John, In my opinion, the question of fiber vs copper comes down too issues: distance and bandwidth.
If the distance is short enough that you can use copper, then the only issue is what speed copper ports you have vs what speed fiber ports you have. If your switch is 100M only on the copper ports, and the gig fiber port is built in (not a swappable module), then obviously you lose some uplink speed. Is that an issue for you? How many machines are in your office, and what do they do? If there are a lot of machines and they use a lot of bandwidth, then dropping the aggregate uplink from Gig to 100M may be a problem. But if its just your office, it may not be a problem. Keep in mind your problem also may not be the fiber, it might be the fiber ports on one of your switches. If you have another switch w/ a fiber port and a patch cable, try connecting two switches directly without using your structured cabling. Do that at both ends. If the connections work in both cases, its not the cabling. If it is the cabling, contemplate the question of why did it fail? Was other work being done on your building and someone damaged the cable? If so, and its a contractor, they may have to pay for the replacement. Or was there an environmental issue that you aren't aware of? Cabling typically doesn't just fail spontaneously... -David On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 1:01 PM, John BORIS <[email protected]> wrote: > I have a question. My office connects to our NOC via a fiber line that > connects the switch in my office to a switch in the NOC. Last Week > things went dead and so far it points to the Fiber line being dead. I am > still searching for a flashlight to test the line. That is what I was > told by our Wiring guy to use to test continuity. To get back up and > running I connected the two switches via the wall jack. Long story why > that Jack wasn't used from the beginning. Now I am back on the LAN. My > question is this. The copper connection is 100 mbps while the fiber is > 1gb. Both switches are 3COM 3300 Switches so the speed drops to 100 mbps > once it gets to the NOC. So my question is this. IS there any benefit > (other than an upgrade path) to stay with the fiber between the switches > or stay with the copper. The distance between switches is about 150 feet > as you walk the hall in a straight line, not sure how much cable is used > in the wall. > > So far the new copper connection doesn't seem that much slower but most > of my work is http and ssh with the occasional downloading/uploading of > files. To get the fiber line tested and fixed is going to cost me $$$ > while staying with the copper is the cost of a crossover cable. I am not > worried about the cost although I am ticked as I was told I need a new > switch and now it looks like it was the cable. > > John J. Boris, Sr. > JEN-A-SyS Administrator > Archdiocese of Philadelphia > "Remember! That light at the end of the tunnel > Just might be the headlight of an oncoming train!" > _______________________________________________ > Tech mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ > _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
