Are you familiar with TwinAx cables? e,g. https://meraki.cisco.com/product/switches/switches-accessories/ma-cbl-ta-3m/ In the Meraki world, these are copper 10Gb/s cables with an SFP+s on each end. They can only do short ranges (typically 1m to 3m). These are "low cost". When you go down this path, ensure that everything has an SFP+ port, and then utilise these. Compared to 10GBase-T, they have lower latency, making them better suited for storage applications such as iSCSI and databases. When it comes to 10G connectivity to servers and storage, I mostly use TwinAx cables. I mostly use fibre for longer links, which tend to be switch to switch on different floors.
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