For my home networking setup, is it ok to combine both Cat6 and Cat6a cables? will it effect performance or cause any other issues?
This is pretty much a well known thing BUT can you point me to a official standard that says cat6 is certified up to 55 meters.These guys are very wrong. Cat 6 is good up to 55 meters or 180 ft at 10gbps. Unless you have a mansion Cat6 is perfectly fine. It won’t “maybe work” or “work for small distances”. If you are looking to make runs that are longer than 55 meters for 10gbps I would start looking at fiber. Cat6a is good for up to 100meters so almost double that length (over 300ft).
Only reason to use Cat6a is if you plan on doing runs longer than 180 feet. The thing is, that’s how long Cat6 is certifiable for, but many people have gotten 10gbps on cat6 for well over 80 meters. Don’t spend money where you don’t have to.
I ran my whole house with cat6a, and spent money on all cat6a patch cables, but my longest run is 100-120 feet. I wanted to “future proof” but didn’t fully understand the difference. Cat6a isn’t faster at all it just works at the same speed longer. Cat8 is the only thing certified for speeds faster than 10gbps, and is unnecessary for home use for the next 50 years, by then everything will be fiber.