Moving RJ45 and SFP+ connections to the front 5.25 bay ports
Moving RJ45 and SFP+ connections to the front 5.25 bay ports
I'm working on completing my new PFsense enclosure; it uses a 4U rack chassis and needs all the connections visible on the front. I'm planning to design and 3D print a dedicated bay device. The main concern isn't the setup itself, but figuring out how much trouble I'll face with my dual ISPs—one 2.5G* and another 1.2G. My PFsense box connects via a 10G fiber port, a 2.5G port for DMZ, and a 1G port for IoT devices. The ISP 1 fiber LC connection is linked to ISP 2 via an RJ45 Nic card, which uses Intel X710 dual SFP+ Fiber SFP+ and SFP+ to RJ45 for my ISP's Nic 2 Intel X540 single 10G link to the Dream Machine Pro and all internal gear. Nic 3 provides Dual 2.5G connections for DMZ and IoT. I previously had a card, but the cabling is limited to 1G.
Option 1: Use triple PCIE extension cables; I can move all network cards to the front using a 3D printed panel, costing around $200 for the cables. A PCIe raiser card could hold the three extensions and their corresponding interface cards.
Option 2: Purchase SPF+ RJ45 adapters and install keystones on the front panel. This is cheaper but involves complex wiring from SPF+ to RJ45, through a gender changer, to keystone, then to cables and internal gear—potentially risky with future ISP upgrades (5G next year, 10G in three years).
*ISP mentions 5G soon and 10G within three years, so I'm designing this box to be future-proof.*
It's fair to say the cables and keystones look good, making Option 2 a viable choice. Since these will likely be short runs, there shouldn't be any major concerns.