is cat6 'faster' than cat5e between 2 nics?

[cubeless]

do you get better throughput with cat6 since it has a higher frequency rating, or is 1Gb/s always just 1Gb/s (sorry, i'm not a physics or ee guy...)? or does the higher freq just help be sure you get full bandwidth over longer distance, etc...

i need to do a 250' run between some servers, Gb nic to Gb nic, for a couple days... would cat5e suffice, or do i need to go cat6?

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Cat5

 

[us3rnotfound]

Cat5

Why would Category Five suffice for the problem statement? There is a need to support your answer with details; a simple sentence fragment will not do; you need evidence, you need proof, you need to fully justify your answer!!!!!

 

[Emulex]

i'd put a switch(s) between a run of that distance.

 

[Zargon]

shouldnt need one, its under 300 ft.....

 

[spidey07]

No difference. The baud rate/clock is still the same. The only way cat6 could be faster is if cat5e isn't installed correctly. If both cables/installations are up to spec then there is now physical way for there to be a difference.

Given that you're doing a home run of that distance it's probably not installed correctly. Spec is 90 meters of solid core cabling into keystone jacks with 5 meters of stranded patch cord on each end for a total of 100 m.

 

[Zargon]

No difference. The baud rate/clock is still the same. The only way cat6 could be faster is if cat5e isn't installed correctly. If both cables/installations are up to spec then there is now physical way for there to be a difference.

Given that you're doing a home run of that distance it's probably not installed correctly. Spec is 90 meters of solid core cabling into keystone jacks with 5 meters of stranded patch cord on each end for a total of 100 m.

hes essentially running a temporary 250 long patch cable. ~76 meters

cat5e will be just fine. the run should just be fine.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yes. Cat5x = 100mbps, Cat6x = 1gpbs. You can theoricly get over 100mbps with cat5e for short distances. At home I installed all cat6 in walls but using cat5e patch cords and I get about 300mbps or so. When I replace the patch cords with cat6 I'm sure it will go up.

 

[cubeless]

thanks for the inputs... looks like they are going to try it with cat5e since they have some lying around... we'll see...

 

[spidey07]

hes essentially running a temporary 250 long patch cable. ~76 meters

cat5e will be just fine. the run should just be fine.

A patch cable of 76 meters will perform very poorly if it's stranded. And rarely do people properly terminate or install cabling unless they have been professionally trained and have access to certification scanners.

The physical layer is the most important there is and the most common cause of performance problems.

 

[NesuD]

1000BASE-T (also known as IEEE 802.3ab) is a standard for gigabit Ethernet over copper wiring. It requires, at a minimum, Category 5 cable (the same as 100BASE-TX), but Category 5e ("Category 5 enhanced") and Category 6 cable may also be used and are often recommended. 1000BASE-T requires all four pairs to be present and is far less tolerant of poorly installed wiring than 100BASE-TX.

Each network segment can have a maximum distance of 100 meters. Autonegotiation of speed and duplex is a requirement for using 1000BASE-T[2] according to the standard. Several device drivers will allow you to force 1000 Mbit/s full duplex to eliminate autonegotiation issues

Cat 5 cabling is the minimum cabling requirement for 1000BASE-T operation. I have been using a 60' cat 5 run in my home as a Gigabit link for some time. The key is installing it properly.

 

[JackMDS]

Cat 6 would do better.

Cat5e has inside 5 fat Cats (e=extra weight).

Cat6 has inside 6 skinny Cats that can run faster. j/k :hmm:


.

 

[spidey07]

Cat 6 would do better.

Cat5e has inside 5 fat Cats (e=extra weight).

Cat6 has inside 6 skinny Cats that can run faster. j/k :hmm:


.

lulz, actually cat6 is a larger gauge wire. Fatter cat.

 

[Zargon]

A patch cable of 76 meters will perform very poorly if it's stranded. And rarely do people properly terminate or install cabling unless they have been professionally trained and have access to certification scanners.

The physical layer is the most important there is and the most common cause of performance problems.

yeah everyone knows crimping cables is rocket science

 

[Fardringle]

yeah everyone knows crimping cables is rocket science

It may not be rocket science, but doing it properly certainly seems to be well beyond the capabilities of most people. The average person may not even notice that their cables aren't terminated properly since most PCs aren't capable of saturating a gigabit link and lost packets aren't really a problem. However, since the OP is looking to do this as a 250' gigabit link between two servers, proper cabling is very important.

 

[spidey07]

yeah everyone knows crimping cables is rocket science

Even people that do cabling for a living don't get a cable that will pass cat5e or 6 scanning on the first time. Especially cat6.

It's just really bad practice to do so. Good data center managers will flat bar the practice and fire any vendor they see doing it.

 

[imagoon]

yeah everyone knows crimping cables is rocket science

You make me so much money!

You should almost never be crimping network cable, only punching down.

Solid in wall, machine built patch cords.

Other notes for the OP:

Cat5e is 1 gig rated at 90 meters of solid and 10 meters of stranded.

Loss on stranded is higher than solid core IE:

Frequency Mhz	Impedance Ohm	Returrn loss dB	Attenuation dB/100m	NexT dB	Acr dB	Elfext dB
                      SOLID  STRANED
0.772	100± 15	16.7	1.8	2.2	64.0	64.0	63.0
1.0	17.0	2.1	2.4	62.3	62.3	60.6
4.0	18.8	4.3	4.9	53.3	53.3	48.7
8.0	19.7	5.9	6.9	48.8	48.8	42.7
10.0	20.0	6.6	7.8	47.3	47.3	40.8
16.0	20.0	8.2	9.9	44.3	44.3	36.7
20.0	20.0	9.2	11.1	42.3	44.3	36.7
25.0	19.3	10.5	12.5	41.3	41.3	32.6
31.25	18.6	11.8	14.1	39.9	39.9	30.9
62.5	16.5	17.1	20.4	35.4	35.4	24.8
100	1501	22.0	26.4	32.3	32.3	20.8
155	14.0	26.1	33.7	29.5	29.5	19.0

Your connection "might work." Do you want to be engineering around a bad connection?

 

[VirtualLarry]

This reminds me, that other thread I started about this 50ft cable (stranded patch cable) running in the wall between upstairs and downstairs at my friend's house.

Well, apparently the power-line networking gizmos I installed weren't perfect, so they want to run another cable. Rather than go an pay the price for some solid-core CAT6 plenum cable (which I saw a spool on CL for $50), they ordered another 50ft patch cable off of newegg, and are going to install it this Sat.

Anyone want to take bets on whether or not they will still have network problems?

 

[spidey07]

This reminds me, that other thread I started about this 50ft cable (stranded patch cable) running in the wall between upstairs and downstairs at my friend's house.

Well, apparently the power-line networking gizmos I installed weren't perfect, so they want to run another cable. Rather than go an pay the price for some solid-core CAT6 plenum cable (which I saw a spool on CL for $50), they ordered another 50ft patch cable off of newegg, and are going to install it this Sat.

Anyone want to take bets on whether or not they will still have network problems?

It will work. How well it works is anybody's guess. That's the point about out of spec cabling. It's not guaranteed to work 100% flawlessly which is the entire point to category specification and testing.

 

[dphantom]

yeah everyone knows crimping cables is rocket science

It's not, but I cannot remember how many times I have traced intermittent network/server issues back to a bad home made patch cable or cable run.

 

[Zargon]

You make me so much money!

You should almost never be crimping network cable, only punching down.

Solid in wall, machine built patch cords.

Other notes for the OP:

Cat5e is 1 gig rated at 90 meters of solid and 10 meters of stranded.

Loss on stranded is higher than solid core IE:

Frequency Mhz    Impedance Ohm    Returrn loss dB    Attenuation dB/100m    NexT dB    Acr dB    Elfext dB
                      SOLID  STRANED
0.772    100± 15    16.7    1.8    2.2    64.0    64.0    63.0
1.0    17.0    2.1    2.4    62.3    62.3    60.6
4.0    18.8    4.3    4.9    53.3    53.3    48.7
8.0    19.7    5.9    6.9    48.8    48.8    42.7
10.0    20.0    6.6    7.8    47.3    47.3    40.8
16.0    20.0    8.2    9.9    44.3    44.3    36.7
20.0    20.0    9.2    11.1    42.3    44.3    36.7
25.0    19.3    10.5    12.5    41.3    41.3    32.6
31.25    18.6    11.8    14.1    39.9    39.9    30.9
62.5    16.5    17.1    20.4    35.4    35.4    24.8
100    1501    22.0    26.4    32.3    32.3    20.8
155    14.0    26.1    33.7    29.5    29.5    19.0

Your connection "might work." Do you want to be engineering around a bad connection?

any real line I run terminates at a punch down block. sometimes you have those odd single or few use cables that apparantly needed done yesterday but no bothered to ask, then they get a hastily run crimped down rush job that will test out as good.

and if it ends up being a good place for a cable, then that one becomes the pull cable for a real run.

lets not forget the OP is talking about a temp cable run being used for a few days. not a home run/part of the backbone.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Actually know what's funny? I decided to crimp my own cat6 because that's what I had, and I just did my best to get the best connection I can knowing it still wont beat factory made cables. It was actually WORSE then cat5's that I crimped myself! Try to figure that one out! It won't even negotiate at 1gbps, it just drops to 100mbps.

 

[spidey07]

Actually know what's funny? I decided to crimp my own cat6 because that's what I had, and I just did my best to get the best connection I can knowing it still wont beat factory made cables. It was actually WORSE then cat5's that I crimped myself! Try to figure that one out! It won't even negotiate at 1gbps, it just drops to 100mbps.

Cat6 is incredibly difficult to crimp. I don't know any pro that would even try to do it.

Moral of the story, don't crimp ends onto cables. Follow the specs and avoid problems. As mentioned above I've made a crap load of money off of people that think making cables somehow saved them money. I've seen bad or improperly installed cabling, honestly, 1000s of instances. And I'm paid to find the problems and assess.

1st question upon assignment - cabling and speak to the guy in charge of it. Why I never went and got my RCDD is beyond me.

 

[robmurphy]

It makes me wonder how many times this forum will have the same argument. Is cat6 faster/quicker/better for gigabit ethernet than cat5E.

Yes things outside the standard will work some/most of the time.

Yes you can crimp your own patch leads.

The advice being given here is based on the experiences of people who have had to sort problems out. Often those problems are down to things like using too long a patch lead, using hand crimped patch leads, or other things advised against here.

Whats the point of asking advice and then ignoring it if it does not suit you?

Are the standards going to change?, are hand crimped cables going to become reliable?, is properly installed cat6 ever going to be quicker than properly installed cat5e for gigabit ethernet?

You can decide on these issues for yourself. One thing to rember is that Windows does not report errored ethernet frames ect. If often takes a fairly high level switch to report problems with the ethernet frame.

To be safe, and keep it simple, use properly installed cat5e, or cat6, for the in house wiring. The main point here is "properly installed". For the patch leads use ready made cat5e leads. If you really must use cat6 for the patch leads, make sure they are ready made ones.

You can crimp you own patch leads all you like, but WHEN problems happen the first thing you are likely to be advised to do is use proper factory made patch leads. I have cut the RJ45s of many many patch cables, even though they were made by a professional, simply because they simply did not work. Crimping multistrand cable is not good. Crimping solid core cable works, but only if the termination does not move.

One other point. Punching down multistrand cable does not even work reliably at analogue telecoms. This is all of DC + 300Hz to 3.4KHz. The blocks used for telecoms wiring and ethernet were designed to be used with solid core cable.

Please please keep it simple. Use solid core Cat5e/Cat6 for the in house wiring you cannot easily replace. Make sure the cabling has been installed correctly. Use Cat5e or Cat6 patch leads to connect the PCs. Please rember that cat6 will give NO SPEED ADVANTAGE over cat5E at gigabit ethernet.

Cat6 will only make a difference when the 10 Gbs ethernet cards become available for home PCs. Given that at present most home PCs struggle to saturate the 1Gbs gigabit ethernet I think it will be a few years before consumer level 10Gbs ethernet will be available. There will need to be home use switches available at this speed before 10Gbs can take off in the home market.

Rob

 

[spidey07]

Robmurphy, I don't think there is any argument. There are those that know and those that don't. Those that are paid a pretty penny for their experience and knowledge and those that don't.

One group makes a crap ton of money off of the other.