[SOLVED] Combining Cat6 and Cat6a cables

[lordpuffer]

For my home networking setup, is it ok to combine both Cat6 and Cat6a cables? will it effect performance or cause any other issues?

 

[bill001g]

It depends why you want cat6a.

Cat6 cable really has no purpose. It was designed to run 1gbt over 2 pair of wires rather than 4. That form of gigabit was never really implemented so was a dead cable standard pretty much since it was invented.

Cat6a cable is designed to run 10gbit.

Now it is well known that cat6 cable can also run 10gbit for short distances. Then again so can cat5e for even shorter distances. This is not part of any official standard so you really should not depend on it actually working.


So if you need 10gbit you should run all cat6a. Otherwise you might as well use cat5e to run 1gbit. Now can you make it work at 10gbit mixing the cable. If you are using fairly short cables it will work. If you are running it in a wall I would always use cat6a. The cost has come down to the point that cat6a does not cost that much more.

Be very careful of fake cable. A huge amount of the cable sold on amazon and ebay is fake. You want pure copper wires with wire size 22-24

 

[lordpuffer]

That didn't answer my question, but thank you. All of my ethernet is purchased from Monoprice. I want to replace some of my Cat6 cable with Cat6a. However, there will be both Cat6 and Cat6a in use for a while in the network at the same time. Can this cause any issues?

 

[bill001g]

It will run fine at 1gb.

I would use only cat6a on 10gbit ports but cat6 might work.

 

[jaronk2000]

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.

 

[bill001g]

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.

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.
Most of what you see if from companies that sell cable but things like EIA or IEEE would be where it is.....these are massive documents so I may have missed it.

This is a year old thread and like everything the costs of cables have changed. The cost of all cables has gone up mostly because copper metal is so expensive. The extra costs to manufacture cat6a now is a much smaller percentage so cat6 and cat6a are much closer in price.

 

[COLGeek]

This thread is over a year old. Please start a new thread to begin a new topic. Thank you.