Looking for 10Gb advice

[andymiller6891]

I’m looking to start moving my networking backbone to 10Gb starting with my server. So my question is can I put a 10Gb intel fibre card into my server and use a DAC cable to attach it to my currently 1gb switch until I can swap my switch out??

 

[EniGmA1987]

I’m looking to start moving my networking backbone to 10Gb starting with my server. So my question is can I put a 10Gb intel fibre card into my server and use a DAC cable to attach it to my currently 1gb switch until I can swap my switch out??

Not exactly. If you get a fiber card with an SFP+ port on it, you could buy an SFP+ transceiver with an RJ45 port (a 10gb model, not 1gb), and then connect a regular ethernet cable from the server to your 1gb switch and it will run at 1gb speed. Then when you upgrade your switch to 10gb ports the server will already be running at 10gb speed right then. Its probably cheaper and easier to simply buy an Intel X540 card for $120 on Amazon and already have 10gb RJ45 ports though.

Whether that is a good way for you to do it depends on which 10gb you will use. If you plan to use consumer switches with copper RJ45 ports then you will want your server to also have those same ports. If you plan on buying a prosumer or enterprise switch with SFP+ ports then you will want your server to also have an SFP+ port NIC on it. You will need to run fiber around your house though to use SFP+ transceivers, and it will be a bit less compatible than regular copper ethernet. For example, you will need to have an SFP switch and a copper switch with an SFP port so you can connect the switches together. Then use the copper switch at 1gb speed to connect things like game consoles, AppleTV/Roku, receivers, etc. Then the SFP switch will only be used for desktop PCs with fiber NICs installed in them. This is more complicated and meaning having more hardware, but is also cheaper overall. buying 10gb SFP+ transceivers and LC-LC cable is cheap:
https://www.sfpcables.com/10gsfp-transceiver-axs85-192-m3
https://www.sfpcables.com/lc-to-lc-multimode-duplex-om3-10gb-50-125

 

[bds1904]

MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+IN

Has 4x SFP+ ports for 10gb and a 10/100/1000 copper port for connection to your existing switch.

Hands down cheapest way to get 10gb connectivity to 4 devices and connectivity to 1gb devices over the same 10gb link with no special IP setup on the device.