Realtek is Aiming to Make 5 Gbps Ethernet Switches More Affordable with New Platform

[Chaitanya]

Considering the cost and the power usage, it's not likely to happen any time soon.
I got my two Aquantia (now Marvell) cards during a Black Friday deal back in 2017 for $69 a pop, although the MSRP back then was $127.
Equivalent cards today are still $80-90.
Aquantia's 5 Gbps card was $99 back then, but it was never very popular due to the lack of suitable switches.
With Realtek's new cards going for $30-40 already, that's quite a game changer imho, if we'll really see $100-120 switches.

I was looking at reviews of those 10Gbps NICs(mostly on M.2 2280) and it seems like the cooling is quite critical for them without proper heatsinks and airflow they tend to be unstable.

and which consumer needs 10Gbps?

Many photographers and video shooters do, I dump 100s of Raw files(each on average around 45MBs in case of R5 and even on older cameras files are around 25MB) to my NAS from PC and 1Gbps is stupidly slow. But thankfully there are cheap switches which offer 2x10Gbps ports so I didnt have to splurge on expensive and power hungry 8 port of 16 port 10Gbps switch.

 

[Tigerfox]

Many photographers and video shooters do, I dump 100s of Raw files(each on average around 45MBs in case of R5 and even on older cameras files are around 25MB) to my NAS from PC and 1Gbps is stupidly slow. But thankfully there are cheap switches which offer 2x10Gbps ports so I didnt have to splurge on expensive and power hungry 8 port of 16 port 10Gbps switch.

If it's just the connection between your PC and NAS, ever considered popping a cheap used 40GbE-NIC into both and connecting them directly?

 

[Chaitanya]

If it's just the connection between your PC and NAS, ever considered popping a cheap used 40GbE-NIC into both and connecting them directly?

No, but I also have other PCs and devices(printer and CCTV cameras) for which I needed to purchase a switch anyways.

 

[Tigerfox]

No, but I also have other PCs and devices(printer and CCTV cameras) for which I needed to purchase a switch anyways.

You can hook up these devices to a switch AND directly connect your PC with your NAS over a fast NIC.

 

[Chaitanya]

You can hook up these devices to a switch AND directly connect your PC with your NAS over a fast NIC.

Looked up compatibility list of NICs and fastest NIC supported on my NAS unit is 25Gbps and it costs $449(wiring will be extra), adding 2 of those will be more than what my monitor costs. At somepoint in future I might consider going with faster NICs right now my setup works just fine for my needs.

 

[Tigerfox]

Which NAS do you use?

 

[DaemonForce]

That's not the point of SFP for most of us at the moment.
There are three main points of entry for now:

1: Workstation is a server data service connector and 1GbE RJ-45 gets too easily saturated to push the data several GB/hour from this socket.
This is the most common situation people have with a media server loaded with tons of raws and video. This is how they do backups/editing and it sucks.
Net speed gets frequently pinned 100% and latency is too high due to disk types and data sizes. General access and scrubbing are insufferable.
Basic 2x1GbE teaming or a 2.5GbE connection usually fixes it.

2: Workstation is connected to a NAS/DAS array and 2.5GbE somehow experiences a continuation of the above problems due to slow type of storage.
This is a less common problem as people in this situation typically opt for sata/m.2 SSDs over sata HDDs, so even non-RAID volumes should be fine.
The data sets used here are LARGE. Much larger than the photo/video editor situation in piecemeal.
Probably an animator/renderer or SQL DB admin doing wacky stuff with backup/migration or lots of networked Hyper-V jobs through one socket.

3. Network has a massive data chokepoint with the server on two disjunct networks for all media access between one or two local systems and the Internet.
This is a more common situation where the CPU, disk speed, data type and data size just don't matter because the network controller is too finnicky.
Consistent access to the server matters way more than anything else, so a direct 2.5/10GbE connection is optioned to satisfy the problem.

That last one is pretty much where I'm at with millions of files, thousands of gigantic images, some iSCSI volumes and an ISP that randomly makes everything go poof.
All the basic 1GbE connections are routed through their shitty little XB3 unit and this is what prompted me to look at SFP in the first place.
The poof is extremely annoying and dangerous to data when it happens. It may as well be an overheat+reboot because same result. The 10GbE SFP option solves it entirely.
My HP QLogic rebrand NC523SFP and SolarFlare SFN5122F averaged ~$20/each from auction and I used a cheap Cisco DAC to connect them. I would not opt for QLogic again as I had to rig the device with a fan just to exhaust an insane amount of heat produced from this card but other than that, it works great. You literally cannot lose.

That's what I did. So in terms of discount enterprise hardware, 10GbE is CHEAP CHEAP but has its own price. It's all PCI-E g2x8 era junk. If you're interested in this, great. Just use best discretion and maybe avoid QLogic if you're worried about heat. The passive heatsink on that thing is enough to cook lotto tickets, as in it will physically burn you if you do a shutdown and want to pull the card. It's an odd one out. Other stuff is built correctly.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I can buy a 8 port gigabit switch for like 15$ so 5gbps and 2.5gbps still need to go a long way before they're affordable

Which is fine for a lot of people, but not everyone.

If it's just the connection between your PC and NAS, ever considered popping a cheap used 40GbE-NIC into both and connecting them directly?

I did this originally, before getting a switch, but it doesn't work well in Windows, as the secondary NIC that was connected to the internet ended up not connecting me to the internet at random. I guess this might be an OS issue, but it was very frustrating.
At least back then, OMV wouldn't allow me to connect through my NAS and onto the rest of the network.
Some NAS appliances allow you to do this, but not all.

 

[Soul_]

Maybe we can make 2.5GbE managed switches a bit more affordable first?

 

[unwind-protect]

and which consumer needs 10Gbps?

Any network storage, including backup mechanisms.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Many photographers and video shooters do, I dump 100s of Raw files(each on average around 45MBs in case of R5 and even on older cameras files are around 25MB) to my NAS from PC and 1Gbps is stupidly slow. But thankfully there are cheap switches which offer 2x10Gbps ports so I didnt have to splurge on expensive and power hungry 8 port of 16 port 10Gbps switch.

Can you explain further. I assume you, like me a backing up your files to a NAS? My NAS only has crappy 1Gb-E port. How do I benefit from faster switch, ie how would I connect it to my NAS?

 

[Chaitanya]

Can you explain further. I assume you, like me a backing up your files to a NAS? My NAS only has crappy 1Gb-E port. How do I benefit from faster switch, ie how would I connect it to my NAS?

If you are using NAS for just backups then other than removing the bottleneck of network interface for slightly faster copies, going with 10Gbps wont help that much. I am using NAS for both editing(main unit(4 Bay) with 10Gbps NIC) and for backup(2nd unit(2 Bay) in neighbours house with 1Gbps link). And I wanted to remove the bottleneck of 1Gbps network interface(otherwirse there was no benifit of going with RAID-5 configuration on main unit). Except for drives, switch(Trendnet 8 port switch with 2x 10Gbps + 6x 2.5Gbps) and cables bought rest used from a local contact.

 

[unwind-protect]

A file server with even a bunch of mechanical drives can easily exceed 100 MB/sec, so 10 Gb ethernet is desirable. Doesn't matter whether the server is for file operations or just backups. Backups should be fast and convenient.

Of course using some prefabricated NAS which doesn't have a faster Ethernet port makes that impossible, but most NAS vendors have offerings with > 1 Gb ports, or can use PCIe cards.

 

[DaemonForce]

My NAS only has crappy 1Gb-E port. How do I benefit from faster switch, ie how would I connect it to my NAS?

There are so many different ways to approach this that we're better off asking instead of telling.
The 1GbE connection on my server is a very pitiful but full duplex nVidia ethernet controller going straight to the modem over a 1ft cable.
I use a few of these short cables for close device links like Xbox and NIC teams.
If your device only has one ethernet port, you could probably add an additional ethernet controller.
This could be 1GbE redundant, 1GbE team, a progressive 2.5GbE link or 10GbE SFP before prices start coming unglued from reality.
Most 1GbE and 2.5GbE ethernet cards are fully featured devices that need a PCI-E x1 connection. All the old 10GbE SFP stuff needs a PCI-E x8 link.
The dual 10GbE models seem to use the full x8 lanes and half of them seem to be perfectly fine for single 10GbE connections. You won't miss it.

If you are using NAS for just backups then other than removing the bottleneck of network interface for slightly faster copies, going with 10Gbps wont help that much.

It helps some but it really depends on the type of connection used.
Samba activity is slow. Like REALLY slow. This is pretty much what it's like when I'm going over old archives and caching explorer thumbnails over the network:

At first you might think wow, there's literally no point to this...And you might be right.
That HDD activity is half the speed of 1GbE, so ~62MB/s.
Now think about that again. That HDD activity...
Of course the response time, r/w speed and general transfer rates improve significantly when it's an SSD.
The only way I'm connecting an SSD to such an old system is if I cut my PCI-E x1 slot and add a LSI WarpDrive after RAID mode reflash, which I'm not even sure is a good idea but the option is always on the table I guess.

You might think that cute little 1.6GHz single core Athlon CPU would never be able to push so much data to saturate 10GbE and you might even be right about that.
Verifying ~100GB of Steam game data in an iSCSI connection hosted by one very GIANT HDD...
While copying ~20GB of DVD images from a separate slower HDD, over the same SFP connection looks like this:

Definitely overtakes nVidia 1GbE and is less hassle because it won't get disconnected without something catastrophic like a power failure.
I have total confidence in your ability to speed past these figures if you simply use SSDs on host+target when moving data around. ✔

 

[TheLostSwede]

Maybe we can make 2.5GbE managed switches a bit more affordable first?

You mean something like this for under $60?

XikeStor SKS3200M-4GPY2XF Review Managed 4-port 2.5GbE Switch

In our XikeStor SKS3200M-4GPY2XF review we see how this 2.5GbE and SFP+ 10GbE switch performs and look at its web management interface

www.servethehome.com

 

[chrcoluk]

2.5gig is still too expensive, how come they havent made 2.5g cheap switches yet?

Although I generally am satisfied with gbit for consumer use, NAS at gbit is very reasonable, and I also dont see a need for a internet connection faster than that speed as well unless I was hosting content then I might want it for upload capacity.

You mean something like this for under $60?

XikeStor SKS3200M-4GPY2XF Review Managed 4-port 2.5GbE Switch

In our XikeStor SKS3200M-4GPY2XF review we see how this 2.5GbE and SFP+ 10GbE switch performs and look at its web management interface

www.servethehome.com

No, $60 isnt cheap.

I mean at gigabit mainstream prices. Circa $10-20

2.5gbit seems to have the same fate as bluray, it never replaced its predecessor as mainstream.

 

[DaemonForce]

That's a lot of words for "I don't like easy metering."

Gigabit provides a nice acceptable chokepoint for an Internet gateway, that much I understand.
When you're doing Internet and LAN stuff over the same link, how much of it is your monthly bandwidth budget?
How much of it is just data that you're looking up over the LAN?
The difference isn't CPU, memory, HDD speed or any of that. It's the SIZE of the data and how much of it you use.

 

[TheLostSwede]

2.5gig is still too expensive, how come they havent made 2.5g cheap switches yet?

Although I generally am satisfied with gbit for consumer use, NAS at gbit is very reasonable, and I also dont see a need for a internet connection faster than that speed as well unless I was hosting content then I might want it for upload capacity.


No, $60 isnt cheap.

I mean at gigabit mainstream prices. Circa $10-20

2.5gbit seems to have the same fate as bluray, it never replaced its predecessor as mainstream.

Uhm, that was a managed switch...

So far, all of the 2.5 Gbps switches have been multi-chip devices, with not only a switch IC, but also PHYs.
Products like this, is likely to lower costs, but so far it seems like the switch makers aren't in a hurry to do the race to the bottom thing.

MaxLinear's 8-port 2.5 Gbps Switch is Tiny Single-chip Solution

TPU managed to get an early sneak peek of MaxLinear's recently announced 8-port 2.5 Gbps switch IC, ahead of Computex official start tomorrow. The MXL86280 is going to bring some serious competition to the 2.5 Gbps switch market, as thanks to it being a single chip solution that integrates the...

www.techpowerup.com

You can get some really cheap ones from Alibaba and the likes, but prices have halved over the past 12 months alone.
The cheapest option on Amazon is $36, which is $9 per port, if we don't count the two SPF+ ports.

Amazon.com

This one is $8 port, but no SFP+.

Amazon.com

As I also pointed out, you can now get a 2.5 Gbps NIC for under $15, which again is half of what they were a year ago.
Most motherboards also comes with 2.5 Gbps Ethernet as standard now, unless you go really bottom shelf.
On top of that, most NUC like systems come with one, if not two 2.5 Gbps ports now as well.

The bigger issue here is, do consumers understand the benefits of wired networks over WiFi?
People seem to be ok with spending $500+ on a router, but not $50 on a switch.

Personally, I've been running 10 Gbps between my NAS and my desktop since 2017 and when we moved now, I got a 2.5 Gbps switch, so all the Ethernet jacks in the place can do 2.5 Gbps now. My NAS is still in Taiwan though, but I will be bringing it over later this year. I obviously have a suitable switch for that as well, but I'm not a typical consumer.

 

[chrcoluk]

I have never spent $500 on a router so I cant speak for those guys, I did go to great effort to source a modern wifi router that runs on OpenWRT for as close to £50 as possible, anything above £100 would have pushed me away. So that gives you an idea on what I spend on networking. Typically I spend much lower then that even, got my Archer C7 for about £20.

My switches I like to use something compatible with OpenWRT, and 2.5 Gbps seems such a big premium even ISPs are struggling to source all 2.5 Gbps port devices, nearly all of the high end stuff they used is a single 2.5 Gbps for WAN and four 1 Gbps ports for LAN. (which is what my Wax 206 is).

For a switch that has no AP, no built in USB ports, I would expect to pay no more than £20-30 for it.

It is good prices are coming down, but they not where they need to be.

Where I think 2.5 Gbps needs to be, is the new base line, budget motherboards come with it, £10 switches come with it, all four port routers/switches have it standard and then have 5 Gbps replace it as its current price point.

Hopefully if Realtek achieve what this thread says, it then might have a domino affect of pushing 2.5 Gbps down further.

My Pfsense NUC is a four port i226 device though. That thing was crazy value, I do suspect the wholesale cost of a stripped down NIC on a PCB and associated ports probably isnt a lot more than gigabit, I expect its a case of they sell it as much as possible on the retail level as the market tolerates it. The new way of selling tech.

My existing network setup is like this.

2.5 Gbps ONT connected to 2.5 Gbps i226 port on Pfsense firewall/router.
2.5 Gbps Pfsense i226 port connected to repurposed 2.5 Gbps port on Netgear WAX 206.
This means I could have a multi gigabit internet connection and utilise it, but not to a single device.
Then rest of my LAN is all gigabit or 6th gen wifi, my PC is a 2.5 Gbps Realtek, but its connected to a gigabit port on the Wax 206.

I might be guilty of doing as you described focusing on good wifi, I guess it is because for me I dont wire everything up, I already have huge cable clutter, and I feel anything from the high 100s up to gigabit speeds is good enough for me.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I have never spent $500 on a router so I cant speak for those guys, I did go to great effort to source a modern wifi router that runs on OpenWRT for as close to £50 as possible, anything above £100 would have pushed me away. So that gives you an idea on what I spend on networking. Typically I spend much lower then that even, got my Archer C7 for about £20.

Don't expect to be able to get that cheap hardware in the future, at least not if you want anything remotely modern, as WiFi 7 has really jacked up the prices and it's unlikely they're going to drop any time soon. We already saw this with WiFi 6E and it just got worse. Part of the reason for this is three WiFi radios, plus more powerful SoC to handle everything people expect their routers to do these days. Some people seem to think their router should be able to replace a NAS...

My switches I like to use something compatible with OpenWRT, and 2.5 Gbps seems such a big premium even ISPs are struggling to source all 2.5 Gbps port devices, nearly all of the high end stuff they used is a single 2.5 Gbps for WAN and four 1 Gbps ports for LAN. (which is what my Wax 206 is).

Sorry? Why would a dumb switch run an OS?
Also, not everything is about internet speed, as already pointed out multiple times in this thread.
As for routers with multiple 2.5 Gbps ports, yes, they've been a bit slow coming, but they'll become the baseline with WiFi 7.

For a switch that has no AP, no built in USB ports, I would expect to pay no more than £20-30 for it.

Good for you, but that's not how technology works. Go and look how much a 1 Gbps switch used to cost just 10 years ago.

It is good prices are coming down, but they not where they need to be.

According to you.

Where I think 2.5 Gbps needs to be, is the new base line, budget motherboards come with it, £10 switches come with it, all four port routers/switches have it standard and then have 5 Gbps replace it as its current price point.

And they'll most likely get there in 2-3 years, which is a LOT faster than it took for 1 Gbps.
And the lower cost 5 Gbps parts will most likely replace the current 2.5 Gbps at their current price points in 2-3 years too.

Hopefully if Realtek achieve what this thread says, it then might have a domino affect of pushing 2.5 Gbps down further.

Realtek aren't the only ones making 2.5 Gbps, also as pointed out above. In fact, MaxLinear was first with a single chip 2.5 Gbps switching IC with build in PHYs. They have several different models that ranges from 5 to 12 ports.

My Pfsense NUC is a four port i226 device though. That thing was crazy value, I do suspect the wholesale cost of a stripped down NIC on a PCB and associated ports probably isnt a lot more than gigabit, I expect its a case of they sell it as much as possible on the retail level as the market tolerates it. The new way of selling tech.

Right, I bet you didn't pay £50 for that, more like £300. How come you were willing to pay for it?

My existing network setup is like this.

2.5 Gbps ONT connected to 2.5 Gbps i226 port on Pfsense firewall/router.
2.5 Gbps Pfsense i226 port connected to repurposed 2.5 Gbps port on Netgear WAX 206.
This means I could have a multi gigabit internet connection and utilise it, but not to a single device.
Then rest of my LAN is all gigabit or 6th gen wifi, my PC is a 2.5 Gbps Realtek, but its connected to a gigabit port on the Wax 206.

So get a 2.5 Gbps switch then and stop moaning about it.

I might be guilty of doing as you described focusing on good wifi, I guess it is because for me I dont wire everything up, I already have huge cable clutter, and I feel anything from the high 100s up to gigabit speeds is good enough for me.

Well, some of us are lucky and live in modern homes with the wiring in the walls and outlets in most rooms, some of us live in a cottage from the 1700's and can't wire up the place, nor get decent WiFi in more than one room due to the stone walls...

 

[chrcoluk]

Don't expect to be able to get that cheap hardware in the future, at least not if you want anything remotely modern, as WiFi 7 has really jacked up the prices and it's unlikely they're going to drop any time soon. We already saw this with WiFi 6E and it just got worse. Part of the reason for this is three WiFi radios, plus more powerful SoC to handle everything people expect their routers to do these days. Some people seem to think their router should be able to replace a NAS...

Sorry? Why would a dumb switch run an OS?
Also, not everything is about internet speed, as already pointed out multiple times in this thread.
As for routers with multiple 2.5 Gbps ports, yes, they've been a bit slow coming, but they'll become the baseline with WiFi 7.

Good for you, but that's not how technology works. Go and look how much a 1 Gbps switch used to cost just 10 years ago.

According to you.

And they'll most likely get there in 2-3 years, which is a LOT faster than it took for 1 Gbps.
And the lower cost 5 Gbps parts will most likely replace the current 2.5 Gbps at their current price points in 2-3 years too.

Realtek aren't the only ones making 2.5 Gbps, also as pointed out above. In fact, MaxLinear was first with a single chip 2.5 Gbps switching IC with build in PHYs. They have several different models that ranges from 5 to 12 ports.

Right, I bet you didn't pay £50 for that, more like £300. How come you were willing to pay for it?

So get a 2.5 Gbps switch then and stop moaning about it.

Well, some of us are lucky and live in modern homes with the wiring in the walls and outlets in most rooms, some of us live in a cottage from the 1700's and can't wire up the place, nor get decent WiFi in more than one room due to the stone walls...

Some more information in response to your points.

The pfsense unit is a mini PC, its not just a bare bones switch PCB, it includes a N100 CPU, and was £130 including RAM, NVME, tax and delivery. The thing is not even remotely comparable to what goes in a switch. I didnt even buy it for the i226 ports, I brought it to uplift my CPU on my firewall to ensure it could power gigabit PPPoE, it just so happened it came with those ports. Likewise with the NIC on my PC, I didnt buy a new motherboard to get a 2.5 Gbps NIC.

ONT supplied by Cityfibre one of UK FTTP providers, so the fact that part of my LAN is at that speed is it just went that way, it wasnt deliberate.

As to getting a expensive 2.5g switch, and not moaning about it, did you miss the part where I am satisfied with speeds in the higher 100s to gigabit. Why would I spend probably in excess of £400 to uplift to 2.5 Gbps speeds when I am not particularly motivated to do so, this is my point, its not mainstream pricing, its expensive enough enough that you have to want it.

It is what it is, not all of us will pay extra for things just because they newer, we need to justify what we spend and feel we getting value for it, I probably wouldnt even be utilising a 2.5 Gbps LAN either as my NAS is spindles. This is my point about 2.5 Gbps needing to become default and cheap.

Sorry if taking part in this thread you see it as moaning.

 

[Snoop05]

Forget 5gbps, 10Gbps should be the next step for consumers

5Gbps should have been comodity 10 years ago.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Some more information in response to your points.

The pfsense unit is a mini PC, its not just a bare bones switch PCB, it includes a N100 CPU, and was £130 including RAM, NVME, tax and delivery. The thing is not even remotely comparable to what goes in a switch. I didnt even buy it for the i226 ports, I brought it to uplift my CPU on my firewall to ensure it could power gigabit PPPoE, it just so happened it came with those ports. Likewise with the NIC on my PC, I didnt buy a new motherboard to get a 2.5 Gbps NIC.

I'm well aware of what a mini PC is, but you spent £130 on that, to replace a router in your network, so your cheap £20 routers are actually only used as APs then?

ONT supplied by Cityfibre one of UK FTTP providers, so the fact that part of my LAN is at that speed is it just went that way, it wasnt deliberate.

Well, Gigabit speed internet access isn't something really rare these days, it's actually pretty common.

As to getting a expensive 2.5g switch, and not moaning about it, did you miss the part where I am satisfied with speeds in the higher 100s to gigabit. Why would I spend probably in excess of £400 to uplift to 2.5 Gbps speeds when I am not particularly motivated to do so, this is my point, its not mainstream pricing, its expensive enough enough that you have to want it.

Sorry, but are you having some kind of reading comprehension issue? Or did you just miss all the times I listed the pricing of 2.5 Gbps switches?
Why would a switch cost £400?
This is available for £45, admittedly more than in the US, but it's hardly going to make you starve for the week.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/VIMIN-Port-2-5Gbase-T-SFP-Ethernet/dp/B0C5D4MYRF/

Same company does a managed 5-port version for £53.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/VIMIN-Port-2-5Gbase-T-SFP-Ethernet/dp/B0CT3B541Z/

It is what it is, not all of us will pay extra for things just because they newer, we need to justify what we spend and feel we getting value for it, I probably wouldnt even be utilising a 2.5 Gbps LAN either as my NAS is spindles. This is my point about 2.5 Gbps needing to become default and cheap.

Well, maybe you don't use your network enough to need it, that's one thing, but to complain about the cost of something, that you then claim you don't actually need, despite half or more of your devices actually supporting it, is a bit odd.

Sorry if taking part in this thread you see it as moaning.

It's the way you go about complaining about cost, then saying you buy things on the cheap, yet you spent £130 on a box to run pfsense on, which you most likely don't need, but someone on the internet told you was a lot more secure than using a consumer router, that just makes me wonder. I guess we prioritise different things. I believe my router has a good enough firewall, so I spent my money on a cheap switch that allow me to shuffle files around my network at a higher rate, as to me, that's more valuable.

5Gbps should have been comodity 10 years ago.

Considering the IEEE 802.3bz standard, which 2.5 and 5 Gbps Ethernet is part, only was ratified in 2016, that would've been impossible.

 

[Snoop05]

Considering the IEEE 802.3bz standard, which 2.5 and 5 Gbps Ethernet is part, only was ratified in 2016, that would've been impossible.

Quite backwards given that 10G eth. over twised pair copper spec is from 2006, dont you think?

 

[R-T-B]

Quite backwards given that 10G eth. over twised pair copper spec is from 2006, dont you think?

It's the reality. 10gbps was really hot and expensive for consumer parts, so they lowered their standards.