There are already plenty of 2.5gbps dongles out there. Hoever, 5gbps is very sparse and super pricey, while i haven't found a singe 10gbps dongle yet.
SFP+ dongle would be awesome. Would not have to use PCIe NIC for that. Which would open more options on the pc case side. Now i must use case with atleast 1 half sized pcie slot.

randomUserThere are already plenty of 2.5gbps dongles out there. Hoever, 5gbps is very sparse and super pricey, while i haven't found a singe 10gbps dongle yet.
SFP+ dongle would be awesome. Would not have to use PCIe NIC for that. Which would open more options on the pc case side. Now i must use case with atleast 1 half sized pcie slot.

something like this?
www.amazon.com/Sonnet-Thunderbolt-Gigabit-Ethernet-Included/dp/B07N327RJ2

Great to see more 2.5GbE switches showing up. The addition of a 10GbE port on this one makes it very attractive, though I'm somewhat worried about the price. Hopefully it's well below $200.

Personally, 2.5Gbe is not enough of an upgrade to be worth spending money on. Sure if I can get 2.5Gbe hardware for the same price as 1Gbe then I'll bite, but current prices don't justify the speed improvement. Really, the next step should be 5Gbe or 10 Gbe hitting consumer prices with wide availability, we aren't there yet however.

randomUserThere are already plenty of 2.5gbps dongles out there. Hoever, 5gbps is very sparse and super pricey, while i haven't found a singe 10gbps dongle yet.
SFP+ dongle would be awesome. Would not have to use PCIe NIC for that. Which would open more options on the pc case side. Now i must use case with atleast 1 half sized pcie slot.

For 5GBit/s care has to be taken, because some of them are unstable:

Source

ncrsFor 5GBit/s care has to be taken, because some of them are unstable:

Source

Not to mention USB 3.1 gen1 5Gb/s whatever it is called (the stupidest naming scheme ever!) cannot truly hit 5Gb/s because of the encoding/CRC overhead. 5G Ethernet on USB will top out around 3.5Gb/s.

This has me wondering how badly D-Link can screw up a dumb switch. I know from personal experience how very, very, very badly they can screw up a Wi-Fi router.

randomUserThere are already plenty of 2.5gbps dongles out there. Hoever, 5gbps is very sparse and super pricey, while i haven't found a singe 10gbps dongle yet.
SFP+ dongle would be awesome. Would not have to use PCIe NIC for that. Which would open more options on the pc case side. Now i must use case with atleast 1 half sized pcie slot.

Besides the comments above, it comes down to how the Ethernet controllers are made, 2.5Gbps is at least from a manufacturing standpoint, a lot more similar to 1Gbps Ethernet when it comes to the actual controllers, whereas the 5Gbps ones seems to be more similar to 10Gbps. This makes them more complex and costly to make.
QNAP has both 10Gbps and 5Gbps options, although the 10Gbps one is over Thunderbolt.
www.qnap.com/en/product/series/network-cards

It is nice to see some unmanaged 2.5Gbit switches finally! I only know of the QNAP 2.5Gbit switch so far...

I am hoping these become cheap as dirt and replace the current 1Gbps switches.

The real advantage is that you can still use the current wiring and still get the higher speeds.

chodaboy19It is nice to see some unmanaged 2.5Gbit switches finally! I only know of the QNAP 2.5Gbit switch so far...

I am hoping these become cheap as dirt and replace the current 1Gbps switches.

The real advantage is that you can still use the current wiring and still get the higher speeds.

The extra nice thing in this case, is the 10Gbps uplink port. Even though it's D-Link...

TheLostSwedeThe extra nice thing in this case, is the 10Gbps uplink port. Even though it's D-Link...

I'm probably sticking my foot in my mouth here, but here goes: it's a passive, unmanaged switch, how much can they mess it up?



Is 2021 the year when we start seeing firmware updates for consumer switches? :P

ValantarI'm probably sticking my foot in my mouth here, but here goes: it's a passive, unmanaged switch, how much can they mess it up?



Is 2021 the year when we start seeing firmware updates for consumer switches? :p

I guess you missed the "Turbo" switch...

Smart Turbo Mode delivers Quality of Service (QoS) and port-based priority for uninterrupted

So it can't be an entirely passive switch if if has some kind of QoS feature and port-based priority.

Well, my question is, what good is all of this 2.5/5/10GbE hardware when virtually ALL ISP-supplied modems/boxes only give you 1GbE service ????

Or is there some magic trick that I am not aware of that lets you increase your network speed by 2.5x or more just by plugging in something like these dongles or switches ?

Yes I know about "teaming" and such, but that's not gonna get you these types of speeds....

bonehead123Well, my question is, what good is all of this 2.5/5/10GbE hardware when virtually ALL ISP-supplied modems/boxes only give you 1GbE service ????

Or is there some magic trick that I am not aware of that lets you increase your network speed by 2.5x or more just by plugging in something like these dongles or switches ?

Yes I know about "teaming" and such, but that's not gonna get you these types of speeds....

Nobody has >1Gbps internet anyhow, so nGbE is for local network use, not internet connections. As long as you keep your nGbE devices connected to the switch and not the router they'll communicate internally at full speed.

TheLostSwedeI guess you missed the "Turbo" switch...

So it can't be an entirely passive switch if if has some kind of QoS feature and port-based priority.

So they added a switch to disable the bugs? How helpful of them!

bonehead123Well, my question is, what good is all of this 2.5/5/10GbE hardware when virtually ALL ISP-supplied modems/boxes only give you 1GbE service ????

Or is there some magic trick that I am not aware of that lets you increase your network speed by 2.5x or more just by plugging in something like these dongles or switches ?

Yes I know about "teaming" and such, but that's not gonna get you these types of speeds....

While @Valantar is completely correct about it being for local network. Faster than 1Gbit/s internet is definitely possible already, DOCSIS 3.1 can already support up to 10Gbits/s DL 2Gbits/s UL. My new cable modem, a free rental from Spectrum has a 2.5Gb Ethernet port on it. They only offer 940/40 service in my area thou and that service tier has a 4-6 month waiting list because it requires professional installation. I also saw 10Gbps fiber home internet service advertised in Thomasville, GA when I was there several months ago. I almost choked on my drink when I saw the billboard!

Internet in the United States is either feast or famine. We have cities with multiple providers fighting each other to offer the fastest speeds or the best prices, constantly upgrading their networks to compete. We have cities where a single provider monopolizes the area. They charge whatever want because they can. They don't have to compete, so they don't invest in network upgrades. Then we have the underserved markets. Areas where there is almost no service because the area is too rural to be profitable enough. Not that they couldn't at least break even or make a small profit. That's not enough, they want to rake in the big profits!

ValantarNobody has >1Gbps internet anyhow

Comcast is starting to offer 2000/2000 connections to homes. It's stupid expensive, but it exists.

ValantarNobody has >1Gbps internet anyhow, so nGbE is for local network use, not internet connections. As long as you keep your nGbE devices connected to the switch and not the router they'll communicate internally at full speed.

Nobody you say? This is from 2007...
www.theregister.com/2007/07/12/swedish_woman_has_fastest_internet_connection/

ValantarSo they added a switch to disable the bugs? How helpful of them!

:roll: :roll: :roll:

newtekie1Comcast is starting to offer 2000/2000 connections to homes. It's stupid expensive, but it exists.

I didn't say it didn't exist, I said nobody has it. Which is still true. If even a few thousand households in the US had that (which I frankly doubt given the cost and limited availability), it would still be nobody in the grand scheme of things.

TheLostSwedeNobody you say? This is from 2007...
www.theregister.com/2007/07/12/swedish_woman_has_fastest_internet_connection/

No word on the speed of her local network connection though ;)

(Though given that her son made that happen through working at Cisco he probably hooked her up with 40GbE as well!)

ZareekFaster than 1Gbit/s internet is definitely possible already, DOCSIS 3.1 can already support up to 10Gbits/s DL 2Gbits/s UL.

Exactly my point... my ISP (one of those small town monopolies BTW) has the capability but wants $300/month for 2.5Gb, $600 for 5Gb, and $1250 for 10Gb.... PLUS an additional $500 charge for the "professional" installation for the 2.5 and 5, and $1000 for the 10Gb...

SO... NOT.... HAPPENING... :mad::mad::mad:

However, normal 1Gb service is free & self-install only, cause they don't wanna bother having a tech go out for a 5-min plug & play installation.

But when you are getting new service for the very 1st time and need the outside box installed and all the wires pulled/holes drilled etc, it's still $500 extra, regardless of the speed you want...

ValantarI didn't say it didn't exist, I said nobody has it. Which is still true. If even a few thousand households in the US had that (which I frankly doubt given the cost and limited availability), it would still be nobody in the grand scheme of things.

No word on the speed of her local network connection though ;)

(Though given that her son made that happen through working at Cisco he probably hooked her up with 40GbE as well!)

You keep making assumptions. Some people in Sweden can get 10Gbps for 399kr ($48) per month.
bahnhof.se/bredband

TheLostSwedeYou keep making assumptions. Some people in Sweden can get 10Gbps for 399kr ($48) per month.
bahnhof.se/bredband

I know, but it's still a really tiny proportion of people (and Sweden is after all famous for its internet speeds). (Oh, and I didn't mean "A few thousand people in the US and nobody else globally", I used the US as an example of a huge country and the low amount of such connections- I wouldn't be surprised if Sweden has more >Gb internet connections than the whole of the US, but that still doesn't make the total amount noteworthy.) It'll likely be another decade before there's a sufficient consumer user base for nGbE WAN ports to become a mass market feature, and probably half that before it's even a useful enthusiast feature (even if a surprising amount of high end routers have them today). These days it's still mostly for the kind of people who have a server closet at home (a lot of whom inhabit forums like this one!). And while those people would no doubt like to not need to buy used enterprise hardware all the time, their needs aren't likely to be met by first-generation enthusiast hardware either. We see that time and time again with new high end features arriving in consumer products, where the ultra niche advanced users either complain that their existing used pro hardware is better, or complain that the consumer products don't meet their needs/don't target their use case.

Of course most people would struggle mightily to saturate even 1GbE with a couple of users. Server transfer speeds become the limiting factor all of a sudden.

So my point still stands; nGbE ports are most useful for LAN, not WAN.

Also places like Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore...
At some point we're going to be moving towards faster speeds, it's just a matter of when.
2.5Gbps is a step in that direction, even though it has take way too long to get there and let's not even talk about 10Gbps.
We have USB ports that are 20x faster than the network ports on most PCs now, which is just insane. Doing a network backup is barely an option at 1Gbps these days, as it takes an insane amount of time and we're not even talking about backing up data to the "cloud" as some services would like us to.

If it wasn't for enthusiasts, nothing much would be moving forward, regardless of what we're talking about when it comes to technology.

I'm not really arguing with your point, but we're actually finally getting to a point in time where 1Gbps Ethernet has played out its role for anything except possibly the WAN port on a router and even there, it doesn't have a finite life, as clearly there are faster than 1Gbps internet services today.

TheLostSwedeAlso places like Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore...
At some point we're going to be moving towards faster speeds, it's just a matter of when.
2.5Gbps is a step in that direction, even though it has take way too long to get there and let's not even talk about 10Gbps.
We have USB ports that are 20x faster than the network ports on most PCs now, which is just insane. Doing a network backup is barely an option at 1Gbps these days, as it takes an insane amount of time and we're not even talking about backing up data to the "cloud" as some services would like us to.

If it wasn't for enthusiasts, nothing much would be moving forward, regardless of what we're talking about when it comes to technology.

I'm not really arguing with your point, but we're actually finally getting to a point in time where 1Gbps Ethernet has played out its role for anything except possibly the WAN port on a router and even there, it doesn't have a finite life, as clearly there are faster than 1Gbps internet services today.

Oh, absolutely. It's just that internet speeds creep sloooooowly upwards, with the majority of users even in high-speed markets well below 1Gbps. There's also real vs. advertised speeds, of course. My ... uh, housing association? BRF, the Swedish term is better :P theoretically supplies 1Gbps fiber to all apartments, though in reality I've never seen it exceed ~400Mbps. I'm not sure if that's due to a lower-than-it-ought-to-be trunk uplink to where it's distributed out to apartments or whether our fiber conversion boxes are just terrible, but I frankly don't mind either way - it's dramatically faster than my old apartment no matter what, and I'm not willing to pay for something better when I'm 99% likely not going to be able to tell the difference.

LAN backups (and other bandwidth intensive uses like using Lightroom on a NAS-based photo library) is exactly where these things shine, and are becoming a necessity IMO - to a far higher degree than for WAN ports. For home users I mostly see 2.5GbE as sufficient for those uses simply because ~220MB/s is more than most NAS devices can provide (except for those with SSD caching, of course), but that is obviously not a very future-proof point of view, of which I'm well aware. Still, that's where I see things improving short term, as 2.5GbE is becoming cheap enough to fit a lot of people's budgets - not all enthusiasts can afford to spend the equivalent of a mid-range PC on home networking, after all, and there's no real prospect of 10GbE going much below $100/port at retail. Another major issue in terms of 5/10GbE adoption is of course power consumption, particularly for switches and routers - at 5-6W/port, that adds up quickly to the kind of thermal load you sadly can't fit in a conventional home router or switch. So there are both technical and economic reasons why these things are dog-slow, especially when we've had the "luxury" of "plentiful" gigabit speeds (used to be true!) for a couple of decades to lull us into complacency.

As for my point about enthusiasts, I didn't mean that they don't drive progress - they very clearly do! - but many of us are power users willing to go far beyond what is reasonable for even more "entry-level" enthusiasts. Used SFP+ networking gear might be relatively cheap and widely available, but installing it in a home where people live is still a huge challenge, requiring compromises most people aren't willing or able to make. And especially when it comes to home networking, there's a relatively large established user base using these solutions, that seem to come out every time a new >GbE consumer product is launched to complain that it's still inferior to their used enterprise hardware and they'll thus give it a hard pass. Which is fine, but also seems to stop them from recommending it to other people, meaning we're missing out on the otherwise progress-driving effect that enthusiast adoption might otherwise have.

Sadly, given how these things are typically sold and marketed I'm almost willing to bet that faster mesh WiFi is going to be what commodifies 2.5GbE (that way router makers can sell you three $150 routers instead of one!), rather than actually useful things like network storage etc. But I guess we'll see.

ValantarOh, absolutely. It's just that internet speeds creep sloooooowly upwards, with the majority of users even in high-speed markets well below 1Gbps. There's also real vs. advertised speeds, of course. My ... uh, housing association? BRF, the Swedish term is better :p theoretically supplies 1Gbps fiber to all apartments, though in reality I've never seen it exceed ~400Mbps. I'm not sure if that's due to a lower-than-it-ought-to-be trunk uplink to where it's distributed out to apartments or whether our fiber conversion boxes are just terrible, but I frankly don't mind either way - it's dramatically faster than my old apartment no matter what, and I'm not willing to pay for something better when I'm 99% likely not going to be able to tell the difference.

Could be your router, as some routers have a routing limit at around 300-400Mbps.
That's mostly older 802.11n hardware and such though.
I'm stuck with a cable modem service :ohwell:
Gigabit seems to be quite widely available in Sweden these days, but some service providers don't seem to price it all that well any more.

ValantarLAN backups (and other bandwidth intensive uses like using Lightroom on a NAS-based photo library) is exactly where these things shine, and are becoming a necessity IMO - to a far higher degree than for WAN ports. For home users I mostly see 2.5GbE as sufficient for those uses simply because ~220MB/s is more than most NAS devices can provide (except for those with SSD caching, of course), but that is obviously not a very future-proof point of view, of which I'm well aware. Still, that's where I see things improving short term, as 2.5GbE is becoming cheap enough to fit a lot of people's budgets - not all enthusiasts can afford to spend the equivalent of a mid-range PC on home networking, after all, and there's no real prospect of 10GbE going much below $100/port at retail. Another major issue in terms of 5/10GbE adoption is of course power consumption, particularly for switches and routers - at 5-6W/port, that adds up quickly to the kind of thermal load you sadly can't fit in a conventional home router or switch. So there are both technical and economic reasons why these things are dog-slow, especially when we've had the "luxury" of "plentiful" gigabit speeds (used to be true!) for a couple of decades to lull us into complacency.

I guess this is cheating, as it's my DIY NAS, but still only spinning rust, albeit over 10Gbps. Still, anything is better than Gigabit for backups, except some old USB 2.0 drive...




You're right about the power consumption and this is where 2.5Gbps Ethernet is a real winner, as well as the fact that you can get 2.5Gbps over Cat 5e, rather than needing new cabling for anything longer than a very short run. Prices for 10Gbps will continue to come down, but it won't be anywhere near the price of 2.5Gbps any time soon. I got both my cards in a black Friday sale for less than $70, but then needed to get a $199 switch to make proper use of them and the switch only has two 10Gbps ports...

ValantarAs for my point about enthusiasts, I didn't mean that they don't drive progress - they very clearly do! - but many of us are power users willing to go far beyond what is reasonable for even more "entry-level" enthusiasts. Used SFP+ networking gear might be relatively cheap and widely available, but installing it in a home where people live is still a huge challenge, requiring compromises most people aren't willing or able to make. And especially when it comes to home networking, there's a relatively large established user base using these solutions, that seem to come out every time a new >GbE consumer product is launched to complain that it's still inferior to their used enterprise hardware and they'll thus give it a hard pass. Which is fine, but also seems to stop them from recommending it to other people, meaning we're missing out on the otherwise progress-driving effect that enthusiast adoption might otherwise have.

See above :p
Most new flats and houses seem to be pre-wired for Ethernet to most rooms these days. The place we rented in London five years ago had Ethernet to all the rooms, except the bathrooms. It was quite handy to be honest, especially as the router was hidden in a "utility" cupboard, which meant poor Wi-Fi reception in the flat :kookoo:

ValantarSadly, given how these things are typically sold and marketed I'm almost willing to bet that faster mesh WiFi is going to be what commodifies 2.5GbE (that way router makers can sell you three $150 routers instead of one!), rather than actually useful things like network storage etc. But I guess we'll see.

Well, most higher-end 802.11ax APs and some routers are starting to come with at least one 2.5Gbps, as what's the point of having a router that claims wireless speeds north of 6Gbps and then being limited by the wired connection? It's obviously mostly marketing with Wi-Fi rather than actual speed, but even so, there should be uses cases with Gigabit simply isn't fast enough for a top of the range Wi-Fi AP or router.

TheLostSwedeCould be your router, as some routers have a routing limit at around 300-400Mbps.
That's mostly older 802.11n hardware and such though.
I'm stuck with a cable modem service :ohwell:
Gigabit seems to be quite widely available in Sweden these days, but some service providers don't seem to price it all that well any more.




I guess this is cheating, as it's my DIY NAS, but still only spinning rust, albeit over 10Gbps. Still, anything is better than Gigabit for backups, except some old USB 2.0 drive...




You're right about the power consumption and this is where 2.5Gbps Ethernet is a real winner, as well as the fact that you can get 2.5Gbps over Cat 5e, rather than needing new cabling for anything longer than a very short run. Prices for 10Gbps will continue to come down, but it won't be anywhere near the price of 2.5Gbps any time soon. I got both my cards in a black Friday sale for less than $70, but then needed to get a $199 switch to make proper use of them and the switch only has two 10Gbps ports...


See above :p
Most new flats and houses seem to be pre-wired for Ethernet to most rooms these days. The place we rented in London five years ago had Ethernet to all the rooms, except the bathrooms. It was quite handy to be honest, especially as the router was hidden in a "utility" cupboard, which meant poor Wi-Fi reception in the flat :kookoo:

Well, most higher-end 802.11ax APs and some routers are starting to come with at least one 2.5Gbps, as what's the point of having a router that claims wireless speeds north of 6Gbps and then being limited by the wired connection? It's obviously mostly marketing with Wi-Fi rather than actual speed, but even so, there should be uses cases with Gigabit simply isn't fast enough for a top of the range Wi-Fi AP or router.

Wow, that is pretty speedy for HDDs! Must be a rather beefy RAID (or equivalent). My DIY NAS still chugs along at GbE, but then its mirrored HDDs aren't exactly speed demons either. There'll be an upgrade in the future for that, but first I need to get Ethernet wiring run through the apartment - stupid concrete walls and needing to cross wires across the central hallway where everything stands out is making planning that more time consuming than I'd like :P It would be lovely if this apartment was wired for Ethernet, but I guess people in the 1960s weren't thinking that far ahead XD As for my network speeds, I've tested it directly from the ethernet ports on the fiber converter box (not a modem) and speeds are the same. Also upgraded my router a little while back. The speeds are also quite variable, but then internet speed tests aren't really controllable either, so that might be down to server load. Either way, as I said I haven't bothered looking into it as it's still plenty fast :) LAN speeds are another matter :(

ValantarI didn't say it didn't exist, I said nobody has it. Which is still true. If even a few thousand households in the US had that (which I frankly doubt given the cost and limited availability), it would still be nobody in the grand scheme of things.

Obviously some people do have, and I'll be one once it is available in my area. But then I already have 10Gbps equipment. So, meh.

TheLostSwedeI guess this is cheating, as it's my DIY NAS, but still only spinning rust, albeit over 10Gbps. Still, anything is better than Gigabit for backups, except some old USB 2.0 drive...




You're right about the power consumption and this is where 2.5Gbps Ethernet is a real winner, as well as the fact that you can get 2.5Gbps over Cat 5e, rather than needing new cabling for anything longer than a very short run. Prices for 10Gbps will continue to come down, but it won't be anywhere near the price of 2.5Gbps any time soon. I got both my cards in a black Friday sale for less than $70, but then needed to get a $199 switch to make proper use of them and the switch only has two 10Gbps ports...

Making the switch to 10Gbps really didn't cost as much as I thought it would. Yeah, it isn't as cheap as 1Gbps, but I wouldn't expect it to be. A 4-port 10Gbps switch with 1 1Gbps port to uplink to the rest of my network was only ~$325. The problem was finding inexpensive 10Gbps network cards. Aquantia made some really good cheap ones that you could get for around $70, but then Marvell bought them out and killed that off pretty quickly. So now you're looking at about $100 for one. Luckily my server's motherboard came with a 10Gbps NIC built in. I was able to find a cheap Asus dual-10Gbps card on ebay for $85 and a single Aquantia based Asus 10Gbps card for $65.

In the home space though, I think those switches that only have 1 or 2 10Gbps ports and 8 1Gbps ports actually make sense. Alot of homes these days are having some kind of NAS or such for various things. The NAS can be on the 10Gbps port, while all the PCs are on 1Gbps. The fact is 1Gbps is sufficient for what most home users do, even backups. But with the server/NAS being on a 10Gbps link, it means no one person can just saturate the NAS's bandwidth. So if Susie's computer starts doing a backup to the NAS, Johnie's movie he's watching with plex off the NAS doesn't start to stutter.