DAC Cables

DAC Cables — Direct Attach Copper Cables for 10G, 25G, 40G, 100G, 200G & 400G Networks

Direct Attach Copper (DAC) cables are the fastest, lowest-cost, lowest-latency way to connect switches, servers, and storage within a rack or between adjacent racks. At Resilient Tec, every DAC cable is pre-programmed with vendor-specific EEPROM data so it is recognized immediately by your switch or router — no manual coding, no compatibility errors on boot.

Our DAC cable inventory covers speeds from 10GbE SFP+ through 800G OSFP, with passive and active options, straight and breakout configurations, for Mellanox/NVIDIA, Cisco, Juniper, Arista, Dell, HP, Brocade, and more.

What Is a DAC Cable and When Should You Use One?

A DAC cable is a fixed-length copper cable with integrated transceivers on each end — no separate SFP/QSFP module required. Because they use no active optical components, passive DAC cables draw 0 watts of additional power beyond the port itself, run cooler than AOC cables or transceiver+fiber combinations, and cost significantly less. They are the go-to choice for:

Top-of-rack (ToR) server connections — connecting servers to leaf switches within the same rack or adjacent racks up to 5 meters
Switch-to-switch spine/leaf interconnects — short-reach, high-density fabric links where latency matters
GPU cluster wiring — NVIDIA DGX, HGX, and SuperPOD builds using NDR InfiniBand or Ethernet backends
Storage area networks — NVMe-oF, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) links
Lab and staging environments — reliable, low-cost links for test beds and pre-production racks

DAC vs AOC vs Transceivers — Which Should You Choose?

Feature	DAC Cable	AOC Cable	Transceiver + Fiber
Cost	Lowest	Moderate	Highest
Max Distance	Up to 5M (passive) / 15M (active)	Up to 100M	Up to 10km+
Power Draw	0W (passive)	Low (active)	Low–moderate per module
Latency	Ultra-low (no serialization)	Very low	Low
Bend Flexibility	Moderate (copper)	Very high (fiber)	Depends on fiber type
Best For	In-rack / adjacent rack	Cross-rack / inter-row	Long-haul / MDA/IDA

Bottom line: If your links are under 5 meters, DAC cables are almost always the right call — lower cost, lower power, no optical components to degrade.

Compatible Platforms

Every DAC cable in this collection is EEPROM-coded and compatibility-tested against major network platforms, including:

Mellanox / NVIDIA — Spectrum, Quantum, ConnectX, SN series switches
Cisco — Nexus 9000/7000/5000, Catalyst 9000, UCS fabric interconnects
Arista — 7050, 7060, 7280, 7500 series
Juniper — QFX5100, QFX5200, QFX10000, PTX series
Dell — S-Series, Z-Series PowerSwitch
HP / HPE — FlexFabric, ProCurve series
Brocade / Extreme — ICX, VDX, and SLX series

Not sure if a cable will work in your specific switch model? Contact us before you buy — we'll confirm compatibility for free.

The Resilient Tec Guarantee

✅ Pre-programmed EEPROM — recognized immediately by your switch, no errors on boot
✅ Compatibility-tested in our lab before every shipment
✅ Lifetime warranty on all DAC cables
✅ Talk to a real engineer — not a chatbot

We don't just ship cables. We make sure they work in your environment.