Choosing the Perfect Ethernet Cable for Your Homelab

[@axehead15]

Crossover cables are still used in other industries. For instance, configuring an ethernet port on a device like a radio or piece of test equipment like spectrum analyzers. Great video!!

[@christianlempa]

Thanks for the info!

[@paulwoodward8265]

Also, cat5e can do 10G just fine over very short distances, so may be worth it for patching in devices like APs in a domestic setting if you have to hide the cables. For long cables, 6 or 6a all the way.

[@jttech44]

Technically 8 pair solid core station wire can do 10gigE over a short enough distance. Doesn't mean you should use it.

[@MrAsteliks007]

I would love to see a video about proper grounding

[@JasonsLabVideos]

Good video, don't forget cat5e can do 10g too but maxes out at 45m.

[@truckerallikatuk]

30m is a better maximum. You'll want super good cable in a really EM quiet area to get 45meters. And Cat6 is pretty cheap now, may as well go 6.

[@ProfRoxas]

It's also good to note that since these cables are "dumb", they can't tell what cable you use, so technically you can use Cat5e for a 10gig cable and it might work to some extent. The standard doesn't recommend and probably gets less and less speed with more distance, but for a very short calbe (like 5-10) it's probably fine and cheaper just to use cat5e from that box of cables. I for myself run cat5e for my 2.5G and can use the "max" of my 2gigabit internet over it. It would also be interesting to run various tests with cables, lengths and speeds to see which achieves what speeds

[@jttech44]

B is the superior standard. It might be marginally better, but, it is better. Could be the difference between 10gigE or not. OrangeWhite Orange, Greenwhite Blue, BlueWhite Green, Brownwhite Brown. I don't know any mnemonic devices to remember that, just chant it over and over until you get it.

[@DimitriPappas]

Something that helped me memorize it is to just think of it as "light dark light dark light dark light dark" (so, alternating the whole way through), and then just "orange, orange, green, blue, blue, green, brown, brown". so the green is the only one that is split. (assuming the B standard. if you need to wire A standard then just swap your orange and greens and follow the same pattern - simple)

[@jttech44]

@@DimitriPappas I remember it because a long time ago I punched down patch panels and made patch cables constantly. Got to the point where I didn't really even think about it, hands just knew what to do.

[@MarkParkTech]

I use shielded cables for my shop, because the router on the cnc can cause a lot of interference and I run into weird bugs otherwise. In my house, I mostly use unshielded cables - because they are cheaper.

[@syl764]

Cat7 is old (2002) - Cat6a came out in 2008. Cat7 is not recognised in TIA/EIA like the other common standards (but it is recognised in ISO/IEC 11801). Cat7 does not use standard RJ45 connectors, it uses GG45 or TERA connectors. A Cat7 cable with an RJ45 connector is not Cat7!

[@74357175]

NetBird: would love an honest comparison with TailScale

[@christianlempa]

I need a bit more time to research but a tutorial and a comparison video will come next year!

[@truckerallikatuk]

Inside your rack/network and server cupboard, then SFP+ ports and DAC cables are the perfect answer.

[@clairerovic]

Like all tech ..a cost vs benifit ratio looking for the sweet spot.

[@grabarzponury9868]

Help. My network stoped working. I think my Cat 8 cable.

[@chrislambe400]

Ultimate network guy dad joke.

[@TaelonSHU]

In the netherlands the modem are ussually placed in the closet of the fusebox. So electricial wires and cat cables go up into the ceiling close to eachother and spreadout, all in seperate pvc pipes. Is this a scenario to use shielded cables?

[@johansvideor]

Shielded cable isn't generally needed in a home. Only in industrial settings where you have e.g. three phase motor equipment that generate a lot of electrical noise. I'm an electrical engineer and have wired my house with CAT5 (20 years ago), CAT5e and CAT6 (6 years ago). Now when I'm replacing some the oldest cables I use CAT6A. But it's been running fine with 1Gbit. The most important when building is to install enough pvc conduits so that you can easily add or replace ethernet cables. And ethernet must be in their own conduits, not together with electrical cables, for safety.

[@TaelonSHU]

@@johansvideor That's good advice, on the seperate conduits. I agree you don't have to worry about 1Gbit at all, 1Gbit just isn't enough data to be susceptible to interference, it already has some protection with how its twisted. I mainly wondered if theoratical distance between power cable and ethernet to prevent interference start to apply at 10Gbit. I'm planning to put some cables in the empty conduits next year.

[@johansvideor]

@@TaelonSHU Electrical installation regulations require that telecommunication cables and power cables are installed with a certain distance from each other. The distance might vary in different parts of the world. In the oldest part of my house, I've mixed CAT5 and electrical cable for a few meters and it hasn't caused problems (even though it could cause other complications were there a fire, with insurance etc). But 10 Gbit is a bit uncharted territory. I would stick to regulations and there should be no issues, even with unshielded cable. And shielded cable is a pain to install. They are thicker and stiffer, so you won't fit as many cables per conduit as unshielded cable. If you do use shielded cable, make sure patch panels and/or switches are grounded as well. Consumer switches do not tend to be grounded. If you don't ground the shielded cable at both ends, you create an antenna, which will be worse in theory than unshielded cable.

[@TaelonSHU]

@@johansvideor Thanks for confirming what i've sofar been able to research! The pvc pipes start ribbed so shielded will deffinitly be a pain to do in those. (just my thoughts sofar) The standard seems cat6a, but most examples where 10gbit is actually used, the modem isn't in the same closet as electricity. But even than network does a lot of self correcting, so the possible interference might only matter for gaming and serverhosting / datacenters. The whole grounding shielded cables I read a lot of differening opinions. I believe the antenna you mentioned refers to a loop in grounding of the shielded cable. But from what i understand this is based on large company buildings that use several grounding rods. A house only uses one, and ussually grounding wires closer to the grounding rod have less resistance preventing a looping effect. So as long as you don't use shielded cables towards a neighbour or outside office shed, you should be fine. (please correct me if i'm wrong, not an electrician!). But if you really want to prevent it, I guess the best way is to use unshielded wall jacks, and get a shielded patchpanel which you ground near your modem. That way you prevent the chance a of a more luxury computer from grounding it at the other end by accident.

[@johansvideor]

@@TaelonSHU There are two concepts that are becoming mixed. The one you refer to is a grounding issue, that you have different ground potential due to different resistance. This is more of a problem when there are actual ground currents involved and mainly with lower frequencies, i.e. typically DC, 50 Hz AC and audio frequencies. Those grounding issues often cause problems in e.g. consumer audio signals, where the signal is unbalanced and easily picks up interference. But when we are talking MHz to GHz frequencies, we are not so much concerned about grounding, but shielding. The Ethernet signal is balanced and doesn't suffer in the same way from those grounding issues. Shielding a high frequency signal means that the entire signal path is enclosed/surrounded in a metal shield, cover or enclosure (Faraday's cage), so that the signal can't escape and interfering signals can't enter through the shield. The shield starts at e.g. a switch enclosed with a metal box, surrounds the signal the entire way to the end equipment, which could be a metal enclosed server. If you break the shield at any point, you have forfeited the purpose of shielding. And at the same time created an antenna. Your suggestion to use unshielded wall jacks and shielded patchpanel might do something from a grounding perspective (prevent issues with low frequency signals), but will break the purpose of high frequency shielding and might cause interference to the signal that the shielding was intended to prevent. In practice, I don't think you will notice anything in a normal home. But the shielded cable is then quite unnecessary, because it's not used as it was supposed to. So might as well use unshielded cable from the beginning and save some money and work.

[@stephanherbers5670]

Great overview, but I think it should be mentioned that CAT 7 cables with RJ45 connectors do not exist. The CAT 7 standard does not allow for RJ45 connectors, only for two other connectors mostly used in datacenters. If you buy a CAT 7 cable with an RJ45 connectors, which is very common and sold everywhere, what you get is a CAT 7 cable with a CAT 6A connector, and thus basically downgrading you to a CAT 6A cable. Even most IT colleagues i met don't know this, the advertising of CAT 7 cables is just to prominent. For a homelab, this probably does not matter.

[@legendaryz_ch]

the other connector is called the terra plug... it doesn't downgrade the cable to cat6a but rather limits the networks maximum class to class Ea...

[@flemmingss]

From my POV when it comes to Cat6/6A vs Cat7. In a commercial office space there can be very long runs for the cable. But in even a big house I guess the longest runs will be a lot below 40 meters, I really can't see any point of using anything above Cat6A at home. In my next home I plan to go for Cat6A unshielded

[@di3happyTV]

ha, richtig schön, dass du wieder da bist 😊

[@christianlempa]

danke :D

[@Vadinaka]

Thanks a great deal for your video. I am currently buying. May I ask which patch panel you use please ?

[@ronm6585]

Thanks Christian.

[@chrislambe400]

In my home flexible CAT6 S/FTP with pairs in metal foil. No patch panel or patch plates in rooms. Just European installation tubes (and reserves) to all rooms and a blanking plate with small holes in each room. The RJ45 jacks are shielded at the switch side and unshielded at the room blanking plate side. This is important to stop ground loops. Generally when shielding, everything is shielded except for the last patch cable to a wall outlet for a TV or PC. Cheap and 10GB no problems. I pull cables and reterminate when needed. The rack is bit untidy but cheap and reliable keeps me cheerful. And I love crimping.

[@mykyar9142]

I knew there were shielded cables. But I did not know about such a big difference between the speed. I suppose there is a cable length limitation too.

[@christianlempa]

Glad it helped :)

[@jonathanchevallier7046]

Thank you for this great advices.

[@christianlempa]

Thanks 🙏

[@apolloeosphoros4345]

Would love to see more networking videos!

[@slickjim861]

Would love to see a networking video. I’m very surprised to see you actually doing a video on copper instead of fiber. Everyone I know is throwing fiber in every room to “future proof” new installations.

[@denesk2794]

To be honest I find punching down much less tedious than terminating connectors on cables. To be even more honest, I just got a pass-through patch panel and a bunch of premade CAT6 cables. If something fails, I can get the socket out or replace the cable. I know some patch panels allow that too, but the ones I have don't, and after 5 years of use, some of the cables started to fail. Probably humidity!? (which is crazy where I live, often times in the mid-high 90%. While I can control this at the home office, some termination places (e.g. laundry room) are impossible to climate control (without going broke) ... BTW, all the patch panels I met have the colour codes printed on them, so it's even easier just to patch-in, then use premade cables for patching to the end-device.

[@dominick253]

Yes! I really think a pass through panel seems better. In my mind every connection is an area to induce more noise into the signal. Maybe I'm wrong but less connectors= better to me.

[@chrislambe400]

Depends on your budget. I went for cheap and reliable but a little bit messy. Flexible CAT6 S/FTP with pairs in metal foil straight through from switch to client devices. Uned unshielded CAT6 RJ45 on the client ends. Will happily do 10GB all over the house. Doing this poperly with quality patch panels and wall ports and having somebody verify with an very expensive Fluke device is not in my budget.

[@paulwoodward8265]

Comparing the A and B styles for terminations, my understanding is that B is marginally better at avoiding crosstalk and interference. So generally you should use style B if you get to choose, it might help and it costs you nothing.

[@Jugeenias]

very good video. Thank you very much. I'm currently upgrading to fiber optics and thought I'd need fiber optic cables in the house too. But if I can easily continue to use cat 7, right? And what are SFP adapters for?

[@playeronthebeat]

If you want to run a cable at the absolute edge, try running 10gbe on CAT5(e). It is possible, it's not recommended and widely out of spec but on some cables (and very short runs), it is possible to have CAT5(e) transmit (close to) 10gbe. Definitely having CAT7 in my entire home. The prices are so cheap right now in my opinion. Especially (!) if you plan on putting it through your home and stuff where you can't easily change the cable. But also, personally, I'd be on the edge of tech and use CAT7. Next step for me is to play around with fiber. But that's - at least for now - nothing i want to use at scale and more something of just playing around with. For now, 10GBE is absolutely plenty for me.

[@professor_meowington]

Danke für das Video! Can I run 5 x CAT 6a U/FTP Ethernet cables in parallel through the same hole in the floor, to other parts in the home? Or will there be interference between them?

[@christianlempa]

Sehr gerne :) Yes you can do that, I'm doing it myself, running 6x CAT 6a from one floor to another with no issues.

[@oli1505]

Basically use what u find unless u go above 2,5 gbps. I have a cat5e cable, which was 30m, smashed in the floor to get my pc wired. 1 gpbs is no problem. I'm going to 2,5 gbps. The first tests showed no problem.

[@marklewus5468]

i’ve been pulling network cable since the 1980s. Unless you’re in an industrial or other high electrical noise environment, shielded cable is a waste of money. It is also a nightmare to pull, terminate, and ground. As long as you run your wires at least 300mm (1 ft) away from your AC wiring runs, home users can easily get 10Gbps over UTP CAT6A. If you need to go faster than that, you should probably run fiber.

[@dominick253]

Definitely going with all fiber network. Future proof for when we live in the meta verse. Need to be able to transmit my whole brain scan to their servers constantly. 😂😂😂

[@sidesloser8264]

Use shielding only if you put Ethernet with power cable

[@nathandoubleyou]

I like that patch panel, but unfortunately deleyCON products are not sold in the US (at least not directly)

[@somalsharma3175]

good stuff

[@XSpImmaLion]

Great tutorial! Yeah... my apartment is still on Cat5e. Perhaps Cat 5 only, not even sure if it's actually 5e. I moved around a decade ago and then had to pass all the cables in the very weird configuration my apartment had, lots of trouble, I think I have some collapsed conduits that were super hard to push through. And so, no way I'm redoing this with thicker cables. xD The conduits are too narrow, and I'm not really sure why they routed the way they did... I think it was originally made to pass cable TV with coax, but it is so weirdly done. In fact, one of the conduits I'm sure it was for cable TV because I had to pull the whole thing off. I only have a couple of thin conduits available, and they both go first through the kitchen, then around an entire bedroom, then pops up again into the master bedroom and all around, then it goes into the living room where I actually need it. So, it's not only a very long distance, it's also a huge hassle to pass through. I've been waiting for optical to get cheaper to replace the whole thing... not sure what the status of it is right now. But I don't see another option currently. And it doesn't matter much too... the thing is, I'm stuck with an ancient router provided by the ISP, they won't let me switch to a newer one, and I wouldn't know how to configure it myself anyways. I've also never seen a fiber modem/router being sold locally that is compatible with the standard ISPs uses here, so I just decided to isolate it and shove a router running opnsense in front of it. Also turned off it's wi-fi and using an access point with DD-WRT.

[@DimitriPappas]

Great summary. I was just hoping you'd mention something about those flat cables shown at 3:00 minute mark of the video which are quite popular, but probably not going to be very noise immune or high throughput (probably cat5 rated, I would imagine) especially for longer runs as the wires aren't even twisted let alone shielded in any way, and that they are therefore not even suitable for critical use especially in server cabinets like that :) So yeah I'm just quite curious about those flat cables. They look really nice and all, but are probably the worst performers of the lot? XD Perhaps for really short patch lead runs like that it's fine, but something about stacking them all on top of each other like that in parallel screams of imminent problems xD

[@chrislambe400]

The look like classic Cisco RS232 with RJ45 on one end cables. I have a similar even slimmer cable in Switzerland it is CAT6 STP Gigibit Ready Slim by Wirewin with shielded RJ45. I would never use it for PoE though. I only keep it because it was free and is usefull for comissioning new devices near my little rack.

[@mniewiera]

Just so you know, there are flat cables available that meet Cat8. Just recently installed one at a friend's place. It was noticeable thicker than one of the old flat cables I encountered a long time ago.

[@SrSilverstars]

I installed certified sftp cat8 last year because it was only 10€ more than cat6 so I kinda went with it ... It's obviously overkill but I am very happy with it. The rj45 connectors were crazy expensive though.

[@SE-161]

I have completely equipped my apartment with Cat8 fixed installation. However, for connecting the rack and end devices, I use Cat6 because it is more flexible. But the assurance that I won't have to upgrade in the near future was important to me. Also, the price difference between Cat7 and Cat8 was really minimal.

[@gttechgr]

Hey Christian I am using cat7 in my homelab but I have some problems in my internet speed. I lose 7-8 mbps. Can I check somehow cable cable from one point to other? I have tested with network tester its OK and I am using standard B. Great work I am watching you some month's. Keep it up and continue upload videos. Nice work!

[@chrislambe400]

iperf in TCP mode or increemntally UDP mode until it starts losing packets

[@gttechgr]

@@chrislambe400 OK I will check that. Thank you

[@Richard-kl8wr]

Great, Next time maybe Optic Cable Fiber-optic OR SFP ?

[@kev2020-z9s]

Hi Christian I think your wiring diagram is wrong it's the orange + white/orange get swapped with the green + white/green back in the days before gigabit networking this allow two pc to talk to each other without a network box/switcher. Just found this Two pairs crossed, two pairs uncrossed 10BASE-T or 100BASE-TX crossover that's the one I remember making and using in test gear at work the one you have shown is what they call Fully crossed All pairs crossed While this is the only crossover for 1G, it also works for 10M and 100M ethernet .

[@iamkiber]

I have some S/FTP CAT 6 cables

[@chrislambe400]

I have CAT6 S/FTP with pairs in metal foil. More exotic and also not in Christian's table.

[@a.g8517]

at 7:25 used a wrong tool

[@fkhg1]

i have the house wired up with cat8 first it is rented and also the cat8 was the thinnest option to get trough the thin conduit

[@Girgoo]

You forgot to talk about when to use a flat ethernet cable

[@chrislambe400]

They are clearly designed for flat earthers..

[@watchbro3319]

Why not using Optics uff

[@christianlempa]

Why?

[@FrozenRizeax]

Machst du eigentlich auch mal Videos auf deutsch?

[@christianlempa]

Ne, das lohnt leider nicht, deswegen nur in englisch

[@Almost787]

Never ever connect 2 houses/offices with shielded cables (better use fiber lol) but yeah shielded cables are dangerous there bc they (the house/office building) can have different levels of power compared to earth ;) dont fry your network equipment.

[@maciejmizgalski6112]

What about 5e with 2.5Gbps? Wasn't it re-certificate for faster speeds?

[@christianlempa]

as far as I know, it's not

[@insu_na]

Just use fiber :P

[@arganaztuga]

Just run fiber😂😜

[@guinea_horn]

Surely the answer is just... Buy the best one you can find online? Ethernet cables are so cheap, and at home you probably don't need one that's especially long. A 2 meter cable of the newest standard is probably like $6

[@xiaxiao7567]

Do not choose a cable with lszh xD the ones who knows they know xD a bit more toxic with out lszh when a fire occurs xD haha

[@guinea_horn]

Why are you using xD instead of punctuation like a normal person

[@fmslickful]

Stop using cat5e 10yr a go unless the end device could not do more than 100Mbps