SFP+ cable recommendations

Hello all,

My first post, be gentle :wink:
New Mikrotik CRS328-24P-4S owner and I am looking for optical recommendations for the SFP+ ports and cable. I would like to run at least one of them in fiber. The run will be long’ish, about 60-70ft.
Thank you for your time.

Welcome in the wonderful world of MikroTik :slight_smile:

For a 60" fiber run, I’d use 10GBASE-SR optics and OM3 multimode fiber.

Something like this and this.

Thank you for the links. Any suggestions for SFP copper and a couple of NIC’s so I can catch up my PC’s?
*Edit: and if possible, can be acquired on Amazon?

For copper I’d just get MikroTik’s own S+RJ10s. They are cheap (well, as cheap as 10GBASE-T gets, that is…) and are guaranteed to work. They do get very hot, though, and they don’t seem to like CAT6 cable much (couldn’t get more than 5G out of a 60ft known good cable, and they should support 10G over that length).

The Mellanox ConnectX cards have a good reputation, and are widely available on Ebay and Amazon. They are pretty cheap second hand/refurb. Extra plus is that they are SFP±based, so you don’t have to muck with 10GBASE-T. I’d stay away from that if you can.

Used HP SFP+ adapters are rather cheap, like HP NC522sfp NC523sfp and others , but you need pci fan for cooling the adapter.

NC523 is a 19Watt adapter while NC560 (intel x520 based) is a way better and also available for cheap 2nd hand. It costs like double of NC523 but really worth it.