Also power usage is a bitch.
Could you give me some more details? How many devices, any potential upgrades planned down the line (more hosts or link aggregation), rough distance for cable runs, etc.
Discussion
One link between buildings, about 250-300ft (I only want to pay the ISP once 🤷♂️😂), 1G needed but 2.5G preferred for upgradability.
Once in the building, I think we want 10G between the NAS/Server and 4 workstations (maybe up to 6 in the future). Those runs don't need any more than about 50-ft, most probably in the 10-25ft range, depending on placement. The use case is videography, photography, video podcasting, and local website hosting for development. I already do that last one from my laptop, but it'd be nice to host it where it can always run.
Also, while were out and about, we might tunnel into the NAS for footage and photo dumps so we're never walking around with all our data.
Do you intend on running the link between two buildings outdoor or via a conduit? There’s a cost difference.
I also need to know on the 1st building you have a switch with an SFP(+) port or not, otherwise you’ll need a switch. Don’t use media converters. 300ft+ is only going to be good with fiber, copper will cause issues since you’re very close to going over spec.
You're right. It's copper, currently, on a daisy chain (we have a third, small building between). The first 150ft is working great at full gigabit speeds, but the second got downgraded by the hardware to 100Mbps 😡 Same cable, and it ran at gigabit on install. The run is out-of-doors, so I got direct-bury grade copper lines.
I was 🤏 this close to getting a couple media converters just for that 300-ft line about a month ago (copper → MC → 300-ft fiber → MC → copper). The modem is copper-only, and I don't know if the ISP would like it if I swapped it for my own (including that I'm not sure I could get it set up because of vendor locking by the ISP).
Media converters work until they break and you have no diagnostics