I already searched for answer to this, but I have seen so many different answers to this..
Does patch cable mean all UTP Cat5e, Cat6 etc? Or is it something else?
Thank you for any help.
Patch Cable vs UTP – Differences Between Patch Cable and UTP
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First a quick note on terminology. The Ethernet standards don't use the terms "hub" and "switch". What the market calls a hub is a multi-port repeater according to the standards and what the market calls a switch is a multi-port bridge according to the standards.
10BASE5 and 10BASE2 coaxial Ethernet used CSMA/CD to manage collisions on the coaxial cable segment. Repeaters could be used to join multiple segments. Repeaters were dumb low level devices, they had no packet buffers and were designed to ensure that if a collision happened on any connected segment it would be seen on every connected segment. This meant detecting collisions and when a collision was detected (either with the repeater or otherwise) on one port a "JAM signal" would be output to the other ports.
Bridges on the other hand operate at a higher level. They work with complete frames and have no need to repeat collisions between ports.
10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX have separate pairs for transmit and receive. With 1000BASE-T things get more complicated but fundamentally there is still a separate data channel in each direction.
These standards can operate in two modes known as "half duplex" and "full duplex". In half duplex mode the twisted pair cable essentially acts as a virtual coaxial cable. If transmission and reception happen at the same time then it is treated a collision even though no signals collided on the wire. The Ethernet controllers use CSMA/CD just as they would on a coaxial cable. Repeaters (hubs) forward collisions to other segments just as they did with coaxial Ethernet.
In full duplex mode transmission is allowed to happen in both directions at the same time and CSMA/CD is not used. Repeaters (hubs) cannot be used on links running in full duplex mode because they would have no way of handling conflicting transmissions.
It is important that both ends of a link are in the same duplex mode. If one end is set to full duplex while the other end is set to half duplex there will be massive packet loss and essentially unusable network performance. Nowadays this is normally handled through auto-negotiation but the system isn't perfect. In particular there are likely to be problems if one end is set to forced full duplex and the other end is set to autonegotiate.
On a modern network the vast majority of links should be running in full duplex mode. CSMA/CD should normally only be used on links to legacy equipment.
To do this properly, you would use a standard cable length, usually two meters. Run one cable at a time from the switch to the patch panel. Run a cable from switch port 1, routing the cable down to the horizontal cable management, out the left end, let the cable naturally drape, then back into the horizontal cable management, and down to patch panel port 1. Repeat for the first half of the switch ports. Then start with the last switch port, do the same thing as above, except drape the cables out the right end of the horizontal cable management.
You can use velcro tie wraps to make thing even neater. Using zip ties carries some risk of warping the wire twists inside the cable sheath, as well as being inconvenient should changes be necessary, and they should be avoided.
Best Answer
Yes, a patch cable will conform to one of the CAT standards. A CAT5e patch cable will use CAT5e cable, terminated with RJ45 connectors. The cable will be tested and will conform to the CAT5e standard. A CAT6 patch cable will conform to the CAT6 standard etc.