My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated, Literally

A homelab enthusiast discovered their armored fiber optic cables physically disintegrating after 3.5 years of storage. The cables, purchased from FS.com and buried under cement flooring in PVC trunking, crumbled when touched due to being kept spooled with a tight radius. The failure revealed that armored cables aren't meant for movement and should have been connected to a patch panel instead. Despite attempting repairs with electrical tape, the handling caused additional jacket failures and likely fiber strand damage. The compromised cable still functions but shows reduced performance (6-7 Gbps vs expected 10 Gbps), and the remaining unused cables appear likely to fail similarly.