On Mar 29, 2018, at 11:12 AM, Moshe Katz wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 9:44 PM, Paul Mather
> wrote:
>
>> On Mar 27, 2018, at 8:10 PM, Moshe Katz wrote:
>>
>> Many thanks for the information and advice. It is much appreciated.
>
[[...]]
>> My main issue with going the SFP+ route is that my rack uplink port is
>> still 10GBASE-T and so I'd need to find a 10GBASE-T transceiver for the
>> pfSense 10 GbE NIC and these seem difficult to find or they are 3rd party
>> or they are expensive themselves (e.g., $200--$300+). I've also heard
>> there are thermal issues with those transceivers as there's not much
>> opportunity to build in the requisite heat sinks that 10GBASE-T appears to
>> need. (I've noticed 10GBASE-T NICs have pretty hefty heatsinks on them.)
>> Besides that, I've not been able to find a 10GBASE-T transceiver for
>> Chelsio NICs and only 3rd party ones for Intel---e.g., by some company
>> called 10Gtek.
>>
>> Does anyone have any advice/experience to share regarding 10GBASE-T
>> transceivers?
>>
>
> I don't personally have any of the Intel-compatible 10GBASE-T transceivers
> at the moment, but I have seen reports online that the 10Gtek ones are
> reliable. (In theory, any SFP+ module that conforms to the official specs
> should inter-operate with any other, but, as they say, "that's a nice
> theory".)
> As far as the heat distribution, that really should be picked up and
> handled by the network card and the server's cooling system.
>
>
> However, based on your response to my brother's email about being able to
> budget the Cisco switch with 10GBASE-T, I suggest that you probably
> couldn't go wrong with that simply because it's the solution with fewest
> number of parts. I would still consider the Intel card over the Chelsio
> card if you're really trying to work within a small budget, but you should
> go with whatever you think is best for you.
Many thanks for the followup information and advice. (I'm finding that 10 GbE
networking and above is something of an alphabet soup, so thanks for the
cabling explanation.)
I've decided to go with my original solution of using a replacement switch with
10GBASE-T uplink ports. You were exactly right in that when I got a quote for
the Cisco SG350X-48 switch it was a more attractive choice than the Netgear
once the educational discount was applied.
Thanks again for all the help.
Cheers,
Paul.
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