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New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

jeffgeerling.com

241–250 of 384 posts

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

#241

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.

>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.

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

#242

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 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.

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

#243
post #59
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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

#244
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 ad…

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.

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

#245
post #89

By the way, how are switches and cables for > 1Gbps these days?

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)

Nicgiga and Trendnet have 8 and 5 port 10G switches for less than $250 respectively.

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

#247

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` w…

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.

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

#248
post #11

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.)

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.

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

#249
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Mac mini at home used 4.64w averaged over the last 30 days. Even under load it just sips power.

It can draw a lot more under load? https://support.apple.com/en-gb/103253

I’m sure it can, but even that could be supplied by POE++ I think?

Mine under very rarely exceeds 10w.

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

#250
post #53

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.

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/…

"gen 2x2" is Microsoft level bad naming.
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