56xx switches with 55xx stack cables? 80gbps or 144gbps?

[Demoh]

Ive done some searching and seen a few posts where 5600 and 5500 switches can stack together in a hybrid mode and be limited to 80gbps. Got it.

So what happens if I stack only 5600 series switches using 5500 series cables? Does the switch know and hop down to 80gbps from 144gbps? Do I just enable hybrid mode to force this? or does it try to run at 144mbps and maybe reliability will suffer?

I dont know where all of our 5600 stack cables went but I have a surplus of 5500 stack cables.

For my application 80gbps is way more than enough. Im only stacking for ease of management and to free up my 10gbps ports.

[MatzeKS]

... the slowest device defines the speed of these uplinks.
You'll have 8x 80Gbps (640 Gbps) for an 8 unit stack.
The 5600 must be the Base unit in all cases of stacking with 5500.

Cheers

[Demoh]

I understand that but thats not exactly what I meant by my question. These stacks will ONLY have 5600 series switches, but using 5500 series stack cables. Are you saying that the 5500 series stack cables just dont support 144gbps?

Anyways, I spent some time fooling around with the switches. FW and SW match on all of them, but I for the life of me cant get them to stack.

Factory defaulted both switches, set base, powered down, connected, powered up. Units just reboot after some pre-determined time because they default to reboot im guessing. Set the hybrid mode settings, set base with UI button, tried a few other power on or connection combinations with no luck. Basically when switches boot they never turn the ports on, hence no switch ip or no stack ip. Switches in stack 1 port led for one of the SFP ports blinks in succession. Im guessing this is some form of stack activity or diag as it always starts at the bottom, then mid, then base. 

Do the 56 series stack the same way as a 55 series or am I having these difficulties because im using 5500 series cables? I couldnt find an instruction doc or tutorial to set up a fresh stack, just some for adding switches to existing stacks (if anybody wants to be kind enough and point me to one of those docs)

[MatzeKS]

ok, understood - the only supported version to stack pure 5600 is to use the 5600 stacking cables.

I guess you'll have limited intra-stack bandwidth by using the 5500 stacking cables.

Each 5600 came with its own 5600 stacking cable, therefore it's not clear why you'll try get this running with 5500 cables.

[Demoh]

Because Somebody before me threw those cables out because we have "plenty of them already" not knowing they were different.

So now I'm stuck with a few dozen 5500 cables and maybe 1 5600 cable and that's only if our spare for our data center wasn't raided already. I highly doubt it though.

Which is why I have this post. Is it technically possible to use these 5500 cables on a pure 5600 stack even if it's only 80gbps?

[MatzeKS]

Mmh, I guess it will work, but I'd try to test it before deploying this in production.

Maybe an idea what one of my customers did, he sent one of this 5600 cable to an cable manufacturer and he was able to "reproduce" this cable by an 1:1 copy for an cpl. of euros.

good luck 

[Demoh]

Yep. Im just trying to figure out if I have a procedure problem or these cables on getting this testbed operational. I have a week or 2 before I have to deploy 4 IDFs and id much rather stack instead of run them all standalone.

Edit: switches are FW: 6.0.0.18 and SW: 6.3.2.011