wiring question

[groovin]

I want to add some gigabit to our network. Everything's wired with cat5 right now. will i even notice a difference in speed from going from fastethernet to gigabit with cat5? i dont want to rewire the building, but if thats the only way then I guess I'll have to. thanks

 

[exx1976]

Depending upon whether or not the CAT5 is wired properly, you SHOULD be able to use GbaseT over your existing cable plant.. GbaseT uses all 4 pairs, though, so if you're doing power over Ethernet or anything, you're going to lose that...

As far as noticing a difference, I guess it depends on what you're doing with the network.. If you're trying to back up a Tb server across the LAN, then you'll notice it.. I know my users notice it when all 200 of them with roaming profiles access the file server simultaneously..

 

[groovin]

the wiring should be good... our engineering dept uses some large files and theyre only on fastethernet. so a 700MB file takes forever to move across the network not to mention if several of them are trying to open files at the same time.

 

[zTargeTz]

sounds like your all set up for some gig links,
also, look into upgrading to a Fiber backbone at some point, mutlimode for the most part, there is no speed limit on fiber so you'll never have to upgrade again (good sell to the budget dept and you can get a 10gig backbone between all your high traffic devicies

 

[Matthias99]

Conventional Fibre Channel is still limited to 1/2 Gbps, depending on the transmitters. Although there's nothing inherent in the fiber preventing it from going faster. 10Gbps backbones are *very* expensive, and require single-mode fiber and special gear.

 

yea i was wondering that
so if you install lower speed fibre now, will you just have to install new switches etc in the futurewhen you want higher speeds? or will you need to reterminate the cable,? or will you need to simply replace the cable with a newer kind of fiber?

 

[zTargeTz]

Conventional Fibre Channel is still limited to 1/2 Gbps, depending on the transmitters. Although there's nothing inherent in the fiber preventing it from going faster. 10Gbps backbones are *very* expensive, and require single-mode fiber and special gear.


when you read his statement, focus on the "depending on the transmitters" there is no such thing as "slow fibre" the fibre i have running 1,000mbs will also run 10,0000mbs the hardware that pushes across it is the only difference (and some distance issues, but we can go into those later)

if you put in fibre now, it will be good into the forseeable future, there are no speed limitations to any fibre out there, only distance (which can be remedied with repeaters and such..)

the only thing you replace when you upgrade a fibre network are the fibre NIC's and switches (or in Cisco's case, the GBIC's) running a fibre back bone is the best upgrade to wireing you can do, mainly because there are no speed limitations, but also because you dont have to worrie about interference from outside sourses (power lines, flourecent lights ect..)

 

[groovin]

regarding fibre, id have to make that call based upon how expensive is fiber currently, how long will it keep me good for, and how long will gigabit ethernet keep me good for.

 

[zTargeTz]

Originally posted by: groovin
regarding fibre, id have to make that call based upon how expensive is fiber currently, how long will it keep me good for, and how long will gigabit ethernet keep me good for.

fiber has a very long life to it, its extreamly cost effective in the long run because you wont need to up grade it any time soon. the strand of fibre your running gigabit eithernet over will run 10 gig or 100gig in the future.
the gig nic's are very reasonable, and depending on what vender your going with for your routing/switching solutions, its not extreamly expensive to upgrade either (relitivly speaking)