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New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

jeffgeerling.com

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

#231

Post by alfanick »

sva_ wrote: post #224
alfanick wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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

#232

Post by adrian_b »

riobard wrote: post #217
ziml77 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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

#233

Post by walrus01 »

razighter777 wrote: post #127
nasretdinov wrote: post #121

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…

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.

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.

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

#234

Post by [deleted] »

riobard wrote: post #217
ziml77 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

[deleted]

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

#235

Post by adrian_b »

eqvinox wrote: post #207
adrian_b wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/…

> Moreover, "5 Gb/s" is a marketing lie. It's not a lie, the b just stands for baud not bit ;-)

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.

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

#236

Post by wpm »

Someone1234 wrote: post #151
TomatoCo wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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 2×2" 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.

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?

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

#237

Post by nfriedly »

reaperducer wrote: post #172
ssl-3 wrote: 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…

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/

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

#238

Post by lukevp »

toast0 wrote: post #218
realxrobau wrote: post #88

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.

> 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 wi…

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.

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

#240

Post by wpm »

Galanwe wrote: post #98
realxrobau wrote: post #88

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.

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…

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.
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