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0 pointse12e11y ago0 comments

Ah, of course. I was misled by wikipedia[1], but it should've been obvious that the same connection could be used for both inifinband and ethernet. So, indeed, there are copper interconnects:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mellanox-3-3ft-QSFP-QSFP-Passive-Cop...

Actually seems the price is finally coming down a bit (compared to what I remember these used to cost, years ago -- but maybe I've just upped my budget ;-).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QSFP

"The Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable (QSFP) is a compact, hot-pluggable transceiver used for data communications applications. It interfaces networking hardware to a fiber optic cable."

But it also interfaces hardware to copper cables, as I gather.

0 comments

DiabloD311y ago

The cable you're looking for is called a direct connect cable. "Fake" optical modules on both sides, plugs it together with a permanently wired copper cable.

kijiki11y ago

DAC is a common term for this. Direct Attached Copper.

It is a SFP+ plug on each end (but without all the optical magic), connected with twin-ax cable, which is like coax but with 2 signal paths, one for each direction.

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