Live data from Hacker News

Reliable 25 Gigabit Ethernet via Thunderbolt

kohlschuetter.github.io

41–50 of 133 posts

Re: Reliable 25 Gigabit Ethernet via Thunderbolt

#42
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! Have you tried the boltctl/rescan setup I mentioned in the post? It should get you going, as long as your Thunderbolt/USB4 setup is correct. If you're using an adapter card to add Thunderbolt functionality, then your mainboard needs to support that, and the card must be connected to a PCIe bus that's wired to the Intel PCH, not to the CPU.

Yes, rescan, re-enroll too. But it still shows as disconnected. I don't know if the firmware is completely incompatible, but it is weird that under windows works and in Linux doesn't

Disconnected as in "network"? What PCIe card do you use? Can you update the firmware (maybe from Windows)?

Also check the BIOS settings (try setting TB security to "No Security" or "User Authorization")

Some OEM Mellanox cards can be cross-flashed to NVIDIA's stock firmware, maybe that's also relevant.

Re: Reliable 25 Gigabit Ethernet via Thunderbolt

#43
Ha! Been running these for years on both linux and windows (on lenovo x1 laptops). Using cheap chinese thunderbolt-to-nvme adapters + nvme-to-pcie boards + mellanox cx4 cards (recently got one cx5 and a solarflare x2).

Pic of a previous cx3 (10 gig on tb3) setup: https://habrastorage.org/r/w780/getpro/habr/upload_files/d3c...

10gig can saturate full speed, 25G in my experience rarely reaches same 20G as the author observed.

Re: Reliable 25 Gigabit Ethernet via Thunderbolt

#44
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how to measure the direct power impact on a MacBook Pro (since it's got a battery), but the typical power consumption of these cards is 9 W, not much more than Aquantia 10 GBit cards. Also, if you remember where you saw that logo, please let me know!

Plus 1-2.5w per active cable. You need the heatsinks as the cx4 cards expect active airflow, and active transceivers as well. I have a 10gbit dual port card in a Lenovo mini pc. There is no normal way to get any heat out of there so I put a 12v small radial fan in there as support. It works great at 5v: silent and cool. It is a fan though so might not suit your purpose.

Do you mean active Thunderbolt cable? Short Thunderbolt cables (0.8m) are passive.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/y5uokj/commen...

Re: Reliable 25 Gigabit Ethernet via Thunderbolt

#45
This is an outstanding blog post. Initially, the title did little to captivate me, but the blog post was so well written that I got nerd-sniped. Who knew this little adapter was so fascinating! I wonder if the manufacturer is buying the Mellanox cards used from data center tear-downs. The author claims they can be had for only 20 USD online. That seems too good to be true!

Small thing: I just checked Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=thunderbolt+25G&crid=2RHL4ZJL96Z9...

I cannot find anything for less than 285 USD. The blog post gave a price of 174 USD. I have no reason to disbelieve the author, but a bummer to see the current price is 110 USD more!

Re: Reliable 25 Gigabit Ethernet via Thunderbolt

#46

Thunderbolt is basically external PCIe, so this is not so surprising. High speed NICs do consume a relatively large amount of power. I have a feeling I've seen that logo on the board before.

I don't know how to measure the direct power impact on a MacBook Pro (since it's got a battery), but the typical power consumption of these cards is 9 W, not much more than Aquantia 10 GBit cards. Also, if you remember where you saw that logo, please let me know!

JFYI, for measuring power draw, you might be able to use `macmon`[0] to see the total system power consumption. The values reported by the internal current sensor seem to be quite accurate.

[0] https://github.com/vladkens/macmon

Re: Reliable 25 Gigabit Ethernet via Thunderbolt

#47
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the Ethernet part but it bothers me that even wifi has become faster than the wired USB port on our phones. All I want to do is copy over all the photos and videos from my phone to my computer but I have to baby sit the process and think whether I want to skip or retry a failed copy. And it is so slow. USB 2.0 slow. I guess everybody has given up on the idea of saving their photos and videos over U…

Wifi is fast but the latency is terrible and the reliability is even worse. It can go up and down like a yo-yo. USB is far more predictable even if it is a bit slower.

I have a cluster of 4 RPi Zero Ws and network reliability is not great. Since it is for the chaos, it’s fine, but it’s very common to have a node be offline at any given time.

Even worse, the control plane is exposed, but for something that runs 3 Hercules mainframe emulation and two Altairs with MP/M, it’s fine.

Re: Reliable 25 Gigabit Ethernet via Thunderbolt

#49
post #6
post #2

Now I just have to contrive the circumstances where this is useful to me. :)

I don't know about the Ethernet part but it bothers me that even wifi has become faster than the wired USB port on our phones. All I want to do is copy over all the photos and videos from my phone to my computer but I have to baby sit the process and think whether I want to skip or retry a failed copy. And it is so slow. USB 2.0 slow. I guess everybody has given up on the idea of saving their photos and videos over U…

If the photos on the phone are visible as files on a mounted filesystem, you can use rsync to copy them. If the connection drops but recovers by itself, you can put rsync inside a while true loop until it’s doing nothing.

I’m using Dropbox for syncing photos from phone to Linux laptop, and mounting the SDcard locally for cameras, so this is a guess.

Re: Reliable 25 Gigabit Ethernet via Thunderbolt

#50

This is an outstanding blog post. Initially, the title did little to captivate me, but the blog post was so well written that I got nerd-sniped. Who knew this little adapter was so fascinating! I wonder if the manufacturer is buying the Mellanox cards used from data center tear-downs. The author claims they can be had for only 20 USD online. That seems too good to be true! Small thing: I just checked Amazon.com: http…

Thank you!

I think, tragically, the blog post has caused this price increase.

The offers on Amazon are most likely all drop shippers trying to gauge a price that works for them.

You might have better luck ordering directly from China for a fraction of the price: https://detail.1688.com/offer/836680468489.html

Post reply on HN