Help with Optic Fibre

[yoyDIY]

I would like to connect two switches with a optic fibre cable. What will I need and how to istall the products

[Julian5]

Why fiber and not ethernet?

[Mr.Meerkat]

Well simply put you can't. If you're going for a fiber connection between 2 switches then the switches themselves has to be fiber switches as normal RJ45 connectors can't support fiber cables (light vs electrical signals). Just go for some cat 6/7 cables and you'll be golden  

[zMeul]

direct Switch with fiber optic I don't think it exists, if it does .. I'm too old

you can however use media converters to connect the fiber optic to the switches: https://www.amazon.com/Gigabit-Ethernet-Fiber-Media-Converter/dp/B004FUUY52

[mcraftax]

You will need switches with sfp or sfp+ ports on them to run a fiber connection between them.

[yoyDIY]

4 hours ago, mcraftax said:

You will need switches with sfp or sfp+ ports on them to run a fiber connection between them.

That is my idea, a two switches both with sfp and rj45 ports. what till I need to make this idea work?

[lightingjack]

You would need one of those switches to have Ethernet ports aswell. Kinda like http://www.moxa.com/product/EDS-408A-3FO.htm

 

But, what fiber optic cable you are using? The media converted seems like the cheapest and easier option. You need to regonize the fiber optic and ethernet cable you would be using first https://beyondtech.us/blogs/beyond-blog/40344385-difference-between-singlemode-and-multimode-fiber 

 

 

 

 

 

[yoyDIY]

1 minute ago, lightingjack said:

You would need one of those switches to have Ethernet ports aswell. Kinda like http://www.moxa.com/product/EDS-408A-3FO.htm

 

But, what fiber optic cable you are using? The media converted seems like the cheapest and easier option. You need to regonize the fiber optic and ethernet cable you would be using first https://beyondtech.us/blogs/beyond-blog/40344385-difference-between-singlemode-and-multimode-fiber 

 

 

 

 

 

I was thinking of getting a optic cable (does the specs of the cable matter?) and then getting it connected to a sfp port (how do you do that) and then plug in the switch Is it that simple or am I missing something?

[lightingjack]

You would need to know that type of cable the sfp supports, that's why is important, normally your switch would tell you where to put the SFP that's basically just plug-n-play. Do you have your switches model?

[yoyDIY]

4 minutes ago, lightingjack said:

You would need to know that type of cable the sfp supports, that's why is important, normally your switch would tell you where to put the SFP that's basically just plug-n-play. Do you have your switches model?

sorry no this is all planning ahead for a network upgrade but can give you the link to the switches I was looking at. I'm quite a newbie understanding how to terminate optic cables and just want to get my facts right before making final decision.

 

Was looking at this switch http://www.laptopdirect.co.za/Intellinet-560818-p-94490.php 

[lightingjack]

Ok, you would need to know that kind of Transceiver you can connect in the SFP port according to that transceiver you can plug different kind of cable. Probably you would use multimode cable.

 

 

[yoyDIY]

1 minute ago, lightingjack said:

Ok, you would need to know that kind of Transceiver you can connect in the SFP port according to that transceiver you can plug different kind of cable. Probably you would use multimode cable.

 

 

Thanks, just to make sure, my sfp ports on both ends of the cable should be the same and it doesn't really matter the sfp port with the switch?

[mariushm]

The SPF ports on that switch are 1 gbps, so you would only be interested in using fiber cable instead of regular network cable if the distance between switches is longer than 105 meters (the maximum the standard allows through regular network cable) or if for some reason you want a thinner network cable between the switches.

 

That switch is Intellinet 560818 and you can find the manual here: http://www.intellinet-network.com/download/48299

 

According to the manual you need to plug mini-GBIC transceivers into those ports, and these are expensive, usually about 100$ each.

 

If the switches are going to be in the same rack, you'd probably be better off using 4 patch cords into link aggregation mode to achieve a 4 gbps connection between switches, or you could just go directly with a switch that has dedicated connection cable to link to other switches.

 

A few years ago I've used two 48 x 100mbps Allied Telesyn switches that had a proprietary connector in the back which made connections between two switches at something like 7 gbps or 17 gbps or some high number... it was years ago, don't remember anymore... i know it was a small cable with lots of wires, hard to bend and making it hard to space the two switches too much in the rack.

[yoyDIY]

I want to use it over a long distance (70m) but want to my homework that if I connect the two together. What specs should I look for compatability between the fibre cable and the sfp port and the sfp port and the switch?

[Brenz]

2 hours ago, yoyDIY said:

I want to use it over a long distance (70m) but want to my homework that if I connect the two together. What specs should I look for compatability between the fibre cable and the sfp port and the sfp port and the switch?

Seriously for 70m just use CAT5e. You would literally be throwing money away to use fibre over such a sort distance especially when the switch you plan to use is no faster than CAT5e

[dalekphalm]

@yoyDIY Just an FYI, you do NOT need a switch with integrated Fibre ports to connect two switches together over Fibre.

 

If you already have switches on either end, that you would just replace w/ ones with Fibre Ports on them, then you may also consider the other way to do this:

 

Fibre Media Converters - these are basically the same thing that is inside a Switch w/ Fibre Ports - it converts an RJ45 ethernet signal into a fibre optic signal (each device may support different Fibre standards).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=fiber+media+converter&N=-1&isNodeId=1

 

Example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1UH3H75362&cm_re=fiber_media_converter-_-33-114-141-_-Product

1000Mbps (1Gbps/Gigabit) speeds at distances up to 550m

 

Connecting a standard Gigabit switch to one of these through Cat 5e/6/6a Ethernet, then connecting it through Fibre Optic to another one, which then connects to the second Gigabit switch over Ethernet again, would give you the same end result as two Gigabit Switches w/ Fibre Ports.

 

The main benefit of a switch w/ Fibre Ports is that if the switch is managed, then of course you can manage the Fibre Ports too. Or the switch might have a larger backbone for communicating w/ the Fibre Ports - especially if those ports support 10G or 40G, etc.

[leadeater]

If your not spanning a distance over 90m then you don't need fibre. Fibre is expensive and fragile and should be installed in ducting with proper termination trays or boxes. Don't use fibre unless you have to, it's not any faster for your purpose and only has down sides and no up sides.

[yoyDIY]

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

If your not spanning a distance over 90m then you don't need fibre. Fibre is expensive and fragile and should be installed in ducting with proper termination trays or boxes. Don't use fibre unless you have to, it's not any faster for your purpose and only has down sides and no up sides.

Thank you for all of you to help me this way. The reason why I thought of it is because of the following:

 

The internet comes from an router in front of the house and the bedrooms are at the back-so I thought I can get more speed redundancy by making all the communication between the computers faster by making the connection to the Internet separate and a switch for the communication with the pc's at the back of the house

 

Current Setup

 

Future setup (planning to do)

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, yoyDIY said:

Thank you for all of you to help me this way. The reason why I thought of it is because of the following:

 

The internet comes from an router in front of the house and the bedrooms are at the back-so I thought I can get more speed redundancy by making all the communication between the computers faster by making the connection to the Internet separate and a switch for the communication with the pc's at the back of the house

You can still do what you plan to do just use a copper Cat 6a cable rather than a fibre cable. Cat 6a even supports 10Gb over 100m. You use fibre when you need to do a length of 300m or 500m, you can do even longer with single mode fibre (10km-80km).

 

Also the 4 cables between the switch and router won't give you any extra speed, network or internet, only redundancy and you can do that with just 2. This is of course if the router even supports link aggregation/teaming.

 

You need to think of multiple connections a little bit differently, a single device can only use 1 path so having 2 gives no benefit for that single device. The next thing to think about is do you need more bandwidth than a single path can give, for internet the answer is no.

 

Where you would be better off is 2 cables between the managed switches so if 2 separate computers were doing large file transfers to 2 different devices on the other switch each would get a 1Gb path each. Or if two devices on the opposite switch to the FTP were doing file copies they would get a 1Gb path each all the way through to the FTP server. 

 

Edit: Also even with the planned changes you won't actually notice any speed increase, it is a nicer setup networking wise though.