[HN Gopher] New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper
___________________________________________________________________
New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper
Author : calcifer
Score : 583 points
Date : 2026-04-25 05:56 UTC (1 days ago)
HTML web link (www.jeffgeerling.com)
TEXT w3m dump (www.jeffgeerling.com)
| userbinator wrote:
| The PCIe version: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46423967
| GeertJohan wrote:
| A Framework expansion card was also announced this week.
| https://frame.work/nl/en/products/wisdpi-10g-ethernet-expans...
| topspin wrote:
| That link notes:
|
| "Card supports 10Gbit/s and 10/100/1000/2500/5000/10000Mbit/s
| Ethernet"
|
| Nice to see; some NICs are shedding 10/100 support. Apparently,
| it's not necessary to do this, even in a low cost device.
| userbinator wrote:
| Low-cost devices are exactly where 10/100 is still widely
| used. On PCs, it's a common power-saving mode.
| lostlogin wrote:
| TVs too.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| And PoE security cams.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| For those of us who don't know, how does it save power vs a
| 1gbe running at low throughput?
| adastra22 wrote:
| I assume it is for wake-on-LAN. This of course requires
| the NIC being powered on while the system is sleeping.
| Lower bandwidth mode = less power draw.
| jech wrote:
| > how does [100BASE-TX] save power vs [1000BASE-T]
| running at low throughput?
|
| 100BASE-TX uses just two pairs (lanes), one for sending
| and one for receiving. 1000BASE-T uses all four pairs,
| for both sending and receiving. Therefore, a 100BASE-TX
| interface that's only receiving needs to power up one
| pair. A 1000BASE-T interface needs to power all four
| pairs all the time.
|
| I recall reading about some extensions that allow
| switching off some of the pairs some of the time ("Green
| Ethernet"), but I think that they require support on both
| sides of the link, and I'm not sure if they are widely
| deployed.
| userbinator wrote:
| 100M also needs much less signal processing, and at lower
| speed, than 1G.
|
| 10M is even simpler, to the point that even a fast MCU
| can bit-bang it.
| rincebrain wrote:
| My only annoyance with "Green Ethernet" things is that
| often they seem to work poorly.
|
| The dedicated machine I still keep around for Windows
| things has two onboard 2.5GbE ports. It will apparently
| sometimes, even with all power saving features turned
| off, randomly negotiate down to 100 mbit if I leave the
| machine alone for a bit, and then stay at that speed
| forever unless I manually reset the link after wondering
| why transferring large amounts of data is bottlenecking
| severely.
| Tade0 wrote:
| 100 mode saved me once when I really really really needed to
| have a connection in that moment, but the ethernet cable
| glued to the wall that I was using had only three out of
| eight wires even functioning.
| winter_blue wrote:
| Don't we need at least four for 100 Mbps?
| Tade0 wrote:
| According to the technician I spoke with, he could only
| detect three on their end.
|
| The cable was chewed through by cats, so perhaps it was
| three just in that moment.
|
| The connection was overall unreliable, so I guess it must
| have been four, just not all of the time.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _According to the technician I spoke with, he could only
| detect three on their end. The cable was chewed through
| by cats, so perhaps it was three just in that moment._
|
| Ah, the old Cat-3 cable. Been there.
| bluGill wrote:
| There is two wire ethernet that supports 100. It isn't
| common, but automotive is starting to use it.
| gsich wrote:
| 3 pairs probably. But then again you only need 2.
| t312227 wrote:
| -
| oliwarner wrote:
| Is that really true? If so, is there a saner way to handle
| this than _upgrade all the things to 10GBE_? Like a POE
| ethernet condom that interfaces with both network and
| devices at native max speeds without the core network
| having to degrade?
| eqvinox wrote:
| > Is that really true?
|
| It's not, cf. sibling posts. The GP probably learned
| networking in the 80ies~90ies when it was true, but those
| times are long gone.
|
| (unless you're talking wifi.)
| HHad3 wrote:
| That is complete nonsense and not how switched networks
| work.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| That hasn't been true on switched networks in probably 20
| years or so.
| vardump wrote:
| We have switches now, hubs just don't exist anymore.
| Switches are not affected by some devices having a lower
| speed.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Isn't that only relevant for network topologies that rely
| heavily on broadcasting to multiple nodes. Eg token ring,
| WiFi and powerline adapters?
|
| For regular Ethernet, the switch will have a table of which
| IPs are on which NIC and thus can dynamically send packets
| at the right transmission protocols supported by those NICs
| without degrading the service of other NICs.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| I've seen some vlans hit 1mbit BUM filters, I think we
| had about 800 users on that one. To saturate a 10m link
| would require a help of a lot of broadcast traffic.
|
| 100m is fine. 10m is fine but I can't think of anything
| that negotiates 10m other than maybe WOL (I don't use it
| enough to be sure from memory).
|
| If I didn ahve something esoteric it would be on a
| specialised vlan anyway.
| namibj wrote:
| 10m is extended reach copper, you can do about triple the
| range of 100m with approximately the same transceiver
| analog prowess.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Lots of industrial sensors and devices only do 4 wire
| 100BASE-TX so if there's no fallback to that it would be a
| paperweight in those situations.
| junon wrote:
| 100 is needed for embedded stuff, it'd render a lot of
| devices unusable (wiznet chips are popular and are 100 only).
| That'd suck.
| Gigachad wrote:
| IKEA smart home hub is also 100mbit.
| rleigh wrote:
| There are plenty of embedded chips which only provide RMII.
| No RGMII or alternatives.
| lucb1e wrote:
| Low cost? The link mentions no price, only a "notify me"
| button as far as I can see. Does it show a(n estimated) price
| point for you somewhere?
| topspin wrote:
| Low cost, as in not data center/server grade hardware.
| zamadatix wrote:
| $99 when I look at the entry in
| https://frame.work/marketplace/expansion-cards
| jcalvinowens wrote:
| I also appreciate the 10/100 support. I recently needed it
| for some old voip equipment, and it was shockingly difficult
| to find an SFP+ module that worked in my 10G switch and
| supported 100mbps.
| sschueller wrote:
| A Framework SFP+ or SFP28 expansion would be sweet.
| retired wrote:
| The author only got 7Gbps with a Framework 13 and a 10G adapter
| from the same brand (WisdPi).
|
| If this is the same adapter in a different housing, will it
| also be limited to 7Gbps?
| geerlingguy wrote:
| I'm guessing different mainboards could offer better USB port
| support for Gen 2 2x2, but right now the Ryzen AI 13" chips
| at least top out at USB4 / 3.2 Gen 2x1
| sva_ wrote:
| It seems like a lot of laptop manufacturers skipped the USB 3.2
| Gen2x2 in favor of USB4/TB4.
| TMWNN wrote:
| Conversely, the last time I checked a couple of weeks ago, it
| was impossible to find any USB4 external SSDs on Amazon; only
| USB 3.2.
| sva_ wrote:
| Really? I see plenty when I search for 'usb4 nvme enclosure'
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| Wouldn't it be better to just buy an M.2 NVMe adapter, eg.
| ICY DOCK ICYNano MB861U31-1M2B[0]?
|
| [0]: https://global.icydock.com/product_247.html
| justinclift wrote:
| That doesn't seem to be USB 4?
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| Is there an SSD that saturates USB3.2 Gen2 speeds and
| requires USB4?
| muro wrote:
| Many PCIe4 or 5 drives
| bestham wrote:
| Oh yes. Samsung 9100 Pro does 14800/13400 MiB/s over PCIe
| 5x4.
| alfanick wrote:
| I bought this one when upgrading my desktop, it indeed
| delivers what it promises. 14.5GB/s on my tiny random
| desktop, it's impressive. Everything feels so
| instantaneous, my Linux desktop finally feels like a Mac
| :)
| sva_ wrote:
| That's certainly impossible as even USB4 is only
| 40Gb/s~5GB/s, and of that you could only expect to get
| 32Gb/s~4GB/s. Or realistically even less due to overhead.
|
| It is probably the speed of it being read into RAM.
|
| Try entering sync right after copying to see how long it
| really takes
| alfanick wrote:
| Oh I meant without USB4 enclosure ofc, PCIe5 directly.
| It's truly the best consumer-level SSD available around.
|
| It beats my previous desktop's RAM speed, what a time to
| live in.
| daneel_w wrote:
| What you're seeing are the speeds of various multi-tier
| caches (RAM, intermediate SLC etc.) It cannot write to
| its main flash memory that fast. While it to the user
| looks like they just wrote 10 GiB in a single second, the
| SSD is internally still busy for another 10 seconds
| persisting that data. The actual real write speed of top-
| shelf consumer grade SSDs these days is somewhere in the
| vicinity of 1.5 GiB/s. Most models top out at half of
| that or less.
| nottorp wrote:
| Maybe not, but the USB consortium hasn't got around to
| polluting the USB4 namespace yet so it's safer to buy
| stuff with the USB4 label.
|
| Of course, just give them some time and they'll come up
| with USB4 "gen classic" at 11 Mbps.
| justinclift wrote:
| If Amazon is a _strict_ requirement, then this won 't help.
| But if you're ok with AliExpress then it's probably a win:
|
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008555989592.html
|
| I have one of these, though I'm using with a USB 3.x port as
| that's what my desktop has. For me it's working fine, and for
| others with actual USB 4 ports it seems to be working
| properly for them.
| user34283 wrote:
| I have a RTL8157 5 Gbps adapter from CableMatters.
|
| Interestingly it seems to get burning hot on the MacBook M1 Pro
| while it remains cool on the M5 Pro model.
|
| Maybe the workload is different, but I would not rule out some
| sort of hardware or driver difference. I only use a 1G port on my
| router at the moment.
| red369 wrote:
| Huh! That's very interesting.
|
| I am definitely not the person to shed any light on what is
| going on, but you've added to my feeling that these adapters
| are all incomprehensible, so I'll try and do the same for you.
|
| I have a USB C ethernet adapter (a Belkin USB-C to Ethernet +
| Charge Adapter which I recommend if you need it). I ran out of
| USB C ports one day, and plugged it through a USB C to USB A
| adapter instead. I must have done an fast.com speed-test to
| make sure it wasn't going to slow things down drastically, and
| found that the latency was lower! Not a huge amount, and I
| think the max speed was quicker without the adapter. But still,
| lower latency through a $1.50 Essager USB C to USB A adapter,
| bought from Shein or Shopee or somewhere silly!
|
| I tried tons of times, back and forward, with the adapter a few
| times, then without the adapter a few times. Even on multiple
| laptops. As much as I don't want to, I keep seeing lower
| latency through this cheap adapter.
|
| Next step, I'll try USB C to USB A, then back through a USB A
| to USB C adapter. Who knows how fast my internet could be!
| deepsun wrote:
| Is it also possible to power a laptop through those adapters?
| PoE++ can deliver up to 100W of power, more than enough for most
| laptops.
| eqvinox wrote:
| Theoretically yes, practically that hasn't been built yet. I've
| only seen it for 2.5Gbase-T, and only for 802.3bt Type 3 (51W).
|
| If anyone's aware of something better, I'd be interested too :)
|
| (Then again I wouldn't voluntarily use 5Gb-T or 10Gb-T anyway,
| and [?]50W is enough for most use cases.)
|
| [ed.: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807960919319.html
| ("2.5GPD2CBT-20V" variant) - actually 2.5G not 1G as I wrote
| initially]
| Iulioh wrote:
| Eh.
|
| A lot of laptops won't accept less than 60w
|
| My work laptop won't accept less than 90w (A modern HP, i7
| 155h with a random low end GPU)
|
| At first everyone at the office just assumed that the USB C
| wasn't able to charge the pc
| spockz wrote:
| Great. So we got EU laws to mandate USB-C chargers and then
| get manufacturers that flaunt the spirit of the law by
| rejecting lower wattages.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| My laptop refuses to charge for 45W chargers as well, but
| I can almost understand it.
|
| When plugged into 100W chargers while powered on, it
| takes ten minutes to gain a single percentage point. Idle
| in power save may let me charge the thing in a few hours.
| If I start playing video, the battery slowly drains.
|
| If your laptop is part space heater, like most laptops
| with Nvidia GPUs in them seem to be, using a low power
| adapter like that is pretty useless.
|
| Also, 100W chargers are what, 25 euros these days? An OEM
| charger costs about 120 so the USB-C plan still works
| out.
|
| Other manufacturers do similar things. Apple accepts
| lower wattage chargers (because that's what they sell
| themselves) but they ignore two power negotiation
| standards and only supports the very latest, which isn't
| in many affordable chargers, limiting the fast charge
| capacity for third parties.
| izacus wrote:
| Which laptop is that? My Razer with 5070 will take 45W
| chargers just fine, so do the ThinkPads, my work 16"
| MacBook and previous Asus Zephyrus with 4070.
| sgerenser wrote:
| I was on a trip a few years ago and had only brought my
| "compact" 45w usb-c charger since the brick that came
| with my work ThinkPad (one of the high end 16" screen
| models, maybe p16?) was enormous. When I plugged it in
| Windows complained that the charger was insufficient to
| charge the laptop. I think it at least kept it from
| draining the battery though. I had to run to Walmart and
| get a 65w charger which did the job fine.
| spockz wrote:
| The idea is that you can use chargers that you have lying
| around. In an emergency I charged my MacBook Pro with an
| old 5 or 10W adapter overnight while shut down. I don't
| see the reason for flat out refusing a charge. Especially
| when turned off.
| javawizard wrote:
| I gotta say, I love my macbooks. Every Apple laptop I've
| owned that has USB-C ports will happily charge itself from
| a 5V/1.5A wall charger (albeit extremely slowly).
| hnlmorg wrote:
| That hasn't been my experience. I once tried to charge an
| M3 MBP via a lower powered wall plug. It was left off
| over night and the following morning the battery was
| still at 1%.
| saagarjha wrote:
| What did it start at?
| hnlmorg wrote:
| 1%
| Iulioh wrote:
| Note:
|
| Some devices expect USB-A on the charger side instead of
| C
|
| USB-A pump out 1A5V(5W) regardless of what's connected to
| it, then it negotiate higher power if available.
|
| USB C-C does not give any power if the receiving device
| is not able to negotiate it
| hnlmorg wrote:
| This was a decent USB plug from Anker. I regularly use it
| to charge things like iPhones and tablets. I knew it
| wouldn't supply enough power to run the MBP but thought
| it should trickle charge the device over night. But it
| didn't.
|
| I can't recall which cable I used though. The cable
| _might_ have been garbage but I'm pretty sure I threw out
| all the older USB cables so they wouldn't get mixed with
| more modern supporting cables.
| sgerenser wrote:
| My work has a little power strip with a usb-c and usb-a
| jack on it at every desk. I can charge my phone and iPad
| just fine with a USB-C cable into the USB-C port, but
| when I plugged my MacBook Air into it, it says "not
| charging." Going into the system information tool I can
| see it's only running at 10W. So apparently 10W is not
| enough to charge, but it's still at least keeping the
| battery from draining.
|
| A 20w charger will definitely charge the MacBook, just
| slowly.
| lostlogin wrote:
| A Mac mini at home used 4.64w averaged over the last 30
| days. Even under load it just sips power.
| sva_ wrote:
| It can draw a lot more under load?
| https://support.apple.com/en-gb/103253
| lostlogin wrote:
| I'm sure it can, but even that could be supplied by POE++
| I think?
|
| Mine under very rarely exceeds 10w.
| _blk wrote:
| The issue might not be the wattage bit rather the minimum
| voltage. (Some?) Macs seems to charge at 15v already, most
| laptops need 20v
| eqvinox wrote:
| Coincidentally, the USB-C spec is written such that
| wattage implies a minimum set of supported voltages:
|
| * <=15W charger: must have 5V
|
| * <=27W charger: must have 5V & 9V
|
| * <=45W charger: must have 5V & 9V & 15V
|
| * (OT but worth noting: >60W: requires "chipped" cable.)
|
| * <=100W charger: must have 5V & 9V & 15V & 20V
|
| (levels above this starting to become relevant for the
| new 240W stuff)
|
| (36W/12V doesn't exist anymore in PD 3.0. There seems to
| be a pattern with 140W @ 28V now, and then 240W at 48V, I
| haven't checked what's actually in the specs now for
| those, vs. what's just "herd agreement".)
|
| Some devices are built to only charge from 20V, which
| means you need to buy a 45.000001W (scnr) charger to be
| sure it'll charge. If I remember correctly, requiring a
| minimum wattage to charge is permitted by the standard,
| so if the device requires a 46W charger it can assume
| it'll get 15V. Not sure about what exactly the spec says
| there, though.
|
| (Of course the chargers may support higher voltages at
| lower power, but that'd cost money to build so they
| pretty much don't.)
|
| NB: the lower voltages are all mandatory to support for
| higher powered chargers to be spec compliant. Some that
| don't do that exist -- they're not spec compliant.
| sva_ wrote:
| My laptop has $ upower -i $(upower -e |
| grep BAT) [...] voltage-min-design:
| 11.58 V
|
| And I can charge it via USB-C using a 22.5W powerbank @
| 12V (HP EliteBook 845 G10.)
|
| I guess that would be out of spec then?
|
| edit: nvm I didn't see the qualifier 'minimum'
| eqvinox wrote:
| voltage-min-design: 11.58 V
|
| This has nothing to do with USB-C, this is the minimum
| design voltage of your lithium ion battery pack. In this
| case, you have a 4-cell pack, and if the cells drop below
| 2.895V that means they're physically f*cked and HP would
| like to sell you a new battery. (Sometimes that can be
| fixed by trickle charging, depending on how badly f*cked
| the battery is.)
|
| If your laptop's USB-C circuitry were built for it, you
| could charge it from 5V. (Slowly, of course.) It's not
| even that much of a stretch given laptops are built with
| "NVDC"1 power systems, and any charger input goes into a
| buck-boost voltage regulator anyway.
|
| 1 google "NVDC power", e.g. https://www.monolithicpower.c
| om/en/learning/resources/batter... (scroll down to it)
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It's a 3A supply up to the 100W one, that gets upped to
| 5A at higher voltages.
|
| Varying voltage power supplies are usually capped by
| current, not power. That's because many of the
| components, set maximum current and voltage that you must
| obey independently.
|
| At higher voltages people start accepting higher loses in
| stuff like cables, because fire-safety becomes a more
| important concern than efficiency. So the standard
| relaxes things a little bit.
| eqvinox wrote:
| You're correct but it's irrelevant. My point was that
| these requirements are in the standard and if you want to
| put the USB logo on a power brick you need to meet them.
| And the consumer is intended to be able to rely on them -
| which was & still is a pretty good idea considering the
| USB-C cable carnage.
|
| I wish they did something like this for USB-C cables, but
| it's probably too late.
| _blk wrote:
| Thanks for the write up, I didn't know that.
| tjoff wrote:
| They probably require higher voltages but I havent seen one
| myself. I usually just charge y laptop with my phone
| charger, what is it, 18 watts? Don't care, charges my
| laptop and the phone that is plugged into it overnight. Why
| charge at faster speeds when there is no need to
|
| Laptop charges fine regular 5V as well.
| izacus wrote:
| Most laptops will take 45W. There might be some
| workstations that don't, but even gaming stuff with 5080s
| will charge on 45W.
| folmar wrote:
| My Thinkpad T490 will happily take any power provided
| voltage is high enough (15V+).
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| With 802.3bt type 4 (71W delivered, 90W consumed), absolutely
| achievable with the proper electronics, but would you trust a
| no-name, fly-by-night NIC to not fry your expensive devices?
| That's the biggest hurdle. Possibly a company like Apple,
| Anker, or similar megacorp or high-trust startup could pull if
| off.
| gertrunde wrote:
| I think class 4 tops out at about 71W delivered to the powered
| device, albeit 90W at the switch port.
|
| Might be a struggle I suspect!
| userbinator wrote:
| Yes, but look up the prices for PoE switches and you might
| reconsider.
| wallst07 wrote:
| PoE can be cheap, but usually never cheaper than non-poe. But
| if you have a PoE switch and spare ports, its very nice.
|
| The problem comes when you try to design a large network and
| need random PoE ports on end devices where you can't home-run
| a cable back.
|
| I have a Unifi Pro XG 48 PoE and I love it, but I still don't
| use PoE for everything. The cost of a (non unifi) poe device
| + the cost of using one of those ports always exceeds a
| simple power adapter on the other side (if possible).
|
| I think about this a lot.
| lostlogin wrote:
| The idea of a POE Mac mini makes me happy. It would be a nice
| way of power cycling it from the switch, tidier than the smart
| plug I have.
|
| https://hackaday.com/2023/08/14/adding-power-over-ethernet-s...
| yonatan8070 wrote:
| It's undoubtably a cool solution, but in why do you need to
| remotely do a hard power cycle? Won't just SSHing in and
| rebooting be enough?
| wallst07 wrote:
| And when ssh is down because you OOMd or something else?
| yonatan8070 wrote:
| I don't really run heavy loads on my home server, so I
| haven't thought of that
|
| Makes sense, thanks!
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| I found a 5gbe one that claimed 60W, will power a phone but not
| the low power laptop I've got here. It probably isn't far off.
| mjlee wrote:
| I can't find what you want, but you can buy PoE splitters. PoE
| in, ethernet and power out.
|
| Surely a matter of time until someone does this...
| knolan wrote:
| We used PoE hats for a bunch of Raspberry Pis once. It's
| definitely a great idea.
| da768 wrote:
| Somewhat, there are a few expensive "PoE to Data + Power"
| adapters out there
|
| https://www.procetpoe.com/poe-usb-converter/ (some of these are
| power-only)
| kotaKat wrote:
| PoE Texas sells the most compatible adapters for this use.
|
| https://shop.poetexas.com/products/gbt-usbc-pd-usbc?variant=...
|
| 65W 802.3bt and gigabit Ethernet out on the same PD cable.
|
| Also a crude fixed hub for data and a keyboard and mouse for
| docking laptops:
|
| https://shop.poetexas.com/products/bt-usbc-a-pd?variant=3938...
| oever wrote:
| Doing home automation of lamps, sensors, speakers via PoE would
| be great too. It should faster and more stable than Zigbee/Wifi
| and with no need to change the batteries often.
| eqvinox wrote:
| Too bad this is 10Gbase-T, that energy-wasting hot-running
| garbage needs to die sooner rather than later. Good thing the
| ranges for 25Gbase-T are short enough to make it impractical for
| home use.
|
| (Fibre is nowhere near as "sensitive" as some people believe.)
| zrm wrote:
| The problem with fibre isn't the sensitivity. It's that most
| endpoints have a 1Gbps copper port on them and then Cat6A ports
| can be used with the common devices but also allow you to add
| or relocate 10Gbps devices without rewiring the building again.
| HappMacDonald wrote:
| However -- unlike copper twisted pair -- the bandwidth
| current fiber media can carry is nearly limited by nothing
| but the optics at each end.
| zrm wrote:
| That doesn't solve the chicken and egg problem.
|
| What probably would is something like having PCIe and USB
| to 1Gbps fiber adapters that cost $5.
| simoncion wrote:
| You've been able to get Intel X520 NICs [0], with
| transceivers included for ~40USD on Newegg for a long
| time. This is a little more than double the price of
| Newegg's cheapest single-port 10/100/1000 copper card,
| but even the cheapest available such card is three times
| your "chicken and egg"-solving price point.
|
| I suspect the combination of the absence of cheap-o all-
| in-one AP/router combo boxes with _any_ SFP+ cages and
| fiber cabling 's reputation of being _extremely_ fragile
| have much more to do with its scarcity at the extremely
| low end of networking gear than anything else.
|
| [0] This is a two-port SFP+ PCI Express card
| zrm wrote:
| You can get copper ones for $5.99 (quality may vary):
|
| https://www.amazon.com/1000Mbps-Network-Performance-
| Gigabit-...
|
| https://www.amazon.com/SALAN-Ethernet-Portable-Internet-
| Conv...
|
| But it's not competing with those, it's competing with
| the copper port which is already built into most devices.
|
| Another thing that would work is something like this
| (also $5.99), but with one of the ports as fibre:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Gigabit-Ethernet-
| Splitter-1000Mbps-In...
|
| The point being you need some cheap way to plug in
| existing copper devices if you run fibre to the
| endpoints.
|
| This plus $5 for a transceiver is pretty close at $15:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Gigabit-Ethernet-Converter-Auto-
| Negot...
|
| But +$15 and an extra wall outlet per endpoint is still
| an inconvenience, and if a two-port device with its own
| power supply can be made for $15 then where is the
| PCIe/USB to fibre adapter for <$10?
| simoncion wrote:
| > (quality may vary):
|
| Yep. Good NICs last for approximately forever, life's
| _way_ too short to deal with maybe-flaky NICs, and the
| price difference between the Amazon Special and something
| that 's going to be _reliable_ is -what- two big boxes of
| Cheerios? Two dozen eggs? Not. Worth it.
|
| > But it's not competing with those, it's competing with
| the copper port which is already built into most devices.
|
| Correct! That's part of why I was so very surprised to
| see you suggesting that extremely cheap PCI Express and
| USB adapters would "solve the chicken and egg problem".
|
| > The point being you need some cheap way to plug in
| existing copper devices if you run fibre to the
| endpoints.
|
| That's called a multi-port switch. Netgear sells five-
| port gigabit ones for like 20 USD. Switches that have two
| SFP+ cages and eight copper gigabit ports [0] are six
| times the price of a cheap-o Netgear switch, but are
| something that's going to last at least a decade. It's
| also pretty uncommon to find SOHO switches that have SFP+
| cages and _don 't_ have at least one fixed copper port.
|
| > This plus $5 for a transceiver is pretty close at $15:
|
| If you're connecting a single device, why the hell would
| you use that when you could slap a copper SFP or SFP+
| module in the switch's cage and run a cable? If you're
| connecting multiple devices, then either install multiple
| copper modules and run multiple cables, run multiple
| copper cables from fixed copper ports on the switch, or
| put a switch where the existing copper devices are.
|
| [0] <https://mikrotik.com/product/css610_8g_2s_in>
| zrm wrote:
| > If you're connecting a single device, why the hell
| would you use that when you could slap a copper SFP or
| SFP+ module in the switch's cage and run a cable?
|
| The problem to be solved is that you want to be able to
| put fibre inside the walls of the building instead of
| copper. Running a new cable to the switch closet is the
| thing to be prevented.
|
| But if the wall jacks are fibre then you need some
| economical way of hooking them up to every printer and
| single-purpose device with a network port. If you have to
| buy another $100+ switch just to get from fibre to copper
| even when there is only one device near that jack, people
| aren't going to go for that.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| In practice though 10G via copper requires pretty perfect
| terminations. The slightest error leads to crosstalk issues.
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| Ymmv. I've got a mix of cheap premade patch cables and some
| I crimped from solid core, all cat5e, all holding 10gbe
| totally happily. I suspect that only works because they're
| a meter or two long but that reaches across the rack.
| spockz wrote:
| Is the energy consumption inherent to 10Gbase-T? Or is it that
| 1Gbit nics have been around forever and optimised ad infinitum?
|
| To be fair, the power consumption is also my biggest gripe with
| my WiFi 6 AP, they run extremely hot.
| eqvinox wrote:
| It's inherently worse than anything fibre, or even DAC cables
| (which are kinda cheating.) It needs a shitton of analog
| "magic" to work with the bandwidth limitations of copper
| cabling.
| teleforce wrote:
| Just wondering why you considered DAC cables cheating, is
| the analog magic mainly the impedance matching or I'm
| missing something?
| eqvinox wrote:
| DAC cables are cheating because due to the extremely
| short range limits (5m, 7m if you're very lucky) they can
| just put the 10Gbase-R/SFI signal straight on a pair of
| Copper at 10.3125 Gbaud.
|
| 10Gbase-T, to try to get to 100m, throws FEC on it and
| converts the signal to 4x PAM-16/THP at 800 Mbd, and then
| uses 4 copper pairs *bidirectionally*. That's the analog
| magic.
| spockz wrote:
| Okay. Sure. But why do we notice that on 10GbaseT and on 1?
| Is there some signal processing which is exponentially
| expensive at faster speeds? I've seen cards using 25W per
| port.
| eqvinox wrote:
| cf. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47908287
|
| Yes, that signal processing is massively more expensive.
| A 10Gbase-T PHY is a sophisticated DSP. Not sure if the
| power needs are exponential, given we only have a few
| data points, but it's in the ballpark.
|
| (1000base-T PHYs are already DSPs, but nowhere near as
| sophisticated)
| userbinator wrote:
| _Good thing the ranges for 25Gbase-T are short enough to make
| it impractical for home use._
|
| Anyone who talks about 25GBASE-T like it actually exists,
| doesn't know anything about what they're talking about.
| eqvinox wrote:
| Or is speaking in future terms.
|
| 40Gbase-T will never exist, sure. 25Gbase-T very likely will.
| ciupicri wrote:
| How easy can an ordinary home user install fiber in his home
| compared to a good old wire?
| markonen wrote:
| There's nothing hard about it if you can run pre-terminated
| patches. Which you typically can since the connectors are so
| small.
| ciupicri wrote:
| So you're saying users could buy stuff like this? "25m
| (82ft) Fiber Patch Cable, 1 Fiber, SC APC Simplex to SC APC
| Simplex, Single Mode (OS2), Riser (OFNR), 2.0mm, Tight-
| Buffered, Yellow", https://www.fs.com/eu-
| en/products/282133.html?attribute=1031...
|
| Heck, I don't even know what I should buy for 10G SFP+
| ports and a distance of say 30 meters. Guess, I'm back to
| CAT6 :-)
| markonen wrote:
| LC connectors are smaller and what the actual SFP+
| modules typically have. If you want to run a link with
| just one fiber, you need BiDi optics.
|
| FS does custom multi-fiber cable assemblies too (beyond
| the duplex patches which is basically the standard), and
| they can also include pull eyes on them if that'd be
| helpful.
|
| Single mode is a good choice, common wisdom used to be
| multimode for short runs but the single mode stuff is not
| much more expensive and the standard 10km optics will
| likely brute force the signal over any mistakes like
| cable kinks or dirt on the connectors.
| eqvinox wrote:
| > Guess, I'm back to CAT6 :-)
|
| If you learned what you need for 10GbT you can learn what
| you need for 10GbLR. Which is:
|
| LC connector, PC or UPC, duplex, OS1 or OS2, and SFP+
| modules saying "LR".
|
| Any of the following is wrong: SC, FC, LSH, E2000, ST,
| APC, simplex, OM[1-5], "SR" or "ER" SFPs.
|
| And that's short enough.
| wpm wrote:
| Nothing in my home has SFP ports other than my routers and my
| primary network switch (two, hooked up to the routers). All of
| my computers and USB adapters for laptops expect RJ45 at
| 10/100/1000/2500/5000/10000 Mbps. None of my runs are over 50
| ft.
|
| So IDGAF about how much "better" fiber is. It's unfathomably
| worse when you factor in the cost and work I'd need to do to
| convert everything and every new adapter I'd have to buy or
| build (can I get an $80 USB SFP adapter? Do I have a cable?).
| The extra marginal cost in electricity will take longer than
| the lifetime of my equipment to exceed the cost of redoing
| everything.
| shevy-java wrote:
| Will they be cheaper? I look at the RAM prices. Granted, RAM is
| in a different category than USB adapters, but I no longer trust
| anyone writing "will be cheaper" - the reality may be different
| to the projection made.
| jordand wrote:
| For Thunderbolt 4/5 docks, I've held off from buying a high-end
| Thunderbolt 5 dock as many still have 2.5GbE Ethernet and other
| limitations with displays. The CalDigit TS5 Plus is one of the
| only options with 10GbE and its $500 (and usually OoS). I managed
| to buy an ex-corporate refurb HP Thunderbolt 4 G4 dock for only
| ~$64 and would recommend others do the same (this has an Intel
| 2.5GbE and good display outputs)
| fmajid wrote:
| FWIW I got a Xikestor 10G adapter with the Realtek chipset from
| AliExpress and it underperforms my much cheaper 5G one.
| dijit wrote:
| Yeah. Just because it negotiates, doesn't mean it can utilise.
| superjan wrote:
| My favorite USB ethernet adapter is a lowly 100 MBit one that
| works everywhere without requiring driver downloads.
| mort96 wrote:
| All these USB version names. I used to know what they all meant,
| but then the USB IF went ahead and renamed them all and made a
| bunch of versions have the same name and renamed some versions to
| have the same name as the old name of other versions.
|
| I have absolutely no idea what anyone means when they say USB 3.2
| gen 2x2. I used to know what USB 3.2 meant but it's certainly not
| that.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| Oh, it's fine.
|
| The lack of clarity is in keeping with the USB C connector
| itself, which may supply or accept power at various rates or
| not at all, may be fast or slow, may provide or accept video or
| not, and may even provide an interpretation of PCI Express but
| probably doesn't.
|
| It probably looks the same no matter what, and the cable
| selected to use probably also won't be very forthcoming with
| its capabilities either.
|
| (Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.)
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| This quagmire (along with the version names) is why I call it
| the Unintuitive Serial Bus.
| wongarsu wrote:
| The USB A connector stayed the same between USB 1, 2 and 3.
| Yet most manufacturers voluntary distinguished them by giving
| USB 1 and 1.1 a white insert in plug and port, USB 2 a black
| insert and USB 3 a blue one
|
| This was neither standarized nor enforced, yet it worked
| remarkably well in the real world
|
| Then we decided to just have no markings at all on USB C
| cables. On the ports at least we occasionally get little
| thunderbolt or power symbols
| mbreese wrote:
| The exterior of the USB A connector stayed the same. The
| number of pins increased when we went from USB 2 to 3. So,
| even in this case, it's slightly more complicated. The
| colors helped because the capabilities were very different
| between the ports. But when the USB IF increased the number
| of options (and reduced the size of the connector),
| different colors became impossible to do.
|
| The problem is that there are too many uses for one
| connector. But this is wha we wanted - a reduced number of
| standardized connector/power options.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| > But when the USB IF increased the number of options
| (and reduced the size of the connector), different colors
| became impossible to do.
|
| Some USB C cables identify their capabilities visually or
| electronically. All USB C cables could do this.
|
| > But this is wha we wanted - a reduced number of
| standardized connector/power options.
|
| We meant who?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _The lack of clarity is in keeping with the USB C connector
| itself, which may supply or accept power at various rates or
| not at all, may be fast or slow, may provide or accept video
| or not, and may even provide an interpretation of PCI Express
| but probably doesn 't._
|
| It gets even worse.
|
| I now have two cheap Chinese gadgets (a checki printer and a
| tire inflater) that have USB-C ports for charging, but will
| only charge with the wire that came with the gadget. The
| other end of which is an old-style USB plug.
|
| It seems that USB-C sockets are cheap enough parts to use
| them for everything, even if the manufacturer isn't going to
| put any actual USB circuitry behind them.
|
| Edit: Three. I forgot about my wife's illuminated makeup
| mirror.
| anamexis wrote:
| I keep a few of these around to deal with this:
| https://www.adafruit.com/product/6323
|
| Very annoying though! The devices are just missing a couple
| resistors which is probably less than a cent on the BOM.
| mh- wrote:
| Wow, thanks for sharing this. Like the parent commenter,
| I have an increasing number of cheap devices like this. I
| wonder if anyone sells an "enclosed" version of this
| product. This won't survive 5 minutes in my house, haha.
|
| A quick google I found one but they're $17 each (!) and
| it's from a site I've never heard of and can't vouch for,
| so not bothering to link it here.
|
| I'm really surprised there aren't a number of these all
| over Amazon. Or if there are, they're using different
| keywords to describe them, so I can't find them.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Ah that's a fun misuse of USB ports. The companies will
| often even dodge issues with the USB-IF by labeling the
| ports as Type C and letting the customer's mind fill in the
| word USB.
|
| I wish these devices would just use barrel jacks, labeled
| with the voltage and polarity. But these manufacturers know
| that the USB-C port weighs into buying decisions (and they
| know that most people have zero clue about the difference
| between a physical port and the electrical/protocol specs).
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I hate barrel jacks, it seems that every single time I
| encounter one it's different from any adaptor I have.
| Size, voltage, and polarity can all differ. People got
| sick of having 10 differnet power adatpters to charge
| stuff. Hence the demand for "single connector" which
| seems to have converged on the USB-C form factor.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Right, but if it's not actually USB-C, at best you're
| looking at the device not working when plugged into a
| proper USB-C power supply. At worst you're facing fried
| electronics.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Agreed that would be like wiring a standard North
| American household wall outlet with 240VAC. Technically
| possible, but will probably fry anything not expecting
| it.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| I came across a group of racks in the IT room in a (US)
| factory once that had 208v on their standard NEMA 5-15R
| sockets.
|
| Their global-market IT stuff didn't care at all. But some
| of the US-market audio stuff I was integrating came with
| old-school linear power supplies, and those items cared a
| great deal.
| flemhans wrote:
| Or just include a $0.03 pd negotiator in the circuit
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Note: If it just needs 5V power (Like many microcontroller-
| focused devices), USB C is convenient, because chargers and
| cables are ubiquitous. And they all (WIth exceptions like
| the one you mentioned) support 5V DC power.
|
| Bonus: YOu can enable USB 2.0 data transfer as well for
| firmware updates, computer interfaces etc.
|
| So: Cheap/ubiquitous part, everyone has cables + AC
| adapters to their local plug: I think it's a great default
| power connector.
| nfriedly wrote:
| I repaired device like that a while back - it only took two
| half-cent resistors and a half-assed soldering job to make
| it compatible with standard USB-C cables and chargers:
| https://www.nfriedly.com/techblog/2021-10-10-v90-usb-c/
| ssl-3 wrote:
| Yeah, they got cheap. They either got cheap with the BOM,
| or they got cheap with the QC and never tested it with USB
| C power sources, or they got cheap with the spec and it's
| working as-designed.
|
| It just takes a couple of insignificant resistors and a USB
| C socket that brings out CC1 and CC2 to pads on the board
| to do it right. I wrote about how that works in a sister
| comment if you want to read more.
|
| But those devices will charge/work just fine with any bog-
| standard USB A to USB C cable, alongside any decent power
| brick with USB A outputs. It doesn't have to be the exact
| cables they came with.
|
| It's annoying in the " _you cheap bastards_ " sort of way,
| but regular A to C cables will work.
|
| (If it's really important to you, then it can be possible
| to hack in a couple of 5.1k resistors inside the cheap-
| bastard devices and make them work with regular USB C power
| bricks and regular USB C to C cables. The resistors will
| tell the source to provide 5v at up to 3A. All compliant
| USB C cables are required to safely pass 3A.
|
| The mod can range from very easy, to somewhat problematic,
| to "fuck this, I quit". In reality, there might already be
| pads on the board to connect CC1 and CC2 to ground; just
| solder in the resistors. Or, the pins are _probably_
| brought out at the connector itself, so it can be bodged
| with some extra wire.
|
| But reality is a cruel mistress and not all available PCB-
| mounted USB C connectors expose CC1 and CC2 at all,
| although in a sane and pure world absolutely all of them
| _should_.)
|
| [tl;dr, just keep an A to C cable with the devices, always
| have USB A where they get used, and forget about it. The
| next round of cheap stuff will be better, worse, or the
| same, and that's a future problem.]
| tomchuk wrote:
| ... and a M1 MacBook will source 5V/3A all day long to a non-
| PD negotiated sink. Somewhere between the M1 and M3 Apple
| decided to buy into USB-IF compliance and limit to 500mA.
|
| Has lead to some very embarrassing "works on my computer"
| situations on prototype boards shared with my EE colleagues
| (I'm a software guy who dabbles in hardware when I need to)
| eigen wrote:
| I think the Rd pulldown options are for 0.9/1.5/3A without
| PD negotiation.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| It doesn't take PD negotiation to get 5v, 3A from a
| compliant source. A 5.1k resistor or two (quantity depends
| on placement in the overall circuit) is sufficient.
|
| This may be a matter of semantics, but I can't bring myself
| to call a resistor a negotiator. They only do one thing and
| they're very resistant to other options. :)
|
| With nothing connected to the CC line(s) at all, then there
| should be no output voltage on Vcc. It shouldn't be 5v @
| 3a, or 500mA, or anything else -- it should be ~exactly 0v,
| and therefore also 0a.
|
| A resistor or two tells the power source what we want.
| Without it (or some, you know, actual PD negotiations), we
| get nothing.
|
| ---
|
| A careful reader will note the repeated quantity
| distinction. Let me explain that.
|
| Every USB C socket has both CC1 and CC2 pins. They're on
| opposite side of the connector and get used for sorting out
| PD, and for detecting the cable's connector orientation
| (if/when that matters).
|
| But a cromulent USB C to USB C cable can have just 1 CC
| wire, and that's OK. It works; it isn't even wrong. To get
| such a cable to coax 5v from a 5v/3a source and get power
| for a prototype widget on Gilligan's Island, with the cable
| already cut in half to get at the wires inside: Wire up
| power and ground to your prototype. And put a 5.1k resistor
| between that single CC wire and ground. Voila: We've
| requested 5v at _up to_ 3a.
|
| Or: If we're being a bit more proper and snooty and want to
| do it The Right Way, and we actually have a USB C jack to
| prototype with, then that more-ideally takes two 5.1k
| resistors; one to pull CC1 to ground, and another to pull
| CC2 to ground. This does the same thing, but it does it on
| the connector side of things instead of the daunting no-
| mans-land of wires. Only one of these resistors will ever
| be used at one time.
|
| Or: If we have a USB C jack and can only scrounge up one
| 5.1k resistor (maybe we only have a single #2 pencil to
| whittle down to 5.1k of resistance), or we're being
| particularly lazy, then that's OK too. Pick CC1 or CC2 and
| put 5.1k between there and ground. It will work with the
| cable plugged in one way, and it won't work with the cable
| flipped 180 degrees. That can be enough to get a thing done
| for the moment or whatever. (There's no solution that is as
| permanent as a temporary one.)
|
| ---
|
| These are some of the things I learned when I was in the
| field and needed a 5v, >2.5a power supply to replace one
| that had died. I said to myself, "Self, just go over to
| Wal-Mart and get a 3a USB C power brick that comes with a
| cable, cut and splice that cable to fit the widget that
| needs power, and call it done. If it dies in the future,
| replacing it will be intuitive and fast."
|
| So dumb ol' me went to Wal-Mart and bought exactly that,
| and I quite confidently set forth with the splicing.
|
| This did not work. At all.
|
| And that was a harsh rabbit hole to dive into, but it was
| ultimately fine. After I got back that evening I soldered a
| 5.1k resistor (of 1206 SMD form) mid-span between the CC
| wire and ground, and finished the adapter-cable quite
| neatly with some adhesive-lined shrink tubing.
|
| Doing it this way got the customer's gear working faster
| than ordering the "right" parts and waiting for them show
| up would have, and it still works. That's all been a few
| years ago now; I consider it to be as permanent as anything
| ever really is.
| JSR_FDED wrote:
| I'm printing this out for next time I'm stuck on an
| island.
| Latty wrote:
| To be fair they seem to have taken this often-stated criticism
| on board. USB 4's naming is more sensible, and they've pushed
| the simple data speed & power labelling that makes it easier to
| work out what you need.
| mort96 wrote:
| I don't think they've taken the criticism on board, USB 3
| still has the completely nonsensical names
| Gigachad wrote:
| The modern usb naming is to just list the speed or power
| output of the port.
|
| Rather than some absurd version number it's now just "USB
| 20 Gbits"
| mort96 wrote:
| Then why do I still see USB 3.2 generation 2x2
| Gigachad wrote:
| I'm not sure I've ever seen that on a product
| description. But at any rate, USB IF doesn't have any
| ability to enforce branding guidelines unless the product
| uses the official USB logo.
| usagisushi wrote:
| Yeah, now it's USB4 Version 2.0 / USB 80Gbps / USB4 Gen4.
| ac29 wrote:
| According to wikipedia the current marketing names for USB
| are just their speed: USB 5/10/20/40/80 Gbps. No version
| numbers or anything else.
| mort96 wrote:
| Then what's 3.2 gen 2x2?
| Gigachad wrote:
| USB 20gbit
| ButlerianJihad wrote:
| Your carbon footprint is twenty grams of bitumen
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rate
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| USB is just a complete mess. I don't mind so much ports having
| different capabilities if they are well documented in the
| specification sheets of the hardware because then at least I
| can find out what they are capable of, but alas it never seems
| to be the case. Its very hard to work out whether a port can do
| Displayport and to what extent/performance or its true power
| capability or just its real data transfer speed. More often
| than I like I have just hoped that something works. Anything
| above 5W charging and 5gbps transfer is optional.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _USB is just a complete mess._
|
| You have to go out of your way to make Apple's Lightning
| connector look sensible, but somehow the USB consortium has
| managed to do it.
| drcongo wrote:
| I miss lightning. Cleanable with a toothpick and some
| compressed air. The USB-C port on my current iPhone is now
| compacted with pocket lint and I can't seem to clean it
| out.
| dcrazy wrote:
| Toothpick and compressed air works for my phone.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| It had a pretty bad flaw: the spring contacts being on
| the device side, causing wear and tear there.
|
| USB-C moved those to the much cheaper to replace cable.
| The little strip in the middle makes cleaning a bit
| harder but does provide for more longevity. It's s
| necessary evil in order to have the spring contacts on
| the plug side as well as not having them exposed to
| touch.
|
| I think the plug side of USB is pretty well designed. The
| problem is more with the electrical and signalling side
| and the marketing of the different versions.
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| To be fair, lightning only looks sensible because it never
| did anything other than USB2 and power delivery.
| gsnedders wrote:
| A few devices do support USB 5Gbps over Lightning!
| jasomill wrote:
| I have an Intel NUC where 10 Gbps devices can run faster when
| plugged into the 3.1 Gen 2 ports than the Thunderbolt 3 ports
| under NVMe load, due to the former having dedicated PCIe
| lanes and the latter sharing the PCH lanes with the M.2
| slots, which could be highly relevant if I were doing heavy
| disk I/O over a 10 Gbit Ethernet adapter.
|
| This is more than a mild annoyance in the case of faster
| Thunderbolt devices like eGPUs, especially since, in addition
| to the 2 PCIe lanes dedicated to the USB ports and a third
| dedicated to an SD card slot, _an additional five lanes are
| unused_.
|
| IIRC there was a reason at one point that Intel insisted on
| connecting Thunderbolt controllers through the PCH, but I
| don't understand why they didn't at least use four lanes for
| one of the M.2 slots. Sure, they may have had to move the SD
| card slot due to configuration limitations, but in what world
| is SD card performance more important than NVMe performance?
| TomatoCo wrote:
| Going by Fabien Sanglard's cheat sheet (who I trust
| uncritically) https://fabiensanglard.net/usbcheat/index.html it
| looks like 3.2 actually is a broader term than expected. Maybe
| there was some awful attempt at backwards compatibility? Or
| forwards?
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Great site, thanks for the link. But holy heck, that "Also
| Known As" column is complete chaos. What the heck is wrong
| with the USB Consortium, do they have brain damage?
|
| Also, according to that table, "USB4 Gen 2x2" is a downgrade
| on "USB 3.2 Gen 2x2", since the cable length is 0.8m instead
| of 1m for the same speeds. Which is uhh unexpected.
| BearOso wrote:
| The cable length is only for the spec. You can get longer
| cables that achieve the higher bandwidth, they're just not
| certified for that.
| mort96 wrote:
| And? The question stands, why is the USB 4 spec a
| downgrade?
| BearOso wrote:
| Probably because with USB 3.2 2x2 they were reviewing too
| many longer cables that didn't meet the requirements, so
| they lowered the length so companies didn't submit them
| only to fail to get certified. It's worth noting that
| 1.2m is now in the USB4 spec.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Right, so per spec it is a downgrade.
| wpm wrote:
| Yeah I what I would give to have been a fly on the wall in
| the room where they decided to roll with such an obviously
| terrible and stupid naming scheme. Did anyone protest? Did
| anyone boldly dissent? Or did they all really just sit
| around and pat themselves on the back?
| lpcvoid wrote:
| I really, really wish somebody would explain to me what thr
| USB consortium was smoking, yeah. I cannot explain it.
| numpad0 wrote:
| It allows manufacturers to clear old stocks of cables by
| rebranding them as latest products.
|
| USB 1+2/3/4 are basically unrelated standards under the
| same USB umbrella. USB4 especially is just Thunderbolt/PCIe
| x4 with features. If Betamax was branded as "VHS 2.0"
| instead of being a separate standard it would have been
| felt similar to the USB4 situation.
| renticulous wrote:
| I predict in future when our civilization will advance to
| higher level, this phenomenon will happen with english words
| and jargons. e.g. here are versioned and namespaced words.
| topology.bio.23, topology.math.45 etc.
|
| Welcome to the brave new world we will enter in far future.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Unfortunately "USB 3.2" is just a version of the standard,
| which does not give any information about the performance of a
| USB port or device.
|
| USB 5 Gb/s = USB 3.2 gen 1, available on Type A or Type C
| connectors (or on devices on a special extended micro B
| connector)
|
| USB 10 Gb/s = USB 3.2 gen 2, available on Type A or Type C
| connectors
|
| USB 20 Gb/s = USB 3.2 gen 2x2, available only on Type C
| connectors
|
| Moreover, "5 Gb/s" is a marketing lie. The so-called USB of 5
| Gb/s has a speed of 4 Gb/s (the same as PCIe 2.0). On the other
| hand, 10 Gb/s and 20 Gb/s, have the claimed speeds, so USB of
| 10 Gb/s is 2.5 times faster than USB of 5 Gb/s, not 2 times
| faster.
|
| 10 Gb/s USB and Ethernet have truly the same speed, but the USB
| overhead is somewhat higher, leading to a somewhat lower speed.
| However, the speed shown in TFA, not much higher than 7 Gb/s
| seems too low, and it may be caused by the Windows drivers. It
| is possible that on other operating systems, e.g. Linux, one
| can get a higher transfer speed.
| mbreese wrote:
| The fact that you had to list all of the versions and speeds
| at the top of your post is illustrative of what the parent
| was trying to say. We can all look up what speed is
| associated with what version, but it's not exactly a consumer
| friendly experience.
| adrian_b wrote:
| A few computer manufacturers do the right thing and they
| mark the speed on the USB ports, removing ambiguities, for
| example ASUS does this on my NUCs and motherboards.
|
| Unfortunately, there are too many who do not do this, even
| among the biggest computer vendors.
| riobard wrote:
| > mark the speed on the USB ports, removing ambiguities
|
| Unfortunately it's not true.
|
| Quiz: what happens when a device capable of 20Gbps is
| plugged into a port marked as 40Gbps?
| ziml77 wrote:
| I can't tell if this is a trick question that has
| something to do with a quirk of USB running multiple
| lanes in parallel to get higher speeds.
|
| Because if not then it's the same as any specification
| for connecting devices that allows for multiple speeds.
| It runs at the lowest of the max speeds supported of
| everything in the chain.
| riobard wrote:
| That's exactly the issue. I'm just pointing out that it's
| a fantasy to hope for simple numbering of max supported
| speeds will simplify the current USB mess.
|
| It will not.
|
| Consumers would expect plugging a 20Gbps device into a
| 40Gbps port should result in 20Gbps negotiated speed. In
| reality it will mostly likely end up at 10Gbps (or less)
| because of the mess.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Older Thunderbolt devices were not compatible with USB,
| so plugging them into an USB Type C port would not work.
|
| Newer Thunderbolt/USB 4 devices do not have any technical
| reason for preventing them to work as USB 3.2 2x2, i.e.
| to work at 20 Gb/s when plugged into a 20 Gb/s host port,
| and vice-versa for 20 Gb/s devices plugged into a USB
| 4/Thunderbolt host port, because both Thunderbolt and 20
| Gb/s USB need the same wires in the cable and connector.
|
| I do not know if all USB 4 controllers also work at 20
| Gb/s (USB 3.2 2x2), but if they do not work that should
| be considered a bug.
| eqvinox wrote:
| USB4/TB4 devices doing (only) PCIe tunneling will
| absolutely not work on a USB3.2 port, or even on an USB4
| port without PCIe support (which you can find on some
| very recent smartphones I believe. It's spec compliant,
| PCIe is optional.)
| hypercube33 wrote:
| Thats just port speed, charging and other features are all
| a crapshoot on USB making Thunderbolt the sane version of
| the "USB-C" family where it requires a set of things
| (speed, charging wattage)
| repeekad wrote:
| This is not what's anti consumer, technical specifications
| can be confusing, it's cable companies selling at Best Buy
| "gold plated" "HD ready" "braided fiber" "other bs" that is
| anti consumer. If you're thinking about usb versions,
| you're far from the normal consumer
| eqvinox wrote:
| > Moreover, "5 Gb/s" is a marketing lie.
|
| It's not a lie, the b just stands for baud not bit ;-)
| adrian_b wrote:
| That is technically correct, but "b" has never been an
| accepted abbreviation for baud (which was Bd) and the
| naming of the first versions of the PCIe, USB 3 and SATA
| speeds, which were done by Intel, were obviously in
| contradiction with the industry standards and intended to
| confuse the customers.
|
| Previously to these standards promoted by Intel, the 1 Gb/s
| Ethernet used the same encoding and it was rightly called
| by everybody "1 Gb/s", not "1.25 Gb/s", because the gross
| bit rate has absolutely no importance for the users of a
| communication standard.
|
| Only Intel invented this marketing trick, calling PCIe 1.0
| and 2.0 as 2.5 and 5 Gb/s, instead of 2 and 4 Gb/s, and
| similarly for USB and SATA, where e.g. SATA 3 is called 6
| Gb/s, but its speed is 4.8 Gb/s.
|
| To be fair, what Intel did was not unusual, because in the
| computing industry there has been a long tradition of using
| fake numbers in marketing for various things, like scanner
| or video camera resolution ("digital" zoom, "interpolated"
| resolution), magnetic tape capacity ("compressed"
| capacity), and many others.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| The Ethernet version would have been much sillier than
| that. The megabaud rates for 10/100/1000 Ethernet are in
| fact 20, 125, and 125.
| eqvinox wrote:
| Yeah, it was a tongue-in-cheek comment. It's a shitshow,
| and I wish it'd backfire, but it won't. Maybe the EU will
| come up with some (better) "true labelling" laws, if not
| I see no chance for this to get better.
|
| (Why the current laws don't cover this, I have no idea.
| It's technically false advertising.)
| rewgs wrote:
| "gen 2x2" is Microsoft level bad naming.
| guax wrote:
| And USB gen 4x4 is for off-roading.
| mort96 wrote:
| USB 3.2 used to be what we now call USB 3.2 gen 2x2, doesn't
| it? So it _used to be_ that the version dictated the max
| speed: 3.0 was 4Gb /s, 3.1 was 10, and 3.2 20, right?
|
| But then they decided to memory hole that and now USB 3.0 and
| USB 3.1 are also USB 3.2 and USB 3.2 is called "generation
| 2x2", whatever that is supposed to mean
|
| It makes no sense anymore. It used to be quite simple.
| Aerofoli wrote:
| No, they just renamed things when new standards were
| released (3.1 and 3.2). 20Gbps wasn't possible before 3.2,
| and it called Gen 2x2 at the time of release.
|
| 5 and 10 Gbps were renamed, though.
|
| 5 Gbps first was USB 3.0, then 3.1 Gen 1, then 3.2 Gen 1.
|
| 10 Gbps first was 3.1 Gen 2, then 3.2 Gen 2x1.
|
| 3.2 Gen 1x2 is also 10 Gbps, but physically different
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Do any real devices use 1x2? I think we largely escaped
| that mess and it's mostly a strict progression of 5Gbps,
| 10Gbps, 10Gbps*2, 20Gbps*2, 40Gbps*2
| compounding_it wrote:
| In all this, people now just go to the Apple Store and buy a
| cable for their Apple device. This confusion benefitted such
| vendors and now they sell 1$ cable for an absurd amount of
| profit.
| post-it wrote:
| I will say, casual users don't really care. Pretty much any
| combination of a wall plug and a cable will charge a phone at
| acceptable speeds, and that's all 99% of people need.
| robotnikman wrote:
| In my experience, its just best to stick with Thunderbolt when
| you want to make sure you are getting the best speed for
| external devices that require it (external SSD's, Graphics
| Cards, Network adapters)
|
| Much easier and reliable than navigating the confusing sea of
| USB standards
| jasomill wrote:
| While I generally agree, there are still corner cases:
|
| As I mentioned above, a Thunderbolt port can end up with less
| dedicated bandwidth than a 10 Gbps USB port due to PCIe lane
| configuration.
|
| Thunderbolt 3 only provides 22 Gbps PCIe bandwidth even if
| only a single device is connected.
|
| Apple's TB2-to-TB3 adapter will connect any TB2 device to any
| TB3 host, and any TB3 (not USB) device to any TB2 host
| _unless_ it 's bus powered, in which case you need to daisy-
| chain a second TB3 device with two ports to supply power.
|
| While Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4 PCIe are largely
| interchangeable, and while Thunderbolt 4 devices are
| backwards-compatible with Thunderbolt 3 hosts, USB 4 PCIe
| devices are not required to support Thunderbolt 3 hosts.
| souravroy78 wrote:
| Can these support local LLM's?
| simonjgreen wrote:
| From the source of the RealTek 8129/8139 PCI NIC driver in
| FreeBSD: (old, not directly relevant, just amusing)
| https://elixir.bootlin.com/freebsd/v10.2/source/sys/pci/if_r...
|
| /* * RealTek 8129/8139 PCI NIC driver * * Supports several
| extremely cheap PCI 10/100 adapters based on * the RealTek
| chipset. Datasheets can be obtained from * www.realtek.com.tw. *
| * Written by Bill Paul <wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu> * Electrical
| Engineering Department * Columbia University, New York City _/ /_
| * The RealTek 8139 PCI NIC redefines the meaning of 'low end.'
| This is * probably the worst PCI ethernet controller ever made,
| with the possible * exception of the FEAST chip made by SMC. The
| 8139 supports bus-master * DMA, but it has a terrible interface
| that nullifies any performance * gains that bus-master DMA
| usually offers. * * For transmission, the chip offers a series of
| four TX descriptor * registers. Each transmit frame must be in a
| contiguous buffer, aligned * on a longword (32-bit) boundary.
| This means we almost always have to * do mbuf copies in order to
| transmit a frame, except in the unlikely * case where a) the
| packet fits into a single mbuf, and b) the packet * is 32-bit
| aligned within the mbuf's data area. The presence of only * four
| descriptor registers means that we can never have more than four
| * packets queued for transmission at any one time. * * Reception
| is not much better. The driver has to allocate a single large *
| buffer area (up to 64K in size) into which the chip will DMA
| received * frames. Because we don't know where within this region
| received packets * will begin or end, we have no choice but to
| copy data from the buffer * area into mbufs in order to pass the
| packets up to the higher protocol * levels. * * It's impossible
| given this rotten design to really achieve decent * performance
| at 100Mbps, unless you happen to have a 400Mhz PII or * some
| equally overmuscled CPU to drive it. * * On the bright side, the
| 8139 does have a built-in PHY, although * rather than using an
| MDIO serial interface like most other NICs, the * PHY registers
| are directly accessible through the 8139's register * space. The
| 8139 supports autonegotiation, as well as a 64-bit multicast *
| filter. * * The 8129 chip is an older version of the 8139 that
| uses an external PHY * chip. The 8129 has a serial MDIO interface
| for accessing the MII where * the 8139 lets you directly access
| the on-board PHY registers. We need * to select which interface
| to use depending on the chip type. */
| eqvinox wrote:
| 8159 != 8139
|
| > /* * RealTek 8129/8139 PCI NIC driver * * Supports several
| extremely cheap PCI 10/100 adapters based on [...]
|
| Also, please, for the love of whatever entity, at least remove
| the *s on that paste. This is just atrocious and disrespectful
| of any reader.
| daneel_w wrote:
| Those comments are about the 25 years old RTL8139, among the
| world's first highly affordable and fully-integrated Fast
| Ethernet controllers that ended up on pretty much every
| motherboard. Contrary to all of the aged complaints about the
| RTL8139, I ran several such on OpenBSD (and Windows) for close
| to ten years with no problems at all.
| kalleboo wrote:
| > _unless you happen to have a 400Mhz PII or some equally
| overmuscled CPU to drive it_
|
| Oh no!
| realxrobau wrote:
| Are there any that actually have a SFP+ port? That's all I want.
| No one wants to use 10g ethernet when DACs are cheaper than cat7,
| and you can just change it up to a $7 multimode when you need
| longer runs.
| Galanwe wrote:
| 10G DACs are no cheaper than cat6, which is perfectly fine for
| 10G at most practical distances. Considering the target
| audience of these cards it seems pretty obvious to me that
| letting users "just buy a cat 6 cable" is miles more reasonable
| than having them buy a transceiver or DAC.
|
| As for allowing to switch to fiber, that just seems orthogonal
| again to what these USB NICs are for, not to mention the SFP+
| itself is probably more expensive than the NIC shown here...
| Fnoord wrote:
| DACs are very cheap (second hand and AliExpress) and they
| never use much W. If both machines are near each other though
| (which a DAC cable implies) and both run Linux and both
| support Thunderbolt, you might be better off with a direct
| ethernet over TB connection. Whether macOS supports such, I
| don't know.
|
| The other side will then also need a low power NIC (of which
| fiber and DAC over SFP+ are less power hungry). What this
| article doesn't mention, is that there are also a lot of PCIe
| NICs on the market which aren't power hungry (RTL8127), as
| well as RTL8261C for switches/routers.
|
| I've seen low power RTL NICs with SFP+ on it, too (example:
| [1]). With SFP+, you'll have a lot more versatility. DAC and
| SFP+ fiber are very cheap, btw. Especially second hand they
| go for virtually nothing. I have 10 SFP+ fiber lying around
| here doing nothing which I got for a few EUR each.
|
| For me as European with high energy prices and solar energy
| gotten the beat next year (in NL), this is all very
| interesting.
|
| There's a couple of good reasons why to opt for fiber in the
| home. You keep the energy between the different groups
| separated which can help. I also find fiber very easy to get
| through walls, allowing me to have multiple fiber connections
| through walls (currently I use 1x fiber + 1x ethernet for PoE
| possibilities from fusebox).
|
| With all above being said, AQC100S is low power and does not
| get very hot. You can get these with SFP+ and PCIe/TB.
| They've been available for a while.
|
| [1] https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005011733192115.html (no
| vouching for, just first hit on search)
| ZekeSulastin wrote:
| I just wish someone would come out with a PCIE 4x1 capable
| card with SFP - my main desktop's non-GPU expansion slots
| are all 4x1 electrically and even the one you linked is a
| 3x2. As far as I can tell the only 4x1 cards available are
| RTL8127 or AQC113 RJ45 ones :(
|
| I suppose an NVME riser is also an option, albeit janky.
| jburgess777 wrote:
| There are RTL8127 cards with SFP+, e.g.
| https://www.lekuo.com/product_view.php?id=659
|
| edit: on looking closer, that still seems to be an x4
| card.
| namibj wrote:
| Says electrically 3x2.
| wpm wrote:
| I can also buy a roll of CAT6 and a few dozen dollars in
| tools and RJ-45 connectors and make my own custom length
| cables.
| gsich wrote:
| Also SFPs are always a gamble. Might work, might not, you
| have multiple options, meanwhile with copper RJ-45 you are
| guaranteed that a link will be established.
| fmajid wrote:
| The SFP+ ones are all Thunderbolt or USB4 this far, i.e. not
| backward compatible with USB 3.x, like this QNAP one:
| https://www.qnap.com/en/product/qna-uc10g1sf
| buserror wrote:
| Modern transceivers can do 10G on absolutely garbage twisted
| pair. My house was wired with absolutely dire cat5 cabling.
| _Zero_ shielding and barely any copper in the pairs. I thought
| I 'd barely be able to do 1G on them, but modern transceivers
| (amazon) easily do 10G over like 30M of that sort of cables.
|
| In fact I had more trouble getting quality fiber working for
| that sort of distance than El Cheapo cat5. They do heat up a
| bit, but they work wonder.
| OneOffAsk wrote:
| Zero shielding may actually help. Shielding acts as an
| antenna when not properly grounded and continuous, which is
| more common than not.
| sixdonuts wrote:
| Yep, 10gb over copper is not power efficient so any savings you
| get from getting a cheap 10gb switch will just go to your power
| bill. Most cost effective and flexible is a used 25gb switch.
| Most 25gb switches can do 1/10/25gb. 10gb networking has been
| dead for over 10 years.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Interesting observation about power use. How close do you
| think we are to it being practical to wire your whole home
| with fiber instead of CAT6 or whatever? If you're providing
| all your own equipment, are willing to purchase a high-end
| splicer for maintenance, etc.
|
| For laptops I assume you need USB/Thunderbolt adapters.
| (Still no SFP+ or SFP28 module for Framework?)
|
| For desktops you'd use an SFP28 card (taking up a PCIe slot).
|
| For devices like Raspberry Pi's, etc. you'd use... local RJ45
| switches with optical uplink ports?
| rsync wrote:
| Wiring ports for humans to use in a flexible and future
| proof manner (as in a single family home, for instance)
| gains a lot of utility with PoE.
|
| The convenience and flexibility of PoE would always push me
| towards copper wiring.
| harrall wrote:
| You can just do a mix.
|
| Most of my devices only need 1G or even 100Mbps. No reason
| to switch to fiber. 1G/2.5G copper ports don't use that
| much power.
|
| For 10G+ things, it's fiber or DAC first if possible then
| RJ45 if it's the only option.
|
| Then my backhaul between rooms is just single mode fiber,
| good up to 800G. Plug in a small switch at the end and you
| go back to RJ45 and PoE.
|
| I only have 10G though (to transfer large files/RAWs
| between my computer and my storage). Something faster would
| be nice because NVMe SSDs can go 50G+ but that equipment is
| pricey and power hungry.
| sixdonuts wrote:
| If you need 1G or 10GB over copper you can just use a SFP
| or SFP+ media converter in a 25GB SFP28 switch port. If you
| have a POE requirement, say for video cameras you either
| use a dedicated 1GB POE switch or power injector. A
| 10GBASE-T (RJ-45 copper) switch consumes 3-12 watts per
| port and a 24 port switch will idle at 50 to 60 watts and
| run hot. SFP+ and SFP28 ports use under 1 watt per port. I
| would never recommend a 10GBASE-T copper switch for any use
| case in this day and age, home or enterprise.
| throwawaypath wrote:
| >10gb networking has been dead for over 10 years.
|
| Not even close to being true, unless you specifically mean
| 10Gbps over twisted pair (Cat6/7) cable. SFP+ is the default
| on a ton of network gear still.
| jburgess777 wrote:
| I think the point he is making is that the industry first
| went with a 10g single link, and then 40g over 4 links.
| Then they figured out how to do 25g over a single link, and
| 100g over 4 links. Those 25g/100g are common for enterprise
| switches. It might be fairer to say 40g is dead, 10g still
| has use cases.
|
| Edit to add: If you want an example, these are the NVidia
| ConnectX nics available from FS.com, the lowest end one is
| 25g, then 100g, 200g etc.
|
| https://www.fs.com/uk/c/nvidia-ethernet-nics-4014
| namibj wrote:
| What they mean is that the cost per bit both capex and
| opex/power is worse for 10G than 25G for a while now as
| long as you talk about new hardware.
|
| We're at the point where 25GBaud PAM4 is being replaced
| by 50GBaud PAM4. That's 50 to 100 Gbit/s.
|
| But iirc the use of PAM4 for the faster ones than "only"
| 25Gbit/s lanes is a hindrance to managing bottom-barrel
| price-per-bit. PCIe 3 was 8, PCIe4 was 16, and PCIe 5 is
| 32 GBaud with a line code basically like the 10+ Gbit/s
| Ethernet links (well, it's 66b/64b for Eth and 130b/128b
| for PCIe).
| Aurornis wrote:
| > No one wants to use 10g ethernet when DACs are cheaper than
| cat7,
|
| You don't need Cat7 for 10G.
|
| Cat6 is spec compliant up to 55mm. Cat6a to 100m, which is the
| same as Cat7.
|
| If you're doing short runs like to a nearby switch, good Cat5e
| works fine in practice. I've run 10G over Cat5e through the
| walls for medium runs without errors because it's all I had. It
| works in many cases, but you're out of spec.
|
| I use DAC where I can, but most people just want something they
| can plug into that RJ45 port in their wall that goes to the
| room down the hall where they put their switch.
|
| There are several SFP+ to Thunderbolt/USB4 adapters on the
| market. Not cheap, though.
| toast0 wrote:
| > No one wants to use 10g ethernet when DACs are cheaper than
| cat7,
|
| Ethernet is media independent. Yes, yes, it was first
| classified for thick net, but ethernet over twisted pair (rj45
| typically) is still ethernet despite the lack of vampire taps.
| You can run ethernet on thick or thin coax, twisted pair, dac,
| fiber, or even over the ether so to speak.
|
| That said, 10g over rj45 is pretty handy when you have existing
| wire in walls. In my experience, it runs fine on the cat5 (not
| even cat5e) that's already there. Maybe it won't work on all my
| runs, especially if I tried all at once, but so far, I'm two
| for two.
|
| The spec is for ~ 100m in dense conduit; real world runs in
| homes are typically shorter and with less dense cabling... and
| cabling often exceeds the spec it's marked for, so there's
| wiggle room.
| lukevp wrote:
| I have a fairly large house (2 story 3k sqft) with all cat5e.
| I iperf'd every run and they could all do 10gb negotiation
| and TCP, most of the runs could sustain very high UDP rates
| with low packet loss. There's just one run (which is the one
| to the internet) which had a slightly higher UDP packet loss
| rate. So basically every run can do 10gb fine. Been running
| the whole network like this for a year. It's been great! I
| just need a 10 gig capable NAS. My current one can only do
| 3.5 or so because it's a usb 5gb/s which isn't really 5 gb.
| undersuit wrote:
| The big bulky black box this little adapter replaces in Jeff's
| uses is actually just a PCIe/OCP card in an enclosure and you
| can replace that with a 10g card with SFP.
| radicality wrote:
| I've been using the qnap sfp+ thunderbolt one (I think it's a
| marvel/aqantia chip) for a few years now everyday with my
| MacBook and it's been solid
| drnick1 wrote:
| I would rather use Ethernet where possible. I used SFP28 for a
| while, but this meant an extra networking card was needed in
| each PC. Ethernet is universal, and now that bandwidths are
| catching up, I no longer see SFP as necessary in a typical home
| or small office network.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| I think you are mixing it quite a bit. SFP+ is still
| Ethernet, also SFP28 gives you speed (25Gbps) RJ45 will never
| do, so the extra card for the extra speed is mandatory.
| nottorp wrote:
| By the way, how are switches and cables for > 1Gbps these days?
| Galanwe wrote:
| You can find 2.5G switches with a reasonable amount of ports on
| the cheap. For 10G though the cost is still prohibitive IMHO
| unless you are fine with 2 ports.
|
| For cables, I think everything converged to cat6a a while ago,
| which is both reasonably cheap and perfecrly fine for 10G (up
| to 100m from what I remember)
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Mikrotik has a couple 4-5 port 10 GbE switches (one has SFP+
| ports, one has RJ45), and Ubiquiti has a couple small
| switches now that don't quite break the bank at least.
| wpm wrote:
| Nicgiga and Trendnet have 8 and 5 port 10G switches for less
| than $250 respectively.
| randusername wrote:
| TFA doesn't compare the performance of the new adapters with the
| older ones.
|
| Does anyone know if the old bulky ones will hit 10G speeds on the
| same hardware?
|
| I assume I can get a few old TB2 models and adapters on the cheap
| and they'll run cool enough and stable enough for constant 1G
| internet and occasional 10G intranet
| freedomben wrote:
| I've had such terrible success with usb-ethernet adapters on
| linux, to the point where wifi is usually much more performant.
| The main issue is connection drops. You can see it easily in
| gnome where the ethernet connection constantly drops and comes
| back up. It's so frequent though that even scp-ing a medium-sized
| file is likely to fail or stall. Hardware is a Framework 13 3rd
| gen laptop.
|
| Is this just my hardware? It's hard to imagine these issues would
| be so prevalent with how many people use these on linux...
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > The main issue is connection drops. You can see it easily in
| gnome where the ethernet connection constantly drops and comes
| back up.
|
| I never ever saw that and I'm literally using usb-to-ethernet
| adapters on Linux since forever. It's about the chipset you're
| using and how the kernel supports it no? For example for 2.5
| Gbit/s ethernet if you go with anything with a Realtek RTL8156B
| (and not the older non 'B') or anything more recent it should
| work flawlessly.
|
| Before buying I look on the Internet for users' returns /
| kernel support what the latest chipset the cool kids on the
| block are using.
|
| As I've been perfectly happy with Realtek 8156B for 2.5 Gbit/s
| if I wanted to buy a 10 Gbit/s one, I'd look at cool kids, like
| that Jeff Geerling dude from TFA/Youtube, and see he's using a
| Realtek 8159 and I'd think: _" Oh that's close to mine, I trust
| that to work very well"_.
|
| I literally still even have an old USB2.0-to-100Mbit/s that I
| use daily and that has never failed me neither (it's for an old
| laptop that I use as some kind of terminal over SSH). I don't
| recommend 100 Mbit/s: my point is that it's been many moons all
| this has flawless support under Linux.
|
| > Is this just my hardware?
|
| To me it's due to a poor chipset / poor chipset support in the
| USB-to-ethernet adapter you're using.
|
| These things, when they're a well supported chipset, are
| flawless.
| yread wrote:
| I have a 5G USB and getting it to work at 5G speeds in Linux was
| a challenge. The driver worked properly only with kernel 6.12 not
| 6.10 nor 6.14
| nasretdinov wrote:
| 10 GbE sits in a really weird spot for me, maybe I'm just not
| understanding something though. It's at most 1.25 GB/sec of
| bandwidth, yet it's relatively quite expensive. It's not
| sufficient bandwidth for getting good performance out of most
| SSDs, yet it's really excessive for any hard drives (except for
| RAID10 setups I guess). For SSDs you want thunderbolt (or 40+
| GbE) connection for best latency and performance, and for hard
| drives 2.5Gbit/sec is more than enough. As I said, I might be
| misunderstanding something, but 10 GbE sits between the two
| sensible options for me.
| whatevaa wrote:
| Are you gonna run thunderbolt more than a few meters? If you
| think 10 is expensive, check prices above 10. You may even need
| fiber for that.
| nasretdinov wrote:
| No, of course I'm not going to if I choose thunderbolt :).
| But in many cases it's fine because SSDs aren't nearly as
| noisy as HDDs, so the NAS can just sit under your desk.
|
| For 40+ GbE or fibre I agree they are expensive, but at least
| you get full performance out of your system. SSDs aren't
| cheap these days either...
| adrian_b wrote:
| Making a long distance complex network may be expensive, but
| to connect directly a few computers one can use 25 Gb/s
| Ethernet at a reasonable price.
|
| Last time when I checked, dual-port 25 Gb/s NICs were not
| much more expensive than dual-port 10 Gb/s NICs.
|
| If you have a few computers with no more than a few meters
| distance between them, you can put a dual-port 25 Gb/s card
| in each and connect them directly with direct attach copper
| cables, in a daisy chain or in a ring, without an expensive
| switch.
| butvacuum wrote:
| fiber vs DAC isn't really a cost concern st a home level. a
| 2m LC patch cable is $5 and used bidi cisco optics $5-10
| each. not much more for new optics either.
| razighter777 wrote:
| 10gbe is a sweet spot at least for my homelab stuff. It's easy
| to find old enterprise gear for, cheap, and fast enough for
| everything I want to do.
| bombcar wrote:
| Exactly. Enough supports 10gbe that you might as well grab
| it; a few Mikrotik switches, some old enterprise gear, and an
| adapter gets you some good speeds.
|
| Sure some of it might have been fine at 2.5 or 5 but those
| are relatively new and less commonly available.
| kotaKat wrote:
| I'm actually surprised at the amount of 2.5/5 gear I've
| been coming across lately, especially in the 2.5 space as
| more ISPs are pushing for gigabit+ to the house.
|
| Verizon's been issuing a wireless router with 10G WAN and
| several 2.5G ports and MoCA support that includes a 2.5G
| adapter and they use that across all their current
| connection types. I was delighted to see that when I got
| the router a couple years ago.
| bombcar wrote:
| 2.5 crossed some threshold and replaced 1gb I feel -
| which is nice. It's a great "normal speed" vs 10g/40g for
| backbone and NAS.
| walrus01 wrote:
| 10GbE can be _extremely_ cheap now if you 're doing things
| like buying Intel NICs off eBay to put into your own test/dev
| headless servers.
|
| There is also a glut of 40 Gbps stuff on the market because
| it's a dead end technology and most ISPs went straight to 100
| for things like aggregation switch to router links. Not that
| I would encourage anyone to go whole hog on 40 Gbps just
| because, but if you can get a transceiver for $15, NICs for
| $30, and maybe you get a switch for free from electronics
| recycling or for 80 bucks, and can tolerate its noise and
| heat output...
|
| I have seen plenty of people throw decommissioned 40 Gbps
| stuff straight into electronics recycling bins.
|
| Mellanox ConnectX-3 40 Gbps QSFP NICs are literally 20 bucks
| on ebay.
| MisterTea wrote:
| 10 Gb is cheap! Mikrotik has a 4x10Gb + 1x1Gb port switch for
| $150 USD and an 8x10Gb version for about $275. I have the 8
| port version.
|
| SFP+'s and fiber are cheap, like maybe 50 bucks for the SFP+
| set and fiber. 10Gb PCIe cards are maybe ~$50 new on Amazon
| with Intel chips and cheaper on eBay - I bought used 10 Gb
| Mellanox cards for $25 each - "they just work" under FreeBSD
| and Linux.
|
| Copper 10 Gb used to consume waaaaay more power (like 5+W per
| port!) and cost more both in terms of the SFP and cable. In
| reality fiber is more environmentally friendly as there is no
| copper, less energy used, and less plastic per meter. So my
| setup mostly consists of SR and BR optics and DAC's. The "DAC"
| direct attach cables are handy for switch-switch or short
| switch<->NIC runs. And I will continue to run fiber for the
| foreseeable future and actively avoid copper.
| donatj wrote:
| I redid the backbone of my home in 10Gb fiber, and "cheap" is
| not the term I would use. Especially when you can get
| perfectly cromulent 1GbE switches for like $10 these days.
|
| The Mikrotik switches [1] _work_ technically speaking but
| they are quite difficult to configure. You have to pull them
| from your network, connect physically to a specific port,
| force your machine onto a specific IP, connect to a specific
| IP. I could not get this to work in macOS nor Ubuntu despite
| hours of futzing with it. They both kept infuriatingly
| overriding my changes to the IP. I was _only_ able to get
| this to work on an old Windows 10 laptop.
|
| Once you do get their web UI up, you pray the password on the
| sticker on the bottom works. Neither of mine did and I had to
| firmware reset both and find the default password online. The
| web UI itself holds no hands. It's straight out of 1995,
| largely unstyled HTML. While using both of my devices the
| backend the UI talked to would crash and log me out about
| every five minutes. Not every five minutes after log in.
| Every 5 minutes wall time!
|
| The Mikrotik switches are also fanless, and 10GbE SFP+
| adapters throw off a lot of heat. If you use more than one
| they overheat. You can just about get away with two if you
| put them on opposite sides but I would not recommend it.
|
| I've also had very mixed luck with SFP+ module compatibility
| with this thing. I had a number of modules that refused to
| run at higher than one GB, hence my fighting to get into the
| UI. Despite a ton of futzing between logouts I was not able
| to get them to work at 10Gb and returned them.
|
| I'll be honest, my Mikrotik switches have been infuriating. I
| replaced one of them with a Ubiquiti Pro XG 8 8-Port 10G and
| holy crap the difference is night and day. It just works.
| Everything worked straight from the box day one, I can
| configure it from my phone or the web, I highly recommend
| this thing.
|
| The Ubiquiti switches are multiple times more expensive but
| if you value your time they're well worth the price. I still
| have two of the Mikrotik switches on my network but am
| completely intent on replacing them. The Ubiquiti is worth it
| for _online_ configuration alone. No need to pull the thing
| from your network, test your changes immediately!
|
| 1. https://mikrotik.com/product/crs305_1g_4s_in
|
| 2. https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/usw-pro-xg-8-poe
| bobbob1921 wrote:
| I use mikrotik equipment extensively (as in hundreds/
| thousands of them over the years), while I disagree with a
| lot of of this, the post is absolutely correct about the
| ridiculous password on a sticker requirements they
| introduced a few years ago. The pw text is incredibly small
| and the way it's printed (dpi and font) makes it very
| difficult to differentiate certain characters. Also the way
| you initially connect to them when they're new out of the
| box to then enter this obnoxious password has several
| issues/challenges. It used to be so easy and convenient to
| configure brand new mikrotik devices in the past, and now
| it's become a task I dread and has even caused us to buy
| non- mikrotik gear in several cases.
| MisterTea wrote:
| I don't configure anything on the mikrotik. Out of the box
| it's a dumb switch and that is all I want.
|
| > The Mikrotik switches are also fanless, and 10GbE SFP+
| adapters throw off a lot of heat.
|
| If you are talking about copper SFP's, then that's the
| problem: copper. It takes a lot of energy to drive a wire
| at GHz speeds, not so much with an optical link (though
| it's getting much better.) I have only ever felt luke warm
| optical and DAC SFP's. Copper 10 Gb SFP's are burning hot.
| I avoid using copper and run fiber.
| cyberax wrote:
| Hah. I used a dremel tool, some radiators, and a bit of
| thermal glue to make my Mikrotik switch work reliably:
| https://pics.ealex.net/share/UxeSf_AWHLIuc-
| qzK5zl7JIgQvQDAZh...
|
| It's been like this for the last 3 years. And amazingly, I
| still can't find a 10G switch that is just as compact.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| This is the kind of quality I want and expect from a
| website called Hacker News.
|
| It's way more fun to see a real solution for a problem
| than it is to see someone complain that the cheapest
| available product is lacking in finesse.
|
| Good stuff. Are you using RouterOS or SwOS on that little
| guy?
|
| ---
|
| Related, here's a moneyshot of my Mikrotik Hex S that
| I've got in a portable rack:
| https://i.postimg.cc/cCJhfkv1/image.png
|
| That very cheap gigabit copper SFP was running hotter
| than I'd like -- it probably would have been fine, but
| this rig is meant to run outside while camping off-grid
| in the sun in central Florida. So I put some heatsinks
| from my 3D printing stash on there and so far they've
| stayed put.
|
| In this system, the Hex S is running OpenWRT and is
| configured as a PoE-powered managed switch. In that role,
| it switches packets and does VLAN stuff fine, and is
| probably a bit of overkill.
|
| But it's also one of several layers of manual redundancy,
| which is important in that environment: One does not
| simply go to the store and buy special electronics in
| central Florida. So it isn't included in the travel kit,
| then it doesn't exist.
|
| With one shell script, it stops being just-a-switch and
| becomes a router with all the usual services, plus SQM
| tricks and multiple WAN ports. The rig works well.
| cyberax wrote:
| RouterOS, although I'm only using the switch-related
| functionality.
|
| I found that the temperature of the 10G modules has
| almost no relation to their cost. So far, the least hot
| modules are 10G Tek ones that are also the cheapest.
| Mirkotik's 10G modules are more expensive, and they are
| also hotter.
| amelius wrote:
| Does microtik have any competition?
| bobbob1921 wrote:
| in the lower end space kind of, however in many respects no
| they don't. Ubiquity would be their main competition, but
| ubiquity equipment is cloud first whereas a strong point of
| mikrotik has been that you do not need a centralized cloud
| controller (ie local first). Also in terms of the vast
| capabilities of mikrotik equipment at its price point, no
| there is absolutely no real competitor. (Maybe PFsense is
| the closest competitor with strong feature set)
| emb-dev wrote:
| Ubiquiti, Juniper, Firewalla or Alta Labs?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _10 Gb is cheap! ... $150 ... $275._
|
| San Francisco checking in.
| kiddico wrote:
| Considering what you get and the historic prices of 10GbE
| those are absolute steals.
|
| How much would they need to cost before you'd consider it
| cheap? If you want CHEAP then 10GbE is not for you in 2026.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| Keep in mind that $275 today is the same as $140 in January
| 2000. Tech gadgets used to be far more expensive, both in
| real terms and as a percentage of average income.
| mlyle wrote:
| 10 years ago, you spent $40 for a few port unmanaged
| gigabit switch and $80-100 for the bottom tier web-managed
| crap.
|
| That corresponds to $50 and $105-130 in today's money.
|
| Now you can get it 10 times faster with an OK management
| layer for $150. This is after a -long- time of 10gbps
| prices stagnating.
|
| 10gbps is unexpectedly cheap.
| butvacuum wrote:
| minor nitpick: I wouldn't call it stagnating. They were
| artificially inflated.
|
| as an aside: for pricing, 20 years ago unmanaged 1G-BaseT
| ethernet switches were $20/port. That's the region
| 10G-BaseT switches occupy right now if they use realtek
| chips. And multiple sources confirm the realtek switch
| can do full line rate on all ports simultaneiously with a
| normal 1500 MTU
| Analemma_ wrote:
| A single eero or Ubiquiti AP will be $150-300 depending on
| the exact capabilities, so if you're pricing out how to
| network your house I'd say the switch looks pretty good b
| MisterTea wrote:
| It's not that much considering people pay $100+ for
| cable/internet and/or >=$(15 * n) streaming services PER
| month. Some people might want faster transfer speeds or low
| latency. For the price of two or three months of internet
| and streaming/cable you get a very fast LAN if you so
| desire. If you don't need it then don't spend the money.
| chaz6 wrote:
| I got an 8 port SFP+ managed switch from AliExpress for $100!
| randusername wrote:
| I chose 10GbE to fit 20 HDDs in RAID 10.
|
| ~ 1 GB/sec seems about right for a long time. I can't imagine
| the basic files I work with everyday getting much more storage-
| dense than they are in 2026.
| flemhans wrote:
| I remember my friend Peter, in 1999, on campus networking
| with 100 Mbit internet saying: I think this will be enough
| for many years to come. And he was kinda right -- 100 Mbit is
| still "almost good enough" 27 years later for internet
| access.
| cyberax wrote:
| AI model files can be rather large...
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| I have a zfs x 3 disk hard drive mirror and 10GbE.
|
| For writes yes 10GbE overkill but for for reads it's faster
| than 2.5GbE would be.
|
| Sure there is 5GbE but most switches that support 5GbE support
| 10GbE.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| 10 GbE has a good performance/$ ratio, better than 25 GbE, and
| it is 10 times faster than the basic (for today) 1 Gbps. If you
| need more go for 25, but the availability of cheap cards,
| switches and cabling (DACs, AOCs, transceivers) is lower than
| for 10 GbE. For me, 10 GbE is the baseline for the year 2025 at
| home.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| What cat cable works with it?
| oytis wrote:
| Can any of them do TSN?
| Razengan wrote:
| > USB 3.2 Gen 2x1
|
| What the fuck
| Neywiny wrote:
| It's still not named well but the way to understand it is: gen
| 1 is 5gbps/lane, gen 2 is 10. x1 is 1 lane, x2 is 2. So really
| there are only 4 combinations, 5, 10, 10, 20.
|
| It just took them a _really_ long and windy time to get there.
| flyingsquirrel_ wrote:
| wow. Maybe i should try it
| LoganDark wrote:
| I don't understand how a 10GbE adapter is possible without
| Thunderbolt, or why not being Thunderbolt makes it smaller. In my
| experience USB speeds faster than 3 don't happen in practice
| unless you have a Thunderbolt port and device. Maybe I just don't
| have devices that use the faster USB speeds, but Thunderbolt has
| always been the one and only way to exceed the speed of USB for
| me.
|
| I think USB 4 exists based on the Thunderbolt spec (or the other
| way around?), but doesn't require any Thunderbolt capabilities
| and therefore isn't very telling.
|
| I think Apple's approach of supporting Thunderbolt 4/5 on every
| USB port of the MacBook Pro is the only sustainable way forward.
| Neywiny wrote:
| Because USB can do 2 lanes of 10 gbps. So that's 20gbps. 10 <
| 20. Thunderbolt isn't part of the equation here because it's
| not a thunderbolt device or thunderbolt host (even if the port
| is thunderbolt capable).
|
| The reason it's smaller to go with USB is that AFAIK
| thunderbolt only bridges to other interfaces like USB or PCIe.
| So any thunderbolt NIC is actually thunderbolt -> PCIe, then
| PCIe -> Ethernet. USB is more often interfaced with directly. 2
| big power hungry chips vs 1. 1 < 2 so it is smaller.
|
| Thunderbolt also carries overhead vs oculink. Thunderbolt
| tunnels PCIe. The PCIe tunnels the ethernet traffic. Oculink is
| just PCIe, which is why it's not as hot pluggable but gets
| significant performance increases for PCIe devices. USB in this
| case tunnels Ethernet traffic. So thunderbolt NICs have 2
| layers, USB has 1. 1 < 2. Less overhead means lower power and
| less heat so smaller heatsinks, fewer chips means smaller board
| so smaller device. If more devices had oculink connectors, it's
| highly conceivable that an oculink adapter would also be
| smaller than a thunderbolt NIC, because again there's no such
| thing as a thunderbolt NIC just a thunderbolt -> PCIe ->
| Ethernet.
| LoganDark wrote:
| > Thunderbolt isn't part of the equation here because it's
| not a thunderbolt device or thunderbolt host (even if the
| port is thunderbolt capable).
|
| The article directly states this device is smaller than a
| Thunderbolt adapter. I was not calling Thunderbolt part of
| the equation, just asking how it's possible to reach high
| speeds without it.
|
| The rest of your explanation makes sense, thanks.
| ac29 wrote:
| Thunderbolt 4 and 5 are just USB (40, 80 Gbps) with mandatory
| support for otherwise optional USB-C features like video and
| high power.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Now that USB 4 is just Thunderbolt with less features, yes.
| Mostly by definition, though.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| I'm still curious why it can't reach full 10GbE in both
| directions. Afaik USB gen 3.2 2x2 the transmit and receive
| directions are independent. So it doesn't really make sense to
| reach full speed one way and not the other way, purely from a USB
| perspective.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's not really a straightforward
| next place to go, no? 10Gbe is 4x2.5Gbit, right? Then 25Gbit is
| 1x25Gbit? Four of em for 100Gbit? That's right isn't it?
|
| It's unfortunate thinking that this is the end, this is as good
| as it's gonna be, for a while. Especially with usb4 going faster
| and faster still.
|
| Edit: ah! 25Gbase-t exists, is four pairs. Defined at the same
| time as 40Gbase-t, 802.3bq-2016. A PAM-16 encoding. Yes, 100Gbe
| was originally defined as 4x25Gbe for optical but there are
| base-t.
|
| Also! The 10Gb adapter here is $80. Worth noting for folks that
| 2.5Gbe adapters are ~$13 and 5Gbe adapters a hair over $20! Very
| affordable very nice boost. Make use of those USB ports!
| ranon wrote:
| Just got an rtl8127 pci e card to replace my aqc113. Runs cool,
| doesn't have as much contention on the chipset. Price was right.
| Good purchase and that $10 chip will allow cheaper more power
| efficient home 10gb equipment within the coming years.
| aggregator-ios wrote:
| Was the card $10 or are you saying that the chip is a $10 part?
| movedx wrote:
| The inaccessibility of 10GbE, and the even higher inaccessibility
| of anything faster, made me move away from NAS devices to DAS.
| Not everyone can do this, or needs move TBs of data on a frequent
| basis, but if you do then a USB4/Thunderbolt 5 DAS is the way to
| go (and it's basically the only way to go in film and TV data
| management.)
| barnabask wrote:
| TIL that DAS stands for "Direct Attached Storage." In the olden
| times we called them external hard drives.
| Telaneo wrote:
| A DAS device will typically hold more than one hard drive.
| But yes, it's a more fancy version of having four seperate
| external hard drives hooked up.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Well with the move to SSD's, it added two syllables.
|
| Maybe external solid state drive is just too long and it
| finally had to be sortened somehow.
| cycloner wrote:
| Price is the key factor. If it's too expensive, even if the
| performance is excellent, it won't be necessary.
| bri3d wrote:
| I'm disappointed that both the article and comments don't go into
| the actual differences between how these adapters work and the
| overhead incurred by USB.
|
| At a high level, I'm pretty sure Thunderbolt will be
| significantly better in all situations:
|
| Thunderbolt is PCIe; depending on the way the network card driver
| works, the PCIe controller will usually end up doing DMA straight
| into the buffers the SKB points to, and with io_uring or AF_XDP,
| these buffers can even be sent down into user space without ever
| being copied. Also, usually these drivers can take advantage of
| multiple txqueues and rxqueues (for example, per core or per
| stream) since they can allocate whatever memory they want for the
| NIC to write into.
|
| USB is USB; the controller can DMA USB packet data into URBs but
| they need to be set up for each transaction, and once the data
| arrives, it's encapsulated in NCM or some other USB format and
| the kernel usually has to copy or move the frames to get SKBs.
| The whole thing is sort of fundamentally pull based rather than
| push based.
|
| But, this is just scratching the surface; I'm sure there are neat
| tricks that some USB 3.2 NIC drivers can do to reduce overhead
| and I'd love to read an article where I learned more about that,
| or even saw some benchmarks that analyzed especially memory
| controller utilization, kernel CPU time, and performance counters
| (like cache utilization). Especially at 10G and beyond, a lot of
| processing becomes memory bandwidth limited and the difference
| can be extremely significant.
| eqvinox wrote:
| ACK. From some cursory experimentation, my laptop can roughly
| saturate 1G via USB, but on 2.5G things get wonky above roughly
| 1.9G unidirectional or 2.9G bidirectional.
|
| > Thunderbolt is PCIe
|
| Nit: Thunderbolt isn't PCIe, it _tunnels_ PCIe. Depending on
| chips used, there 's bandwidth limits; I vaguely remember 22.5G
| on older 40G TB Intel chips.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Thunderbolt is PCIe
|
| Thunderbolt allows PCIe tunneling, but it has some overhead
| over raw PCIe. That's why Thunderbolt eGPU setups don't perform
| as well as plugging the GPU directly into a PCIe slot.
|
| > USB is USB
|
| Until you get to USB4, when USB 4 supports Thunderbolt 4.
| bri3d wrote:
| Fair; I should have said "from the standpoint of the driver."
|
| > USB 4 supports Thunderbolt 4
|
| It's the opposite! I hate to get into it as I saw the USB
| naming argument pretty thoroughly enumerated in the comments
| here already, but the pedantic interpretation is "Thunderbolt
| 4 is a superset of USB4 which requires implementation of the
| USB4 PCIe tunneling protocol which is an evolution of the
| Thunderbolt 3 PCIe tunneling protocol."
|
| From the standpoint of USB-IF a "USB4" host doesn't need to
| support PCIe tunneling, but Microsoft also (wisely, IMO) put
| a wrench into this classic USB confusion nightmare by
| requiring "USB4" ports to support PCIe tunneling for Windows
| Logo.
| Latty wrote:
| > That's why Thunderbolt eGPU setups don't perform as well as
| plugging the GPU directly into a PCIe slot.
|
| The bigger factor is probably that PCI-e tunnelling at most a
| x4 link, while when you plug a GPU in you are generally doing
| so into a x16 or at least x8 slot, and very few GPUs target
| x4.
| toast0 wrote:
| > At a high level, I'm pretty sure Thunderbolt will be
| significantly better in all situations:
|
| None of my devices support thunderbolt; so not all situations.
| AntiUSAbah wrote:
| Thats just a depressing situation for 10G networking.
|
| If its p2p, its easier to just use usb-c inbetween.
|
| Apparently someone doesn't understand my post so let me edit it
| for the downvote?!... 10G is old tech, its 2026 and the best
| thing we still have today is a 80$ Adapater while USB-C already
| can do 5, 10, 20 and 40gb
|
| I'm waiting for 10g network for home for ages now but infra is
| more expensive, consumes more energy and gets hotter.
| userbinator wrote:
| _while USB-C already can do 5, 10, 20 and 40gb_
|
| ...over a few meters at most. 10GBASE-T Ethernet goes dozens of
| meters, and the other variants using optic fiber reach into
| kilometers.
| exabrial wrote:
| Jeff: I see a possible problem with your tests that bit me
| before! ipferf3 is not multithreaded by default. The more capable
| computers probably have an interrupt rate sufficient to handle
| 10gig over USB (which likely multiplies the interrupt rate
| needed), but it's completely possible you're pushing the
| interrupt rate limits on the Macbook Neo and other lower powered
| hardware.
|
| Any chance you could re-run with `-P 4` where 4 is the core
| count?
| geerlingguy wrote:
| I ran all the tests at P 2 and P 4 to verify cpu cores weren't
| hindering the speed, but got the same result (within 2%).
|
| Modern A/M cores and Zen 5 cores individually have enough grunt
| to handle at least 10 Gbps through USB without a hitch.
|
| On my Pi's and N100 mini PCs, I do have to use threads to hit
| more than about 5-6 Gbps. And testing a 25 Gbps adapter I'm
| testing separately, I had to use multiple threads to get my
| Ampere CPU to measure speeds greater than 10 Gbps.
| dd_xplore wrote:
| Or Better use only iperf (or known as version 2), it has multi
| threading support
| fulafel wrote:
| A single threaded benchmark better represents real performance,
| I'd argue. 10 Gbps is only 1.2 GB/s after all and few
| applications use parallel streams.
| stonegray wrote:
| I think the intention is to measure the adapter itself
| independent from the CPU/overall system.
|
| Besides, I can't think of a typical single threaded
| application that would use those data rates, can you?
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Steam downloads
| stonegray wrote:
| Steam download rates are throttled based on how fast it
| can actually install the game so it's a bit of an outlier
| fulafel wrote:
| File transfer and storage (Dropbox, browser download,
| rsync, scp, NFS/SAN etc) is a classic use case that can
| utilize all the bandwidth you have and typically uses
| single streams between client and server.
| dgacmu wrote:
| Most modern ethernet chips, including those used on USB
| ethernet devices, have adaptive interrupt coalescing (or
| moderation) for network I/O, which renders this likely not as
| big a deal as it once was. There will still be limits on
| packets/sec/core but it's not because of interrupts.
| flal_ wrote:
| What would be actual use cases ? I mean, I get the nerdery of
| having the fastest possible network, but in practice ?
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| Recently, I had a researcher who had been delivered a blob of
| research data. It was multiple TB, and the data was delivered
| in a little RAID-1 drove enclosure, which had a USB-C
| connection. (I don't remember the exact make or model.)
|
| The user originally wanted to do the transfer over WiFi. I
| helped them set up the transfer, and they eventually realized
| it would take multiple months to complete.
|
| I set them up with a Thunderbolt 10GBASE-T Ethernet adapter.
| The wiring was Cat-6, but the distance was low enough such that
| 10G would've been achievable.
|
| The switches in the network closet were only 1GbE, though the
| uplinks were 10GbE. Even so, switching the transfer from
| wireless to 1GbE wired brought our ETA down to just under one
| month.
|
| I wish we could've gotten a 10GBASE-T port for the researcher;
| that would've brought the ETA down from ~1 month to ~1 week.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Why not connect it directly to the server/workstation?
| deferredgrant wrote:
| Thermals are often the whole story with adapters like this. Once
| the heat problem gets solved, the product category starts looking
| much more sane.
| aggregator-ios wrote:
| For those that read the article and are still confused (as I was)
| about what Apple hardware would give you the full 10GbE speeds:
|
| - 10GbE Thunderbolt adapter is still the best. Full symmetrical
| 10GbE on laptops as far back as the 2018 MacBook Pro 13" (Intel)
| and every laptop since. Including the Airs starting with the M1
| chip (Not sure about Neo).
|
| - No Apple hardware supports the 3.2 v2x2 standard (20Gbps) and
| your connection will be downgraded to 10Gbps on these RTL8159
| chips. Because of processing overhead, you will only get 5-7Gbps
| of total Ethernet throughput.
|
| - Upgraded Mac Mini or Apple Studio base models have builtin
| 10GbE ports
|
| For now, thunderbolt adapters are still the most reliable 10GbE
| for Apple laptops.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| > 10GbE Thunderbolt adapter is still the best. Full symmetrical
| 10GbE on laptops as far back as the 2018 MacBook Pro 13"
| (Intel) and every laptop since. Including the Airs starting
| with the M1 chip (Not sure about Neo).
|
| The neo doesn't have thunderbolt at all so no, that won't fly.
| aggregator-ios wrote:
| Thank you, I was suspecting the same but was not sure.
| bdavbdav wrote:
| Luckily I suspect the intersect on the Venn diagram isn't
| huge for Neo buyers, and those wanting / needing 10gigE
| aggregator-ios wrote:
| Yup.
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| Thinking about it, it would be pretty magical. Neo with
| 10GbE to fast storage and CPU and GPU: Thin client that's
| pretty damn thick for how thin it is.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| I remember getting my first laptop with gigabit ethernet in 2005,
| more than 20 years ago! I'm surprised 10gbit is still so uncommon
| and eyewateringly expensive. And I don't just mean the adapters
| which are coming down in price finally but also the switches. For
| more than 10 years we've had semi managed gigabit switches for
| 25EUR like the TP-SG108E. 10gbit is still crazy expensive. Even
| though it is quite needed these days for fast transfers from
| computer to computer, the old "your harddrive won't keep up
| anyway" excuse is no longer valid.
|
| I still have max 10 gbit here and I'd have to replace 3 switches
| at least so it won't be coming soon. The 2.5 and 5 options are
| too meh for me to be interesting.
|
| I hope the arrival of these new chips will increase the number of
| systems with 10g it and then hopefully the prices of switches
| will come down too.
| kd913 wrote:
| How often do you have to do fast transfers from computer to
| computer?
|
| Would argue for those purposes 40gig thunderbolt makes a lot
| more sense.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| It would but none of my systems have thunderbolt and besides
| that my NASes are on the other side of the flat where the
| noise doesn't bother me. Thunderbolt only reaches a metre or
| two. I assume thunderbolt PCI cards are a thing but the
| distance is a bigger problem.
|
| I need fast transfers pretty often. I do a weekly image of
| all my workstations as backup. Right now I do them overnight
| as it's limited to 110MB/s but this could be done within 15
| minutes with 10gbit.
|
| Also, huge media files.
| tobinfricke wrote:
| How about 10 GbE switches/routers? I have 10 GbE fiber-to-the-
| home via Sonic, but so far just have it plugged into a Google
| Wifi router with gigabit ethernet. Would love to have 10 GbE
| wired to my desk.
| jburgess777 wrote:
| ServeTheHome is a good place to look for reviews of the
| switches available, e.g. https://www.servethehome.com/10gbe-
| in-2026-is-finally-hittin...
| osamagirl69 wrote:
| If you are riding the Geerling train you would probably be
| interested in the upcoming mono router:
| https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/testing-mono-gateway-...
|
| Personally I use an x86 PC (supermicro E300 with X11SDV
| motherboard with integrated Intel X540 10Gbe NICs) running
| opnsense.
| jshier wrote:
| Full, multiport 10GbE switches are still rather pricy. You
| could look at 2.5Gb or 5Gb port routers that have a 10Gb input.
| You won't be able saturate it with a single device, but you
| would using multiple devices. Ubiquiti has some nice stuff.
| 15155 wrote:
| https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/usw-aggregation
|
| https://mikrotik.com/product/crs304_4xg_in
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DLGLRTGF
| punnerud wrote:
| RTL8159 is way cheaper from Aliexpress in other products, and
| most is this small or smaller for 10G.
|
| The article should maybe have been focusing on that piece?
| cyberax wrote:
| One another thing to try: set the MTU to 9000. But don't do this
| on your main interface, or you'll get haunted by traffic being
| blackholed.
|
| At home, I have separate VLANs for the 9k packets. It has a
| separate subnet (both V6 and V4), so it works perfectly. The
| devices on this VLAN use it directly if they can, and everything
| else goes through the router that sends proper ICMP "too big"
| messages.
| ballack007 wrote:
| mbklog4@gmail.com
| ridiculous_fish wrote:
| I bought one of these as soon as I heard about it ($74 from eBay)
| and tested it against my USB-4 AQC113 mainstays ($87, IO CREST
| brand on Amazon), from my MBP.
|
| The new RTL-based adapter is physically smaller, runs way cooler,
| but only gets ~6 Gbps from my Mac to my Linux box, with a lot of
| jitter (iperf3).
|
| The AQC adapter is all metal, gets uncomfortably hot, and
| sustains 9.3 Gbps, no problem. It's about the same size as the
| middle adapter in the photo.
|
| The USB-4 AQC adapters are only ~$13 more, and yet are
| significantly faster with lower jitter. I'm staying with those.
|
| Hope that helps someone!
| emirdw wrote:
| Interesting approach. I've been experimenting with browser-based
| tools lately and the performance is surprisingly good.
| gnabgib wrote:
| I'm surprised your experiments with browser based tools, caused
| you interest in smaller 10GbE USB adapters.
| papaver-somnamb wrote:
| 10GbE adoption feels different from the successful string of
| standard speeds that came prior, since the market congealed
| around one standards family per Ethernet speed circa say 100Base-
| TX. We've heard stories as horrific as RJ45 assemblies heating up
| to a degree such that thermoplastic would flow.
|
| Was some threshold crossed where 10Gbit over CAT6-whatever
| cabling is crossing physics thresholds? Or perhaps 10Gbit was
| brought to market when tech supporting copper connections wasn't
| yet mature enough?
| nbf_1995 wrote:
| I have never heard of ethernet cables getting hot to that
| degree except when PoE is involved.
| galkk wrote:
| I'm curious, I have 10gb switch and 5gb fiber internet. Will such
| adapter work on Xbox searies x?
| l8rlump wrote:
| I also discovered the other day that you can get high-speed
| networking between two computers with just a thunderbolt cable.
| It showed up as a 20G connection anyway.
| rincebrain wrote:
| My question would be, I suppose, how well do they work for
| extended intervals (e.g. 30+ minutes of saturated traffic)?
|
| I've tried buying several USB3 2.5/5/10GbE copper adapters,
| apparently mostly Aquantia under the hood, and all but one of
| them would, even with fans actively pointed at them cooling them,
| rapidly reach a temperature at which they would stop operating
| entirely, which has turned me off of trying to explore more.
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