Tue Feb 21, 2012 1:13 pm
By the way, crossover cables are unnecessary even with 1GbE. You can use normal cables for NIC<->NIC, NIC<->switch and switch<->switch.
With 10GbE, your main choice will be conectors. With a peer-to-peer connection, obvioulsy you want both servers to have NICs with the same connector type - and you will find you have a choice of SFP+ (copper or optical via a tranceiver), RJ45 (good Cat6 or Cat7), and CX4 (coaxial). I beleive that SFP+ over copper or CX4 are lower power consumption and lower latency than RJ45, although RJ45 electronics for 10GbE may have improved since I last looked at this. I would say that probably SFP+ is the best route to go now, especially if you think you may need a switch in future, or need to increase the port count - there's a better choice of equipment and the connectors are smaller than CX4. However, cables for RJ45 are obviously much cheaper.
