SFP+ Help

[Real_PhillBert]

Backstory:

 

My wife would like to add some cameras to our house, five to be exact. I see that a decent NVR is about the same price as a Unifi Dream Machine SE, which is a far better router than I currently have, and has a built in NVR. Plus I've had really good luck with Unifi Products so I'll likely pick one of these up.

 

https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-unifi-os-consoles/products/dream-machine-se

 

Combine that with the new PC I built makes two PCs in my house that have 2.5G nics, so I may take the opportunity to upgrade my switch to a 2.5G switch. The switch I'm looking at is this Unifi unit:

 

https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-switching/products/usw-enterprise-48-poe

 

I admit that I absolutely DO NOT need a 48 port switch right now, even with the additional five cameras a 24 port switch will be more than enough, but I want the 48 port because my wife and I are considering building a new house that may very well end up with more than 24 drops, so I'd rather have the headroom for that if I need it.

 

Right now my network consists of a basic Cisco wired router, a 1G Unifi 24 port POE switch, and a couple of Unifi APs. All currently wired up with Cat-6a. I also have my older gaming machine that now lives in my rack doing home NAS/media server duties; it's also connected with cat-6a.

 

I noticed that the Dream Machine SE and switch both have 10G SFP+ capabilities, so my though was to use that to connect the router to the switch and switch to the NAS with an SFP+ nic in the NAS. But I dont know much about SFP+, almost nothing. 

 

Question:

 

I know there are a bunch of different SFP+ nics and transceivers, can someone help me understand what I would need to hook these all up? Am I over thinking this?

 

Is something like this a good option for my NAS? I have plenty of extra PCI-e slots, I just dont know anything about add in nics.

 

https://www.amazon.com/10Gtek-E10G41BTDAG1P5-Ethernet-Converged-X520-DA1/dp/B01LZRSQM9/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=10g+SFP%2B+nic&sr=8-1-spons&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.d977788f-1483-4f76-90a3-786e4cdc8f10&psc=1&smid=AE2OZG2NN3099&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFDT0lYU1hIRTUwRUcmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTA2NDE1NTIyUzhOSldEWktQWDBNJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAxNjE3MDVSNVg4VUVKMEFKTUkmd2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl

 

My NAS/Plex server is my old 4790k system with an Asus Maximus 7 Gene if that makes any difference. 

 

Thanks in advance for the help.

[GCBeee]

Anything based on the intel x520(/x540 if you want 1Gb ethernet-locked to 10 and 1 though due to age) chipset is usually pretty decent, compatible with Truenas and, in my experience, will accept the Ubiquiti fibre transceivers without any fuss. You can find a fairly decent selection in both single and dual port configurations both new and secondhand for a reasonable price(x520-da1 and x520-da2). Most of the secondhand modules have been pulled from old servers. 

1 hour ago, Real_PhillBert said:

I know there are a bunch of different SFP+ nics and transceivers, can someone help me understand what I would need to hook these all up? Am I over thinking this?

It can get extremely complicated if you're talking about certain brands that lock their switches to certain transceivers. Ubiquiti is usually pretty decent about not being vendor locked to their own transceivers. The main things to note for your case are:

 

1. Your best option in terms of price will probably be multimode fibre. This comes in OM1-OM5. I would recommend OM2 or above (I think LTT uses OM3 for their multimode runs at 25Gb). 

2. With multimode fibre, you specifically need multimode transceivers. I would recommend the transceivers from Ubiquiti as they are reasonably priced and I have found them to be reliable (product code UACC-OM-MM-10G-D-2). 

3. If your runs are shorter than 3m, you could consider DAC (Direct Attach Copper) cables such as UACC-DAC-SFP10-3M for price and robustness (fibre bend radius and crushing cables can be a problem)

4. If you are buying fibre cables, there are multiple termination options (you will want to buy pre terminated cable). Ubiquiti multimode transceivers use LC/UPC connectors. You would need a duplex cable (example of required termination here: https://www.fs.com/products/40180.html). 

 

Hopefully this makes some things clearer. 

[Lurick]

I've had very bad luck using other brands transceivers in an Intel NIC specifically. Sometimes it works and sometimes it just refuses to do anything. I would just get some MM SFP+ modules form FS.com as well that are Intel coded.

[Real_PhillBert]

13 hours ago, GCBeee said:

Anything based on the intel x520(/x540 if you want 1Gb ethernet-locked to 10 and 1 though due to age) chipset is usually pretty decent, compatible with Truenas and, in my experience, will accept the Ubiquiti fibre transceivers without any fuss. You can find a fairly decent selection in both single and dual port configurations both new and secondhand for a reasonable price(x520-da1 and x520-da2). Most of the secondhand modules have been pulled from old servers. 

It can get extremely complicated if you're talking about certain brands that lock their switches to certain transceivers. Ubiquiti is usually pretty decent about not being vendor locked to their own transceivers. The main things to note for your case are:

 

1. Your best option in terms of price will probably be multimode fibre. This comes in OM1-OM5. I would recommend OM2 or above (I think LTT uses OM3 for their multimode runs at 25Gb). 

2. With multimode fibre, you specifically need multimode transceivers. I would recommend the transceivers from Ubiquiti as they are reasonably priced and I have found them to be reliable (product code UACC-OM-MM-10G-D-2). 

3. If your runs are shorter than 3m, you could consider DAC (Direct Attach Copper) cables such as UACC-DAC-SFP10-3M for price and robustness (fibre bend radius and crushing cables can be a problem)

4. If you are buying fibre cables, there are multiple termination options (you will want to buy pre terminated cable). Ubiquiti multimode transceivers use LC/UPC connectors. You would need a duplex cable (example of required termination here: https://www.fs.com/products/40180.html). 

 

Hopefully this makes some things clearer. 

Thank you very much for the very informing reply!

 

It's going to take me a bit of time to fully digest your reply as everything here is extremely new to me.

 

The connection from the router to the switch is only 1U of space, and then from the switch to the server is probably ~1.5m in total to the back of the server.

 

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 hours ago, Lurick said:

I've had very bad luck using other brands transceivers in an Intel NIC specifically. Sometimes it works and sometimes it just refuses to do anything. I would just get some MM SFP+ modules form FS.com as well that are Intel coded.

I had a strange problem between an Intel NIC and a Netgear Switch using DAC.  It worked, but it was causing retries though they didn't seem excessive so I assumed it was normal.

I then upgraded my motherboard and case which needed a full-height PCIe card and I couldn't find the bracket for my NIC so temporarily put an AQC107 copper adapter in there instead and the whole switch performance suddenly improved.

It had been bogging down the whole network in very subtle ways I couldn't see from statistics alone, speed always seemed fine if a little inconsistent, ping always seemed fine, but I could FEEL the improvement in network response with it removed and iperf3 tests suddenly were extremely consistent.

I also had a weird issue where during the upgrade I had pulled my fibre adapter (this is used to connect to another Netgear switch in another room) slightly out of the socket which broke the WebUI on the switch, yet the actual network appeared to be working fine.  So yeah, watch out for odd issues and make sure all SFP adapters are firmly plugged in too.  I didn't realise they could come loose given they have a locking mechanism.

[Lurick]

12 minutes ago, Real_PhillBert said:

Thank you very much for the very informing reply!

 

It's going to take me a bit of time to fully digest your reply as everything here is extremely new to me.

 

The connection from the router to the switch is only 1U of space, and then from the switch to the server is probably ~1.5m in total to the back of the server.

 

 

I would personally go with right length DAC cables for this then from FS.com

If you had longer runs or needed to keep the runs stealthy I would do MM fiber instead but since it's all within the rack you can get really short DACs and be done with it

 

https://www.fs.com/products/120490.html?attribute=10737&id=203965

https://www.fs.com/products/40142.html?attribute=8995&id=183627