LAN + Fibre Optic Advice please

[liltbrockie]

We've got a normal 10/100 LAN with about 20 users... getting a new server thats hosting our database... Is there any advantage is getting a fibre optic card for it to the switch? Will i see any benefit ?

 

[ambientZ]

gigabit runs just fine over copper, doubt fiber would yield any improvements unless its a long run, or there is electrical interference thats causing you problems.

Is the server at 100mbit too? Any gains would be from boosting the server to gigabit...

If your switch doesn't support gigabit, and you can't upgrade it, you could look to see if it supports teaming, so you could run 2 or more 100mbit lines to the server and team them with an appropriate multi port network card.

 

[alext5]

The reason to use fiber most of the time is long distances or the need for 10G speed.

In your case, a good move would be to upgrade your network with a gigabit switch. It is pretty inexpensive right now and new servers and desktop comes with gigabit out of the box.