In today's era of rapid information flow, the speed and stability of data transmission are crucial. Among the many data transmission media, DAC cables play an important role. This article will introduce its composition, characteristics and applications.

What exactly is a DAC cable?

Structural Composition

DAC cable is like a small precision machine, consisting of a connector module and a high-performance differential high-capacity cable. The connector module is located at both ends of the cable and uses industry-standard connector interfaces, such as SFP, QSFP, QSFP-DD and OSFP. It is only responsible for transmitting electrical signals and is used to connect device ports. It can be configured as a single port, combination or stacked frame.

Performance Characteristics

Its transmission distance is relatively limited. Passive DAC cables are generally 1-7 meters long, while active DAC cables are slightly longer, up to 10-15 meters. However, its bandwidth is not low. In addition to the 10Gbps rate, it can also support higher bandwidth transmissions such as 40Gbps, 100Gbps, and 400Gbps. In addition, its power consumption is very low, especially the passive DAC cable, which consumes almost no power, which is very helpful in reducing the overall energy consumption of application scenarios such as data centers. At the same time, it also supports hot-swap, and can be plugged and unplugged while the device is running, which facilitates the maintenance and upgrade of the equipment and greatly improves the flexibility and scalability of the system.

Why does 10G DAC stand out?

The first reason is cost. For enterprises, cost is a key factor that must be considered when deploying network equipment on a large scale. 10Gbps DAC cables are affordable and can save enterprises a lot of hardware procurement costs compared to similar products with higher speeds and other transmission media such as active optical cables (AOC).

From the perspective of technical maturity, 10Gbps Ethernet technology is already quite mature. DAC cables based on this technology have excellent performance in production process and performance stability, low technical risk, and are safe to use.

Moreover, in many data centers, the connection distance between servers in the same rack or adjacent racks, and between servers and storage devices is relatively short, generally around 1-5 meters. The transmission distance and performance of 10Gbps DAC cables can fully meet these short-distance connection requirements, and when transmitting over short distances, the performance is stable and the anti-interference ability can meet the requirements.

In addition, its compatibility is also very good. Its interface (such as SFP+) can be perfectly adapted to many network devices, servers, etc., and it is convenient to connect with the existing network infrastructure without large-scale upgrades and renovations of the equipment.

Application scenarios of DAC cables

DAC cables are widely used. In data centers, they are used to connect servers, switches, storage devices, etc. to achieve high-speed data transmission between devices, such as interconnection within server clusters and device connections in storage area networks (SANs). In enterprise networks, they can connect network devices such as routers and firewalls to provide high-speed data links. In high-performance computing clusters in scientific research institutions and universities, they connect computing nodes, storage nodes, etc. to meet the needs of large-scale data transmission and computing.

DAC cables play an important role in the field of data transmission with their unique performance and advantages. 10Gbps cables have become a common choice in many scenarios due to their many advantages.