[clue] Gigabit ports and cables?

Quentin Hartman qhartman at gmail.com
Thu Dec 27 11:43:09 MST 2012


I always run Gb anymore. Thanks to good ol' hedonistic adaptation anything
slower than that feels sooooo sllloooooow. It's definitely worth the money,
IMHO, at least in places where you are moving large volumes of data often.
Even if you can't afford a switch large enough to do everything, it's worth
getting a smaller switch to connect the largest users and then daisy-chain
that onto a 100Mb one. FWIW, I've had good luck with SMC and Netgear
Prosafe switches in the size you're talking about.

As far as the 5e requirement on cables, it's not quite so simple. Anything
rated 5e is guranteed (assuming it was installed right) to run Gb speeds.
Normal cat 5 can, and often does, run Gb just fine. Especially if your
non-5e cables are short, you will likely be fine. I wouldn't worry about
replacing something unless you see a problem, or your cables are already
wanting replacement for some reason.

QH


On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 10:47 AM, Dan Kulinski <daniel at kulinski.net> wrote:

> Use ethtool <interface name> to discover the speeds.
>
> Cat5E is the required cable to run gigabit speeds.  If you don't have the
> cables, Monoprice is a very cheap place to purchase what you need.  I was
> transfering a set of game files from my PC to my son's PC and we hit
> 45MB/sec.  If he had a more modern PC with an SSD it would have been even
> faster.
>
> Dan
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 10:44 AM, Adrian Nagle <anagle at naglenet.org>wrote:
>
>>
>> What are my chances of actually getting gigabit speeds?  How to I check
>> if my network cards are compatible?  It is essential to have cat5e cables?
>>
>> I had to replace a network switch in my family room and only now realized
>> gigabit switches are common.  Now I'm deciding if I should replace my main
>> network switch at my server to gigabit.  I need to get at least 8 ports
>> which is starting to get expensive for me.
>>
>> My computers are two years old, except my server is a decade old.  I had
>> my house wired for ethernet last year. House cables are stamped with cat5e.
>> But my random cables between equipment and switches are not cat5e.
>>
>> I do occasionally transfer some large encrypted containers and camera
>> picture and video files between my computers and server (not a big deal
>> though).
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Adrian
>>
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