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New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

jeffgeerling.com

221–230 of 384 posts

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#221
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eithe…

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 wi…

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.

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#222

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.

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.

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#223

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.

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.

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?

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes. Samsung 9100 Pro does 14800/13400 MiB/s over PCIe 5x4.

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 :)

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

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#225
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?

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 P…

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.

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#227

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.

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

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#228
post #160

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.)

TIL that DAS stands for "Direct Attached Storage." In the olden times we called them external hard drives.

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.

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#230
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.
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