just on gigabit first and if not go further with it.

 

Regarding the fiber cards.  Do you have the 10G SFP modules for these?  if not you will need some.  You will also need OM3 or OM4 multimode LC to LC fiber to connect them.   I have never tried connecting two PCs over fiber before, I have always done it through a switch so i cant say if this is going to work or not.

 

If you already have the 48port netgear switch then I would suggest trying it out on gigabit first and if you need more then go for 4Gbps Link aggregation to the switch and see if that helps.  you are relying on your CPU here to do the work so its only going to go so fast.

Your HP server should already have two NIC's so use them to test it out and see how it goes.

[Atlantisman]

Damn, i want to get some cards like that for my NAS and ESXi hosts.

 

 

EDIT: ^but these guys are correct, unless your home network is very robust the 10gb links will be fairly useless.

[Niksal12]

This here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu6jlA7hPj8 is exactly what I wish to configure, more for the fun of it as I have not spent any money setting this up so far, and it will not be a bottleneck for whatever I decide to do with this setup in the near future.

Why do you seem to think you need >1gbps? I doubt Handbrake will saturate a gigabit link when doing encodes - it doesn't for me even when dealing with 30GB blu-ray rips or pushing ~200fps. The only possible reason why you could need link aggregation is if you have a lot of machines hitting the same server with downloads/uploads at the same time - and the 10gbps link is totally unnecessary unless you regularly move files between the two outside of Handbrake, and have SSDs (or possibly a RAID 0/10 or fast RAID 5/6) at either end to make use of the bandwidth.

Getting that 10gb link to work in ad-hoc is likely to be far more effort than it's worth (with 10gbps switches being notoriously expensive), and to get link aggregation working you'd need a smartswitch between the server and the other machines.

Yeah for the most part I will not be utilizing 100% of the 10Gbps connection, but this is not just for the speed but more so a project for me to keep busy with.

 

Smurg is probably right with the network usage.   Best thing to do is see if it works fine just on gigabit first and if not go further with it.

 

Regarding the fiber cards.  Do you have the 10G SFP modules for these?  if not you will need some.  You will also need OM3 or OM4 multimode LC to LC fiber to connect them.   I have never tried connecting two PCs over fiber before, I have always done it through a switch so i cant say if this is going to work or not.

 

If you already have the 48port netgear switch then I would suggest trying it out on gigabit first and if you need more then go for 4Gbps Link aggregation to the switch and see if that helps.  you are relying on your CPU here to do the work so its only going to go so fast.

Your HP server should already have two NIC's so use them to test it out and see how it goes.

I have access to the fiber and the sfp modules, thats not a problem. For the bridging connections I want to get the high bandwidth directly between the two computers rather than having to run 8 cables over the wall to the two computers vs. just the 4.

[KTFO|SGTmoody]

This here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu6jlA7hPj8 is exactly what I wish to configure, more for the fun of it as I have not spent any money setting this up so far, and it will not be a bottleneck for whatever I decide to do with this setup in the near future.

Yeah for the most part I will not be utilizing 100% of the 10Gbps connection, but this is not just for the speed but more so a project for me to keep busy with.

 

I have access to the fiber and the sfp modules, thats not a problem. For the bridging connections I want to get the high bandwidth directly between the two computers rather than having to run 8 cables over the wall to the two computers vs. just the 4.

Right so you will need the direct attatch cable which isnt fibre.  I can only find 10M direct attatch cables. would this be long enough?

[Niksal12]

Right so you will need the direct attatch cable which isnt fibre.  I can only find 10M direct attatch cables. would this be long enough?

Yeah that would be plenty long enough, is there a difference really besides that it's copper? If I were to get 10gbps sfp modules and use fiber would that work the same? I'm fine with using the direct attach cable I'm just curious.

[KTFO|SGTmoody]

Yeah that would be plenty long enough, is there a difference really besides that it's copper? If I were to get 10gbps sfp modules and use fiber would that work the same? I'm fine with using the direct attach cable I'm just curious.

Hi I just did some googleing and it seems fiber would be fine. part of me thought that there must be a bigger difference other than it just being copper. It turns out that the direct attach bit just seems to be a name for the cable standard. You should find that it will be cheaper to use the copper cable over fiber (if you don't already have the compatible sfp modules yet )

As long as you get your send and receive round the correct way it should work. Tx is send and Rx is receive. A small tip of you want to know which bit is the send. If you put your phone camera over the module you should see the light, that's your send.

If you want I can test it out for you. I have a few fiber cards lying around.

[Niksal12]

Hi I just did some googleing and it seems fiber would be fine. part of me thought that there must be a bigger difference other than it just being copper. It turns out that the direct attach bit just seems to be a name for the cable standard. You should find that it will be cheaper to use the copper cable over fiber (if you don't already have the compatible sfp modules yet )

As long as you get your send and receive round the correct way it should work. Tx is send and Rx is receive. A small tip of you want to know which bit is the send. If you put your phone camera over the module you should see the light, that's your send.

If you want I can test it out for you. I have a few fiber cards lying around.

I just bought a cable that is long enough from amazon (if it ends up not working I can return it easily) it was about $60 for10m and the SFP modules that I was looking at were about $50 a piece used on eBay. I rather not put $100 into something I can't return if it doesn't work. If you have some time I would really appreciate you testing it, if not I'll update with my progress here.

[Niksal12]

It has been a while since my last update, however I was able to figure it out. In order to connect the 10gig network to my regular network, I had to make a windows network bridge. I bridged the built in nic on the motherboard to the brocade 10gig card which allowed the converting computer to access the internet and the rest of the network. I will not be using the bridge heavily in my network so a regular 1gig connection there is plenty. Thanks to all that helped and hopefully this helps someone else.