10GbE NIC for Scale?

[indivision]

Oh it’s there. I’ve looked it up before. I believe the way to get to it via Mikrotik is to select the copper 10GbE transceiver, then look up the compatible list, then read through the fine print. If I looked at it right, the answer is 2.

Damn. That's really lousy that they bury obviously key information like that. I saw that chart but didn't expect the limit to be noted there. Never going to buy anything from that company...

I'm going to re-think this and maybe do some additional fibre wiring so that I can have more options to put the 10GbE switch in the garage. I have conduit drops at the non-garage locations. And it wouldn't be the end of the world to have a wire showing in the garage...

 

[Constantin]

Raw Fiber is hard to terminate at home - the tools are expensive, as are the connectors. I spent about $900 on the tools used on eBay plus $15 per connector to redo all the drops in my home. I resold the tools for the same money but it was several hundred bucks to redo the connectors and the time too.

so if you can stay with pre-confectioned fiber, do! The costs are laughably low compared to terminating raw fiber yourself.

 

[indivision]

Thank you. Good to know. I was wondering about that and hadn't hit Google yet.

It might be tough to fit those connectors through the conduit with everything else I have going down there!

 

[Constantin]

Seal the ends, apply the water-soluble wire pulling lubricant, and have yourself a party. Just avoid hard corners and excessive pulling. Neither will result in a happy ending.

 

[Constantin]

Mikrotik is not a bad company. But I agree that the documentation re: RJ45 copper 10GbE modules could be miles better than it is. I have that CRS305 switch and I am very happy with it.

unlike bridge mode in TrueNAS, this switch just works as expected.