Set Up 10G Home Network

Nowadays, nobody would deny the importance of the network. It has become an inseparable part of our daily life. As it developed, people’s demand for bandwidth is increasing. And 10G network is widely applied in small and middle sized business. In addition, 10G home network can be also commonly found. This article will share some tips to set up 10G home network.

Why do you need 10G network? It is not difficult to find that almost everything nowadays rely on a fast and reliable network, which leads to tremendous traffic and applications running on the network. It is necessary to upgrade your home network to support the growing of your business. Setting up 10G home network avoids network congestion at busy times while improves your productivity.

What do you want from 10G home network? Before you start to set up the network, better planning is needed. You should ask yourself a few questions, such as how many computers, printers and other peripherals will connect to your network? How much wireless coverage will you need at your location? What type of mobile devices will need access to your network?

To build a 10G home network, several components are required: 10G core switch, access switch with 10G uplink, and 10G network interface cards for servers and storage devices. The past few years had witness the price dropping of 10G network switch. For example, the cost of Ubiquiti Unifi and Edgeswitch switch are only $200. You can also find many 10G switch under $550, such as FS.COM 10G network switch S3800-48T4S only costs $480 by offering 48 100/1000Base-T and 4 10GE SFP+ ports.

There are two cabling ways for 10G home network—10GBASE-T and 10G SFP+.

If you choose 10GBASE-T, then upgrading the existing 1G network to 10G can be simple. If 10G switch is designed with RJ45 ports, you can use the same RJ45 network cable to connect the 10G switch with your server, storage and some other switches. The only difference is to use Cat6a network cable instead of Cat5e and Cat6 cable, because Cat6a can support 10G data rate over 100 meters; or you can choose SFP+ 10GBASE-T module with 2.5W power consumption and a maximum distance of 30 meters.

For 10G network switch that supports 10G SFP+, you can use it with devices that come with 10G SFP+ ports, too. For server or storage devices with 10G SFP+ port, the most cost efficient way to connect them with 10G network switch is to use 10G DAC cable (direct attach cable). It is basically copper cable with SFP+ connector on both sides. But this cabling way is only suitable for short connectivity. For data link over 100 meters, a pair of SFP+ modules and the matching fiber optic cable are needed. Depending on the length required in home network, you can use 10G optics such as 10GBASE SR SFP module and multimode fiber to reach 300 meters.

For home network set up, 10G is a trend. But before you migrate your network to 10G, you still have to think about what you want or what you need. After that, the choice for components and cabling procedure can be easy. FS.COM provides comprehensive 10G solutions: all the components mentioned to build a 10G home network are available at FS.COM, including 10G switches, network cables, 10G SFP+ transceivers, fiber patch cables and DAC cables.