2.5GbE is BETTER than 10GbE - Here's Why

[@MrSkyl1ne]

"pretty much anything you buy is defaulted to a 1Gb connection" Yeah, tell that to smart tv manufacturers and their prehistoric 100Mb ethernet ports....

[@g.4279]

🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

[@hitmandahl]

And no 5GHz Wi-Fi…

[@americanmambi]

😂😂😂 cheap bastards

[@0bsmith0]

@@hitmandahl Must be quite old or EXTREMELY cheap to not have Wifi 6. Going back many years I can't remember the last TV I came across that only had 11n.

[@JarnoKai]

​@@0bsmith0Wifi 6 isn't actually all that old (or am I? :D) but yeah, my experience is pretty much anything has 5GHz support if it was bought during the time it was mainstream. That, or as you said, it's extremely cheap tech. Super annoying thing with wifi seems to be that while clients follow the most modern standards pretty well, consumer routers stay behind an awful lot longer. I upgraded my home to routers with wifi 6 and there was literally one router available that had 6E support, and only a handful with wifi 6. It was annoying to "upgrade" and still not even be able to get the best wifi my phone supports, simply because the router market somehow lags behind

[@esrevinu.]

2 years later, i stumble on this video randomly,... and its still hella informative and pretty relevant, honestly.

[@praveenpg]

For a home user, where cable length is usually not more than 30 to 40 feet, a 5e cable can easily handle 10g. I use a 10gbe nic on my desktop and get the full bandwidth with no issues.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Yeah, I would not buy a cat 5E cable for this, but if I already had the wiring I would 100% try it out

[@toriless]

I have over 80 feet and that is just between switches.

[@007Babush]

The Cat 5e standard only supports upto 1 Gigabit though For 10g you need a Cat6a or higher

[@praveenpg]

For short distances, which is typical for homes, it will support. I have cat 5e cabling in my house and I get the full 10Gbps speed/bandwidth from it. I would not recommend it for new wiring, but would not recommend spending 100s of dollars changing them to cat 6a either.

[@EugWanker]

My CAT5e to my home office (< 60 feet) failed for just 2.5 GbE. Might have been a borderline cable install, but it worked perfectly on gigabit for over a decade, so it illustrates that the multi-gigabit standards are less forgiving even on short runs. Luckily the room also had a CAT6 run and that line works fine for 2.5 GbE.

[@jaspermcfly2765]

Thanks!

[@SpaceRexWill]

Thank you!

[@DanielWillen]

We invested in 10G at my company. The office was new, so they installed cat6 cables which weren't that much more expensive, and we got multigigabit APs around the office so It's nice to know we can saturate all of them at the same time if people are downloading larger files. We have a NAS, and some servers, power users etc. We had a gaming room planned for streaming and stuff and hey, downloadnig games from Steam and being able to upload content that fast was great. We got a beefy multigigabit switch from FS that cost like 3000 dollars, the thing was expensive but boy is it robust and well built and going to last another decade at least. It's nice when everything is future proof. The 10Gbe adapters are a **** in the ass, and we only have one or two video editors using them at the office because they are so expensive. Setting up the MTU and making it work reasonably well , installing drivers is just not worth the hassle. 10G isn't really about the single workstation performance, it's just the maximum throughput and should only be considered if you have multiple users hitting the network at the same time.

[@toriless]

CAT6 and eve CAT6A are no longer significantly more. I use nothing but shielded 6A myself.

[@bothorsen4292]

There are a couple of quite important things you skip over. First, not everyone is on a laptop and stuck with USB. Good old PCs with PCI slots are still a thing, especially among gamers, and the USB problem does not exist for these. Second, the issues you have with 10gbit goes away if you do fiber instead of ethernet, but then the installation is very difficult, unless you have a setup where you are close to your switch and NAS. Third, power draw is ethernet only, SFP+ are not power hungry. But you did give me something to think about, as I was thinking about doing 10g from my rack to the desks. I may have to accept that it's SFP+ or stay with 2.5gbit. I have the same UniFi 24 enterprise switch as you, so I can do the 2.5 gbit in that. I also have a UniFi aggregation switch (the small passively cooled 8 port) so I have a couple of extra SFP+ ports.

[@kurtnelle]

Then if you're going 10G, you should be going fiber?

[@bothorsen4292]

@@kurtnelle No you can't just say that. If you need (or want) 10gbit, then there are different kinds of pain involved in making that happen. But which pain you choose depend on your circumstances

[@ewitte12]

I've used SFP in the past it can be done fairly cheap for close connections.

[@bricefleckenstein9666]

Unless you are dealing with POE devices, there is no significant "power draw" to 10GBase-T, to any noticeable degree vs 1GBase-T. The only "pain" is if you didn't upgrade-proof using Cat 6 or better cable when you installed the gigabit setup.

[@n78966969696896]

@@ewitte12 Even single mode is pretty cheap used these days and you can go for 6.2 miles on 10k (shortest single mode LR).

[@nsday1]

This has been something that has been maddening for me for a while. The industry should have kept up with the technology advancements from the beginning. Point the fingers at whoever, whatever. But as it's pointed out, 1Gbe has been around for a very long time, and considering we're talking about computer technology, it's ancient, and should have been dealt with a long time ago. Since then we have had SSDs hit the market that are way faster than the transfer speed of a 1Gbe connection. M.2 drives blow it away, and they have been around for almost 10 years. Now, even HDDs are way faster than a 1Gbe connection. And what's even worse is that in many places, home Internet has been at 1Gbe for some time now, and some places are offering even faster than that. Their "sales pitch" is that your computer may not be able to connect at that speed, but if you have multiple users, you all connect at faster speeds. It's all BS, and Ethernet shouldn't have taken 15+ years to be upgraded. It might have been a bit more expensive at the start, but mass production would have taken care of that really quickly.

[@leicaman]

I have a 10 gig connection from my Mac M4 Mini Pro with 10 gig to my QNap Nas. My QNap switch has two 10 gig ports, and eight 2.5 gig ports. And I couldn’t be happier.

[@welgonzales4]

This makes so much sense as i recently setup my rack and considering setting a 10Gb network. However, this will require me a 10Gb switch which for my use case I think is an overkill. Thanks for this video, now I am trying to redesign my network for 2.5Gb ^ ^

[@djsaekrakem3608]

2 10gbe nics can be had cheap with SFP+ u do not need a switch, use it for nas to pc or pc to nas.

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

​@@djsaekrakem3608that assumes the nas is not far from the PC, or a fiber run. Also, a NAS without a decent network is an abomination, and there's no decent network without a switch

[@thedeejlam]

What might make sense is accepting YMMV. Practically, someone could set themselves up with 10GbE where and how advantageous (e.g. to/from desktop rigs, some NAS setups, and network available SSD resources), while deploying 2.5-5GbE where appropriate, like SpaceRex's couch (er, laptops), some WAN points, etc. A home's arteries could affordably consist of 10 gig with its capillaries using 2.5-5 gig.

[@toriless]

I will probably use a 2.5 / 10 unit with one at each end of the house using shielded 6A cables. to 10 would be to connect the 2 with 2.5 for devices. Nothing I have is currently 2.5 but this should "futureproof" it.

[@n78966969696896]

10Gig is cheap as long as you don't buy brand new. Buy used enterprise equipment, but don't buy 10gig Ethernet. Buy 10gig SFPs and 10gig switches using multimode which is all very old and cheap as heck at this point. 10gig copper is still quite a niche and not a great situation overall. 5gig or 2.5gig however would be decent.

[@toriless]

I use nothing but shielded 6A.

[@n78966969696896]

@@toriless For multigig copper over 2.5gig (even sometimes 2.5gig) your stuck with 6A it's the only option.

[@SmallLab129]

I think what's not being addressed is that yes 2.5 is more convenient, but you're not getting a huge step-up in performance for the money. Upgrading from 1Gb to 2.5Gb doens't really make much sense.. if you're going to replace infrastructure. Specially if you consider other "hacky" solutions like link aggregation. I will say that if you're gonna buy a USB dongle, you might as well get 2.5Gb since the price on those aren't much more.

[@SolarMillUSA]

Really depends on the scenario though. Since it can use existing cable runs in most cases, if you are a small business or home environment, it might be as simple as swapping out a single switch and upgrading some NICS.

[@choboutube]

Cheers. I found a cheap(ish) (synology) 10Gb adapter for my synology and was baulking at costs of 10gb equipment for the rest of the setup. I got a 2.5x5 port switch and 2.5g usbC adapter from the 'Mazon for less than 50usd. I can feel that access to the NAS has gotten a bit zippier, plus now I have more ethernet ports to connect up other devices that were previously using wifi.

[@rmorenberg]

good detail I am watching this 2 years after you published it and most of your facts and info still hold up well.

[@PoeLemic]

This is an excellent video with so much truth. Yes, I planned on going 10G, but I looked at switches and everything. Then, I just realized too expensive for what you get. Yes, I do some big file transfers -- say system backups, video downloads, etc. But, I just keep everything on a file server, so once it gets there, it doesn't go anywhere else. So, even 1Gb is fast enough for almost anything that I do. So, I am taking your advice and only going to upgrade to 2.5G, which will serve my family for quite a while.

[@toriless]

Transferring to NAS at 1 Gb is slow. 2.5 is closer to actual HD speed.

[@PoeLemic]

@@toriless Thanks for clarifying that. Good to know.

[@pepeshopping]

NO! It is NOT better! But it is much easier given the much cheaper price and “enough” speed!

[@EuroPC4711]

thanks for the video. I didn’t know that seven HDDs are enough for 10 GbE. I was sure, that you need at least an all- SSD build.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Glad you liked it! Yeah HDD's in sequential reading / writing are about 1/3 of the speed of a SATA SSD (when under ideal conditions). Where SATA SSD's blow them out of the water is random read / writes. Then you look at an NVMe SSD and they make SATA SSD's look like hard drives :P

[@insidechocolatewithjimothy5313]

@@SpaceRexWill I regularly get 600 Mb/s out of a raid 5 . 4 disks only, regular 3.5 Hdd. So I think your estimate would be about right.

[@JaredHoyman]

I sub'd maybe less than a two weeks ago and only because I went down the route of a synology NAS for my business and editing work flow. You have opened a new world for me and I'm loving it. I did end up getting the 1522+ and can't believe I'm editing 4k 265 Log in Davinci Resolve over 1gb wifi signal. I have been using an Orbi wifi 6 setup for a few years and I'm wondering if it's worth going to the 6E version and even pick up the $150 10gb adpater for the 1522+? My houses is just under 4,000sqf and I'm not hard wired at this point. Keep rocking it!

[@jaapkamstra9343]

Hey there! I wander: one year later....are you still rocking the 2.5? Personally I will probably upgrade to 10Gbe anyway. As all the wiring in my house has to be redone anyway. Internet now enters in the oposite site of my house. As cable management is a bit tricky in my house, I will probably directly go for cat8. So that I'm set for the next decade or so :)

[@xellaz]

If I'm getting a 10GbE adapter, switch, router, NAS, etc. that means I already did my homework at least and have an idea what other equipments or cables to get and how to test it. I will also make sure that jumbo frames is enabled on all the devices where 10GbE traffic will pass through. This is just what I did and I'm able to take advantage of the full 10GbE bandwith. It's nice when transferring terabytes of data fassssst! 😁

[@marksapollo]

From what I've seen it's 1 or 2.5GB on home routers. Makes sense to me. Many also believe fibre is the way to go for 10GB too this making it inherently even more expensive. But with Apple providing 10GB Ethernet ports on its small computers I'll be interesting to see how it actually performs.

[@SpaceRexWill]

If you are looking for fast internet speeds and not a large business 2.5GbE is likely all you need. I think ATT has an option for 5GbE internet, but I cannot figure out what a home could do to use more than 2GbE

[@danielcarroll3358]

@@SpaceRexWill Our local provider Sonic provided fiber to my mother's house at 10GbE symmetrical. But then it goes to a mesh at 1GbE and she actually uses WiFi to her iPad. But it isn't expensive and includes essentially unlimited VoIP phone service. It is just that their latest exchange equipment is 10GbE so that is what you get.

[@iShootFast]

I don’t disagree with most of that - but Multigig switches are still tough to find. Especially in that 12-24 port range. Basically boils down to having to get a couple of 8 porters with SFP+ and linking them at 10g. But then you’re into more expensive switches for the SFP+ cages, the SFP+ modules, and fiber cross connects ( or hot 10G-Base-T runs). Multiple points of failure with lower MBTF ratings - And your cost and complexity shoots up. We need more M-Gig 16-24 L2 switches out there so we can upgrade our home networks that have cat5e. Even in a mixed GigE and M-Gig topology - by the time you start trunking nas ports, 2.5g backhauls for your wifi6 APs / satellites, and a few power workstations - you can blow past 8 MGig ports.

[@toriless]

I only need a few 8-ports.

[@GabrielCosta-vp9fc]

Man that´s great info! I was just starting to stress out to find a 10gbit adapter and this video was an eye opener! Thx!

[@robertt9342]

Would it be better to pay for the multigig port in the Mac mini or use a 2.5gb dongle for about the 1/3 the cost.

[@calabrais]

This guy spits straight facts. I just switched my NAS and Desktop to 2.5G and it's amazing. I transferred a 12GB file to my NAS so fast that my first thought was an error occurred lol

[@MrDead1975]

now try an SSD cache NAS with 10gb ethernet lol

[@milesduheaume203]

Excellent, helping me make decisions at a time I'm considering an upgrade for my Network. Many thanks!

[@zemekiel]

It takes literally less than 5 min to change your cabling to a higher standard. 1. Remove plugs/wall sockets from cable. fasten a line to the cable then pull it out from the other side. This leaves you with a removed older cable and a line inside the cable gate in your walls. 2. Attach new 6a cable to the line, and pull it the other way, attach plugs/wall sockets and there you go!

[@noeldillabough]

I built my house in 2004, and luckily spent the extra money on cat6; 10 gbe is just too expensive for now, so 2.5 sounds great (as long as legacy 1g connections still work). Can you recommend a rack mount 2.5gbe switch? I'd love two 10gbe ports to hook the nas up to my office, but that would be a bonus.

[@SpaceRexWill]

The big question comes down to what you are looking for. I love my unifi 2.5 GbE switch that’s POE. But it’s probably too expensive / overkill for most setups. Netgear has an awesome multi speed switch that is often out of stock, but great. It’s got every port speed from 1 to 10 GbE and super flexible

[@christopherjackson2157]

100 percent agree. I've deployed both several times and yea ur spot on here. I still like having the 10gig sfp+ in my own network. Because I like playing around with it. Not because it's in any way practical or worth the effort. I can barely tell the difference in terms of day to day use. Even saturating a 10 gig line during a file transfer can be challenging. I've almost always got a hard drive on one or the other end of the connection. Which is typically slower than a 2.5gig link

[@chromerims]

Video is correct. One wrinkle: for new construction and renovations, cordially advise to stuff cat6/6a into the walls. Will render the property more "future-proofed" and hence _marketable_ / re-saleable.

[@SpaceRexWill]

I would for sure put in 6/6A

[@chromerims]

@@SpaceRexWill 👍

[@kaede15]

This argument is true ONLY when you need portability.... And also the argument should be: "if you want to buy a usb dongle you should pick up a 2.5Gb one, cuz it can also negotiate at 1G so there is no point buying 1g usb dongle any more." For the rest, there no comparison with 10G specially in price: - If you need to wire your house / office, would you pick 500ft of cat 6a between $150 and $250 that can only give you 10G max... Or 30m (100ft) of OM3 LC that can you up to 40Gb for $28 (with LC connector). - I would never go for RJ45. Always pick SPF cages, this way you can choose later on if you want fiber optics OR copper (u can also get RJ45 for SFP transcievers). - Transceiver costs around $7 - $25 and internal PCIe 10G card costs even less than that. For less than $20 they comes with 2 (two) SFP+ cages meaning they can do 20GB Only recently you can find cheaper switches from Chinese vendor that comes with 8x 2.5Gb wiith one or two SFP+ 10g that goes for under $100 but then again, these are Chinese vendor with Chinese mediocre software. Otherwise reputable vendors like Ubiquiti, mikrotik 2.5G are still well above $100. I recommend mikrotik CRS326-24S+2Q+ (24x 10g SFP+ 2x 40g QSFP+ and dual power supply, consmption 42w to 69w ) at $600 for your main switch and for each office a mikrotik CRS305-1G-4S+ ( 1G rj45, can be powered by POE, 4x 10g SFP+ and dual 12v DC power, consumption 10w to 18w) at $150. The only expensive part of 10G is the external adapter which requires usb4 / thunderbolt connection for your laptop that part is true. A nice looking one like the one from QNAP costs around $240. Otherwise if you work from a PC with internal PCIe slots upgrading to 10g is not that much of an investment even if you don't go for the big switch... go for the smaller CRS305-1G-4S+ and you will be able to connect 4 machines at 10G for $150 plus a decent router with power failure prevention. Obviously you need to be able to push that amount of data for 10G otherwise is pointless if you have a network like this but only have a whimpy 2x mechaninc hdds from synology. I have a Dell R730 with 24x 1.8TB 10k SAS 3, dual mellanox 40Gb and 8x 1Tb nvme, running TrueNAS, I can push 2.7Gb/s in samba real life transfer without tweaking. But today you can have a $50 optiplex stuff it with a couple of nvme and it can easily saturate your 10G. Frankly I don't see much utility for 2.5G, I would rather invest in something more useful like POE capabilities, cuz with that you can power and transfer data with one cable. Like running Raspberry Pies with one cable and no SD card (a $20 POE hat and PXE boot) :)

[@mwolfod]

VERY informative Post. It is helping me get up to speed on current Tech. Thank God we installed Fiber as part of a "smart cable" bundle 25 years ago when we built our home. Thanks!

[@AzraelIgnis]

I went with a 10gb switch and router. Asus GT-11000 pro > TPLink TL-SX1008 (10gb 8 port switch) > 2 x Dlink DMS-106xt (1x10gb port, 5 x 2.5gb ports) > 2 x Asus GT6's. This will fit my needs for a while. Anything client side will just need to be upgraded as manufactures adapt with demand.

[@6mtzhp55]

I ended up buying a 10gbe switch after watching this because despite slow adoption, it still seems better adopted than 2.5 in retail channels. The switch negotiates down to 5, 2.5, 1 and 100mbe. The switches with 2.5 ports plus a couple 10s for uplink weren't hugely less expensive than 8 ports of pure 10gbe. The 2-5x price gap shrunk a bit (in the unmanaged realm) in the year since this analysis. The way 2.5 combined up/down channels is a practical shortcut but still a shortcut. The heat factor is mitigated in my home environment because not every client is going to be reading and writing hard from the NAS and can stick with 1gbe or upgrade to 2.5gbe. Will still he using 2.5 adapter equipped devices (e.g. USB-C 2.5 adapter on my Macbook) with this 10gbe switch due to its negotiation capabilities working well. I want to like 2.5gbe more and on paper it's the type of solution/approach I traditionally like, but I couldn't make it work on paper for me when it is so easy to run new Cat7 and Cat8 in my house. It'd be an awesome upgrade for a SoHo or small business that just got fiber internet using their existing wiring - just a switch, $30 add-in cards (available in half height for those little Dells!) to get the clients up to speed and push the next upgrade out for a few years. By the way there is a good interview here on KZbin with the primary engineer of the ethernet standard. It's a fun watch, his insistence on design considerations for interoperability and long term extensibility (that cost him friends and even his job once) have influenced the way I implement solutions and defend my future-considering and simpler design choices in my own engineering projects.

[@SWillibr]

I'm currently installing multi-gig switches into my environment, primarily to support the faster wifi standards coming out. Its inevitable at this point. 1GB cable speeds suck, and like you said, lots of places are stuck behind that wall.

[@koset]

Hey, Rex. I just wanted to say thanks. I upgraded my servers and laptops to use 2.5Gbps and I'm getting 10x network transfer speeds! For my Synology arrays, I had to use ASUS USB dongles and I found a github for the chip driver. Thanks so much!

[@prashanthb6521]

github details please.

[@Zarathustra-H-]

I've been running 10gig at home since 2014 using decommed Enterprise SFP+ server NIC's from eBay, and loving it. SFP+ DAC cables for short runs, and transducers and fiber for longer runs. Recently I grabbed a couple of 40Gig Intel XL710-QDA2 adapters, and I am loving them even more. I mean, if you use Ethernet on a USB or Thunderbolt adapter, this criticism might be accurate, but who does that?

[@AlejandroMartinez-cl4kk]

Absolutely. However, I'd like to know how to use link aggregation to have, for instance, a 5Gb network together with something like to Asus Nimbustor NAS

[@AaronWeissRocks]

These are excellent points that have helped me reconsider going to 10gbe.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Im glad! the biggest thing you need to ask yourself is "do I need 10gbe" and take a real look at if 2.5gbe could do it for you

[@jamesgoss1860]

I opted for 2.5 in my home. My goal was to be able to stream 4K video from my NAS over Wi-Fi without bottlenecking the network. The eero Pro 6e I have can broadcast over 1Gb and supports 2.5Gb wired LAN, so 2.5Gb was the way to go. Overall I'm very happy with the performance. Gigabit internet is plenty and 2.5 for a home network seems just right. I think I'll be sticking with that for the foreseeable future.

[@iamnutty8471]

your isue is wireless speed not LAn you tool!

[@timezonewall]

4K video takes less than 100Mbps if using typical compression, if coming from streaming providers like Amazon or Netflix, it's well under 40Mbps. A 1Gb LAN has plenty of capacity for a few simultanous 4K streams. 1Gbps only becomes an issue for video editing when one keeps their source on the NAS, or running VMs over the network. Many people just cache video editing files on the local system to work on them, and periodically update the NAS so the LAN speed isn't even a factor. Streaming 4K over WiFi, however, can easily be an issue if the device is trying to do it over 2.4Ghz. Generally 802.11ac (5Ghz) works fine if the signal strength is adequate. I always recommend using separate SSID for 2.4 and 5Ghz so one can be sure their streaming devices are only connecting over 5Ghz.

[@RideTheAlps]

I have 10gBit fiber at my desk for 60 CHF in Switzerland. As a private person. So backup from my mac studio to the icloud is faster than my external USB drive. Depends were you live I think. :)

[@anonneet]

ur lucky to live in switzerland

[@mcsignson]

qnap makes a cool 2 - 10gig - 4-2.5gig that does multigig nicely - unmanaged. nice to get to a 10g port on nas from desk/laptop for those big files.

[@pseudocode6506]

this is very dongle specific though, what about a desktop PC using a PCI-E card instead of USB? I'm also curious why 10gb, after all these years is such an issue. I'm old enough to remember having a 10base t card (100 were available but way outside my budget at the time) but we seemed to go through 10/100/1000 as a fairly natural evolution, all the while increasing speed by an order of magnitude. 1gbit has been around for a long time, why is jumping up one more zero so much difficult?

[@SpaceRexWill]

10 GbE is trying to do something really hard. Send really fast data over a really long, but inexpensive cable. I think this is a bit of mores law being dead

[@deepspacecow2644]

​@@SpaceRexWill Yea, single mode fiber is that really long really cheap cable.

[@LIVEFRMNYC]

My router, desktop PC, and NAS are all in one location at my desk. The two RJ45 10gb cards I got, one for my desktop and the other for my NAS, was pretty cheap and works flawless. I bought some RJ45 Cat 8 cables which was also low cost. The hard part was finding a simple and cheap 10gb switch with multiple RJ45 connections. I ended up finding one by Zyxel which has three 10gb RJ45 ports, and one 10gb SFP+ port. The rest of the ports are RJ45 1gb. I actually gave up looking for a RJ45 10gb adapter for my laptop, cause the reviews on all of them were so bad. But I don't really need it for my laptop anyways, just wanted to have just incase I would. All together my 10gb setup cost me around $380.

[@SpaceRexWill]

If you have everything in the same room and you can use SFP+ DAC cables 10GbE becomes a lot cheaper for sure!

[@toriless]

I think I would prefer a 2.5 / 10 switch myself.

[@teardowndan5364]

6:05 "Those step-down circuits actually are pretty inefficient." You must be thinking about linear regulators. Switching DC-DC converters with synchronous rectification commonly achieve 92+% efficiency. The power supply is at most a tenth of the reason why 10GbE needs large heatsinks, the bulk comes from all of the signal processing needed to make 10GBase-T work. Thunderbolt transceivers are also kind of power-hungry themselves.

[@torfinnjohnsrud793]

I somewhat regret not futureproofing my newly built house with cat6 or cat6a, but for all the reasons you mentioned, I'm not that worried. 95% of households are more than serviced with a 1Gbps LAN, if they even use the wiring instead of just a router/modem/access point only capable of 400Mbps. I don't have large amounts of data to transfer unless its the rare backup or setup of a computer which is extremely rare, so I don't mind it taking a few days if its only once every couple years. In the future, my house will be capable of 2.5Gbps and possibly even 10Gbps since all the runs are well under 40m if not 35m. I bought a 16 port fully managed 1Gbps switch for $75 used and am satisfied.

[@SpaceRexWill]

2.5GbE can actually be run over cat 5e! Your current cables will work fine

[@toriless]

I went to shielded 6A. I have a few that are 100 feet.

[@0bsmith0]

Cat5e can handle 5 Gbps just fine.

[@NovvaOfficial]

Title is misleading, should be replaced with “cheaper”.

[@PrettyWeddingStudios]

Yea but that would make for a boring title & non click baity 😜

[@8kdigitals]

Hi ! thanks for th e informative video, Can I do a 4K Edit with D-link DMS-106XT | 6-Port which has 2.5 gigabyte speed to coomunicate with 2 computer?

[@bluegizmo1983]

1:37 My two year old TV apparently didn't get that memo, as it only has a 10/100 Ethernet port.

[@sloppydoggy9257]

If I was going to use 10G I would just go Fiber optic. Funny, we have some 100G stuff at my work which actually uses copper, but use QSFP28 cables.

[@veneratedmortal4369]

1gb was sufficient for hard drives and internet for a long time. It still is if you are a wifi house. If consumers needed it I think it would develop faster. Now worth fast nas and internet some enthusiasts are considering it.

[@toriless]

What is the speed of WiFi 7?

[@0bsmith0]

Consumers already need it, that's why products are popping up all over. Enthusiasts are already running 10 Gbps networks.

[@0bsmith0]

@@toriless With Wifi 6E you can get well over 1.5 Gbps. With Wifi 7 you'll be able to attain speeds over 2.5 Gbps.

[@Lock2002ful]

Came here because I’m looking for AM5 boards and a couple of them support 10gb ethernet. Don’t really know if it’s necessary but guess I have to look up how speeds are here in Japan and even if my provider and router supports it, if it’s worth it.

[@focusandcreatenow]

Great WIll. Another great video. thank you. Would 2.5 be better for me if I want direct internet in my thunderbolt as Im using my 10GBs for my Synology?

[@AndrewKYIV]

Thanks for shared real life experience with audience. It's really useful.

[@jeffmiller1140]

I have 10 gig ethernet in my home. A combination of OM3 fiber and CAT 8 ( the latter - questionable as to its worth), 10 gig ASUS Router and 16 port 10 gig switch SFP+ . I have 3 servers, of which I really only run one for power consumption and noise reasons. I currently have 1 gig fiber, and I will be the lucky recipient with my ISP, of being a guinea pig for their 10 gig test to my home. Yes, I'm beaming, right now! My experience with 10 gig is that it most certainly works well, and the extra headroom into and out of my servers does very well. I'm sure that there are very few services out there providing a 10 gig experience at their website. That being said, I'm old enough to remember when there were many naysayers out there stating that 1 gig internet was never going to be necessary. And, here we are today with that standard. I will always contend that the extra headroom is noticeable and useful. I'm looking forward to be the "crash test dummy" on this one! LOL Thanks for your videos!

[@kelrune]

Please tell me you know the difference of USB 3.0, 3.1. 3.2 3.2x2 thunderbold3 and 4

[@SpaceRexWill]

No one does because the usb convention changed what everything means 3x

[@marcinwozny7722]

I bought 8 port spf+ tp link switch TL-SX3008F and it does not get hot couple of fiber connections and it works great never had any issues, beside ping are in 1 milisecond cobine with Bt fiber in prem , execelent for gaming . Accessing achived blueray from my cached nas is pretty much instant (50gb movie) over samba no fuss , no tranconding. Just works no issues . Cannot say that about 2.5gbe

[@dpasadis]

Great tutorial! Many thanks. Very helpful.

[@smitty9398]

I have been working my way towards 10Gbe. In 2014 I ran Cat6 everywhere. I have the Unifi 10Gbe eight port aggregation switch at the top of my network. Cost was around 260.00. In most of my house there is no need for anything higher than 1Gbe. Except in my office where I am working towards 10Gbe over time. I plan on upgrading my NAS with the one from Xi systems. And plan to build a Proxmox server for other services. I figure if I am building new I am going to work towards the fastest speeds reasonable. I do not disagree with what you are saying in your video. In my case I just want 10Gbe where I can get it.

[@alexshdvideo]

Very interesting. Was staring at cost and noise of 10gb switches and start my first nas for my video editing and storage. My Mac has 10gb port but maybe do a 10gb later. Maybe a 2.5 or even 5 gb first. By then my current Mac will not even be close to cutting edge. Actually it’s not already. So I wonder if my 10gb port down grades to 2.5 or 5.0 gb

[@stevenwaldstein2249]

Thank you for the video. Very interested in 2.5Gb but you failed to mention accurately what type of USB interface is needed on the adapter. I know it can be A or C but I assume it must be one of these two at the host level port or hub. SuperSpeed USB 5Gbps - USB 3.2 Gen 1×1 / USB 3.0 SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps - USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 Most Macs only have 😂5Gbps Type A ports but most Thunderbolt hubs have both C and A that support 5 or even 10 Gbps. My new QNAP RAID and QNAP both support 2.5 GbE.

[@0bsmith0]

Either is fine. The connector is not the issue it's the USB port speed, but that's why 2.5 GbE adapters are USB 3.0. You'll want a 5 Gbps USB port for a 2.5 GbE adapter, 10 Gbps for a 5 GbE adapter.

[@brianmatthews232]

very informative and balanced review, thanks 😀

[@pierrelambert446]

10gm make more sense on fiber or on dac cable. It does not heat as much. Great for the uplinks

[@craigshields8806]

I'm about to order a Synology NAS. I was going to get the OWC 10Gbe adapter but then I realized that my CalDigit TS4 has a a 2.5 Gbe port on the back. Can I just use this to connect to the NAS and not order the OWC? Thanks.

[@bkdasa]

Suppose I use a MacStudio with 10G port, can I connect to the DS1621xs+ 10G port with good bandwidth?

[@helberbimbo]

Editing 4k in raw in 2.5 is acceptable with some LAGs.... but render, the time was almost 3x longer!! 10gb is life!

[@engineeringVirtue]

1gbps is indeed too slow to be the modern standard connector...especially for home or small office environment, however it is usable. 2.5/5gbps auto negotiation makes much more sense. Important stuff can be on 2-3 port lagp/lacp, such as switches, routers, servers, and nas.... 3x5gbps handles pretty much anything you throw at it. Why not 10G... historically, these generate too much heat and higher switch fan speeds(noise) while being much more expensive per port. Especially if you add 30-60w POE options on each port. 12 port 1/2.5/5gbps managed multigig switches with 250w POE budget will sell really well. Enterprise can have 25gbps uplink ports.

[@ryanmalone2681]

A lot of homelab servers support 10g or 1G and won’t recognize 2.5G. This is one of the reasons I switched to Dell 730’s.

[@stowgood]

Could I edit 4k footage on a NAS using 2.5GbE link between the PC and the NAS? Atm I put everything on an SSD and I am wondering if I can do it better.

[@SpaceRexWill]

You can! 2.5 GbE is enough for any 4k you can think of other than pro res 444

[@mistertwo6113]

Well I'm planning a DS923+ NAS. I'm considering a Netgear GS110EMX managed switch. Switch and NAS will be colocated. The Windows PC will be at most 24 feet from the switch. Which speed Ethernet cards would you recommend for the NAS and PC. I really don't think I need more than 2.5gb, and 5gb cards are hard to find. Can I put a 2.5gb into the DS923+ slot? Thanks!

[@drewcunningham2783]

2.5GbE is better than 10GbE, from the person who just wired his house for 100GbE fiber! ;-) Love your videos and all your work.

[@vincie0007]

After watching this video, i got a 10gbe instantly

[@patrickteboul5809]

Hey SpaceRex, I Love your videos! verry helpfull ! So I have a question: I have 10gb Ethernet on my PC and I bought a DS920+ Synology Nas ,with 2 1 gb connectors : Is there a way to connect it in 10 gb to my network? Is there a way to connect it in 10 gb to my network?

[@chrispowers2736]

Could you do multiple of the 2.5 Gb connectors similar to what you’ve shown with multiple 1Gb? Then you’d have ~5Gb say to the 5 port switch? I was thinking two 2.5 to the NAS and 2 2.5 to my Mac and the switch is 5 port, so one uplink and the only extra cost (I think) is the extra 2 USB connectors…if doing this is supported.

[@calloq1035]

Going an entire video talking about 10Gb and not mentioning the various SFP/SFP+/SFP28/QSFP/etc standards is insane. It’s gotten really affordable in recent years too

[@EvanLéNoir]

I'm new to networking so I may say something or ask something that might be obvious to gurus but not me. I was planning on installing Ethernet throughout my house. I wanted to use an Omada system for the sake of simplicity and having everything talk to eachother. would a 2.5 network be sufficient for adhoc gaming and media or should I look at a 5g setup so as not to saturate 2.5?

[@SolarMillUSA]

@3:47 use in my underwear? Now we are getting to the real benefits of higher bandwidth networks

[@s70cas7ic0]

Is there a Synology Nas with 2.5 gigabit support reasonably cheap for home use?

[@droneforfun5384]

Nah. But you can add a dongle 2,5g for like 20usd

[@noechaparro8824]

How would you do 5gbe networking, I hardly see any 5gbe to USB adapters

[@TheDarmach]

Do I stumbled upon this in Realtek 8125 description - that it's supposedly supports "2.5G Lite (1G data rate)". Have you ever seen anything like this?

[@WilliamSwartzendruber]

I have a NAS with NVMe in it. Saturating 10GBASE-T is trivial (1.1 GB/s). I use this for part of my Steam library. You show a laptop in this video. Mine is on 802.11ax.

[@SpaceRexWill]

NVMe drives will for sure saturate a 10gig connection as long as the NAS and the computer have enough horse power over smb. Have you been able to get above ~500MB/s on iscsi for your steam library?

[@WilliamSwartzendruber]

@@SpaceRexWill I'm using Samba. File transfers fluctuate between 1.0 and 1.1 GBps. EDIT: This is for my 10GBASE-T tower. The laptop is much slower.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Ah, have you tried you steam library with ISCSI. The random access that games need will do a ton better on iscsi, even if the sequential throughput is worse

[@RedOni_YT]

I wish you title your video “2.5gb vs 10gb Ethernet port, which is better?” I been looking for hours and I just found your video

[@samstrider3253]

Currently running 200-400MB/s over thuderbolt networking direct between 2 computers using a USB-C cable. 2.5Gbit ethernet would be slower. Looks like i should get 5Gbit switch (480MB/s) ...but they don't seem to exist (at least in small port numbers). Guess i'll just have to go for 10Gbit if i want to free up those USB-C ports. But you're right, it's not really worth it yet..

[@volodumurkalunyak4651]

A dislike for 6:05. WRONG. Those step-down circuits are very efficient. A 3W 5V->3.3V step-down is really 90%+ efficient and fits inside 1cm^2 of board space.

[@itsabana]

Can i use a usb3 2.5GBE adapter on a synology ds1718+? If so please recommend one.

[@mikehomner4724]

Great info, thanks much!

[@SpaceRexWill]

Thanks!

[@raylavers4216]

I have the same 2.5g ugreen adapter as you, I'm on a M1PRo. however I can't get more than 108 mb/s Am I missing a something? I'm connected directly into my 10gb card on my DS1621 +

[@raylavers4216]

I also tried on my PC. and tried 3 different Cat 7 cables

[@raylavers4216]

4 harddrives installed and the output is reading 1000 MBPS in DSM

[@SpaceRexWill]

108 MB/s sounds like it's negotiating to 1GbE. make sure you set it up right: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aHS8Xnmkhtuoe9U

[@20centurymodern]

Would 2.5GB allow to work directly from the NAS editing RAW, 1080, 4K video, or is it better and/or need a 10gb connection?

[@SpaceRexWill]

So 2.5 GbE less you pretty much any Codec that is under 250 MB/s. Which means unless you have highly uncompressed 1080 RAW you should be safe with 2.5 GbE

[@20centurymodern]

@@SpaceRexWill thanks for your reply. How about Lightroom and Photoshop, especially interested in working directly from NAS to PC, would it be ideal to use 2.5GB here (using a ds1522+) with all communications connections using 10gb of course

[@joaquimpato522]

My laptop have a 1GB network card, my desktop have a 2.5GB network card, the internet carrier router is 10/100/1000 gigabit, i have a 500mb internet plan from my internet carrier, my internet cables are cat6A. With these picture in mind , is possible a 500mb plan from my internet carrier multiply to 1Gb and 2.5Gb of internet speed to my laptop , desktop and through my gigabit router ? Please explain me how.

[@williamharper7]

Drats.....I just got a 5 Gig Fiber Internet from Frontier. Why is it so hard to find some 5 Gbe unmanaged. switches and a good wifi 6e mesh system for wired and wireless connectivity in my home. I have upgraded all my ethernet cable to cat 6e already.

[@deepspacecow2644]

Go 10g. Older enterprise switches are cheap and have lots of ports. Can be loud though. Also. 25gpon is already being deployed, 5g wan will become 10,25,50g in coming years

[@adillpickle6762]

I just upgraded to 1.2 gig from my provider. I just go online and download data. I don't have a LAN its just plugged into my computer. I bought a 2.5 gig pci card. Speeds are erratic. I think I might upgrade to a 10 gig card. I have a Cat 9 cable from my modem do my computer. What do you recommend. Should I try a USB type for just connecting to the internet?

[@SpaceRexWill]

If you are talking internet then the speeds fluctuating are due to your provider, not your connection

[@adillpickle6762]

@@SpaceRexWill Thank you

[@deepspacecow2644]

​@@adillpickle6762 also cat9 is not real, you should get a cat 6 cable that actually follows a standard.

[@droneforfun5384]

Thank you will /from Sweden

[@CT99999]

Honest question: what's the noise that you're making at the beginning of each video? I love your content; it's incredibly helpful for me! But, is there some inside joke you have w/ the fans, whereby you mumble "housegoinaw" or something at the beginning? I know BeardMeetsFood does this before he eats, he cartoonishly mumbles "Let's go!" in hyperbole, and that by itself is the joke. Please let us in on the "housegoinaw"

[@superbaggio87]

thankks as always gr8 usefull content

[@SpaceRexWill]

Thanks!

[@thomasmichaelschwarz9741]

I tried to - foolishly - put up a 10 Gig network for 10 PC running 3D design programs. Paid few thousand bucks for a 10 gig switch having only fiber ports. No problem ....just take fiber to ethernet adaptors ....not really, as those get hot like a stove. Hence the switch manual allows max every second port to have such an adapter. Yeah, never got it running. So I bought a qnap switch for 2.5 gig. Works like a charm. It has 2 fiber and 2 ethernet 10 gig ports. I connected the synology to 10 gig ethernet. Length of cable 0.5 meter. Synology could,d not connect at 10 gig even with cats. Cat8 did the trick. So much to THEORETICAL cable requirements for 10 gig.....did any of the users ever complain about low speed on 2.5 gig? Not once in over 3 years. Contrary, they praise the fast network. Don't be stupid like me! Because if you really need 10gig you also MUST have fiber cabling and not ethernet! Otherwise you will get a 10 gig network running at 2.5 gig (if the ports allow this maybe 5 gig) anyway.

[@g4anode]

And here I am wondering when we'll get MORE than 10GbE over copper anytime soon. I want to have a nas made up entirely of nvme drives, 10GbE is way too slow for that.

[@SpaceRexWill]

unless you just need a really small amount of storage and want to just use a PC with M.2 drives, I actually would look at building out a SATA SSD server first (at least that's what I did). When you are going over the network the advantage of the PCIe bus gets slightly negated because you are already introducing a ton of latency just having to go over a network, and you can get a ton of SATA drives for the price of a U.2 Drive. Also your best shot for the near future is going to be running fiber if you want to go over 10GbE. I have seen absolutely nothing about 25GbE BASE-T coming into the enterprise even. I would be surprised if we saw a sub $1000 25GbE BASE-T switch in the next 5 years

[@elizbar20]

Hi I have question ! I bought SABRENT 5-Gigabit Ethernet adapter for my MacBook Pro m1 MAX try to get 5gb speed from my Synology nas . I have 2 nvme for read and write and 10Gb card on my Synology ! I also have 10Gb switch TP-Link TL-SX1008!!! My question is when I plug in my 5gb adapter to my MacBook and it work just for 5 seconds and the I don’t have internet and I get kicked out from nas at the same time ! Can someone help please

[@opensourcedev22]

For me it comes down to price and what I don't understand, is why 2.5gbe switches are still so expensive. I'm close to just jumping on a 4 port SFP+ microtik switch and then just decide what transceiver and cable to use.

[@toriless]

If you think $100 - $150 is expensive you have no perspective.

[@stevmoon]

What you say makes sense for the laptop world. Laptops don't generally have the horsepower to require a 10G connection.

[@delduked]

10gb is better. By exactly 7.5gbe. Maybe you can distinguish between “better” and “more financially applicable “

[@thewaliiiii]

Nothing better than 950MB/s , once you try it you can't go back. 10Gb > 2.5Gb Easy!