2.5g capable SFP+ switch or media converters
Is anyone aware of any switches (or media converters) with SFP+ ports capable of negotiating 2.5Gbit speeds that don't cost an arm and a leg?
I have the Google Fiber 2 gig plan and I'd like to get rid of the fiber box since they've been extremely unreliable and our 4th one has just died. Unfortunately in order to get the full speeds I need something that can take a 2.5 gig SFP+ connection. 10 gig will not work, and 1 gig obviously only gets me half the speed.
I've found a few Unifi compatible switches, but they're between $600 and $900 which is just insane for all we need.
Media converter wise everything I've found is 2.5gig on the rj45 side and 10 gig only on the SFP.
Something has to exist out there right? It can't only be Google who are the freaks using 2.5 gig SFP modules.
Last I knew Google Fiber used PON. With PON a provider would not allow a subscriber to use their own equipment.
The above is important because PON is essentialy one bidirectional fiber from a central office serving dozens of customers in the field. If you plug in with something on the same wavelength you could interrupt all the other customers on your PON. In PON since your fiber is not dedicated all the way back to the CO, they would have no way to know what device was trying to connect to their access node. They would need to configure your devices Mac address similar to how DOCSIS cable internet works.
If they ARE using dedicated fibers back to the CO then that would more likely be Active Ethernet, a slightly different technology. They would probably still tell you no because of how the CPE (the box at your house) needs to be remotely configured by the access node for shapers etc.
Is it possible that you have a power issue at your house that is causing the failures?
Have a look at the Mikrotik switches (the ones that can run routerOS like the CSS610-8P-2S+IN). I don't know much about fiber and up to now I didn't even know that the 10Gbps SFP+ transceivers couldn't work at 2.5Gbps, but have a look at the Optcore Sober transceivers. I've just found them doing a rapid searche, I don't know them.
But if you could go the OPNsense route that @ostsjoe suggested, that would be better!
I use a mikrotik RB5009 for my 2.5gb routing. It technically can hit 10gbps via routing.
Switching you can try https://mikrotik.com/product/crs305_1g_4s_in
I have no way to test this with the equipment I have, but what about opnsense on an x86-64 box and throw an sfp+ pcie card in there. You could then in theory turn off auto negotiation and set it to 2.5g. Has anyone out there tried this?
I've been running opnsense with my CenturyLink 1g setup, though I'm still using their ont to convert to copper, and been very happy with it.
You’d need a card capable of 2.5 gig and I haven’t been able to find one of those either.
My friend did find these which should work. I think I have a spare 2.5 gig nic somewhere that I could install into my server. I’ll have to do pcie pass through straight to pfsense since ESXi doesn’t support this el cheapo consumer grade nic. But it should work.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4JKSFW6
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C871SQVQ
This guy managed to modify a Broadcom NIC to support 2.5G SFP: https://github.com/Berzerker/google-fiber-2gbps-bypass
I mean it isn't great to have to mod something, but at least it's something
Edit: or apparently you can just ask for a 10G transceiver now: https://www.reddit.com/r/googlefiber/comments/tdgag5/google_fiber_now_installing_fiber_jacks_w10gbe/
Also I thought I should mention I don't have Google Fiber so I can't say if any of this works.
Awesome, I did not know about the 10gig they install now. We have someone coming on Tuesday and I was wanting to convince them to replace both the SFP module and the fiber box. But if we could just replace the SFP and get something that actually works then that’s great.
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Be wary of the unifi ones. I just got the Unifi enterprise 8-poe and the SFP overheats constantly. There's a bug in the firmware where the fan doesn't kick on, from the forums I read it's because "users don't like fan noise", but uh, I also don't like my switch crashing and freezing to where I have to do a full power cycle to get it back on. If you go unifi read reviews first, get something with active cooling.
If it's just on the first bit of your network, could you do a pfsense/opensense box with a 2.5gig card? Then everything after that could be whatever you need
Finding a 2 gig capable card is even more of a problem. I've found switches capable of 2.5 gig, eventually I found media converters capable of 2.5 gig. But I haven't been able to find a 2.5 gig capable SFP+ card.
Check out https://www.fs.com/c/25g-smb-switches-4247
FS have inexpensive switching and SFPs. Even if you get another brand switch I still recommend FS SFPs which can be ordered for compatibility with various vendor equipment.
I don't have an exact answer for you but went through this a few years ago with the help of a thread on DSLReports
There's a lot of info there and can be a bit tough to follow but it should get you what you need.
SODOLA 8 Port 2.5G Ethernet Switch with 10G SFP,60Gbps Switching Capacity,Plug & Play/Wall Mountable/Fanless Metal Multi-Gig Unmanaged Network Switch https://a.co/d/deBM8O9
10G SFP+ devices should be able to negotiate down to 2.5G. It’s 10G SFP devices that aren’t able to negotiate lower speeds, as 10G actually came a generation before 2.5 & 5G. I think it was something like it was realised that it was overkill in many cases.
SFP+ is 10Gb/s not SFP. The ASIC needs to be capable of the speeds for the transceiver to work. SFP+ is the name given for 10Gb/s module and transceivers.
So if a device supports SFP+ it supports 10Gb/s. It doesn't automatically mean it will work with 5 or 2.5Gb/s transceivers.
The whole point of 2.5 and 5 is to support higher speeds over existing lower-rated cabling so I don’t see the point of multigig fiber connections when 10g fiber runs on the same cables that 1g fiber does
They make make it but it seems silly.
See: Ubiquiti devices. No 2.5/5 to be found if I'm not mistaken.
Their enterprise line has switches with 2.5Gb ports. They’re particularly popular among the rack-porn crowd as they have all their ports in a single line instead so they can have just one patch panel and all the ports line up nicely. It only does POE+, not ++, which would be nice for running a POE switch in the garage that could drive both an access point and some cameras.
They also sell SFP+ modules that do 10/5/2.5 Gb
Well now I never looked at those. Good to know.
Maybe look at HORACO, maybe they have something. I grabbed a few 2.5gbit switches with 10gbit uplink that have so far worked perfectly.