Is it worth having a 2.5 Gbps switch at all ?

ng4ever

2[H]4U
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Feb 18, 2016
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If only my current router has a one 2.5 Gbps port I believe, Asus RT-AX86. Plus I have one device that has a 2.5 Gbps network card and port.


Guessing no but wanted to make sure.


I do download on the device with the 2.5 Gbps network card and port on steam at max speed sometimes while transferring other files over to the NAS.
 
Only if you have mutli gig internet or copying large files between multiple PC's.
2.5GbE-Copy (2).jpg


I bought a pair of these a year and a half ago for $120 each,
IMG_1804.JPEG
 
Heh, 2.5Gbps. I'm all in on 10Gbps throughout, and my server is 40Gbps

Code:
11:34:25 me@server ~ iperf3 -s
-----------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on 5201
-----------------------------------------------------------
Accepted connection from 192.168.1.10, port 57792
[  5] local 192.168.1.0 port 5201 connected to 192.168.1.10 port 57808
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec   989 MBytes  8.30 Gbits/sec
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec  1.07 GBytes  9.18 Gbits/sec
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec  1.09 GBytes  9.38 Gbits/sec
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec  1.09 GBytes  9.38 Gbits/sec
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec  1.09 GBytes  9.34 Gbits/sec
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec  1.08 GBytes  9.30 Gbits/sec
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec  1.09 GBytes  9.37 Gbits/sec
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec  1.08 GBytes  9.31 Gbits/sec
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec  1.08 GBytes  9.30 Gbits/sec
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec  1.09 GBytes  9.37 Gbits/sec
[  5]  10.00-10.04  sec  45.2 MBytes  9.36 Gbits/sec
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate
[  5]   0.00-10.04  sec  10.8 GBytes  9.22 Gbits/sec

40Gbps

Code:
Settings for enp59s0f1:
        Supported ports: [ FIBRE ]
        Supported link modes:   40000baseCR4/Full
        Supported pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only
        Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
        Supported FEC modes: Not reported
        Advertised link modes:  40000baseCR4/Full
        Advertised pause frame use: No
        Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
        Advertised FEC modes: Not reported
        Speed: 40000Mb/s
        Duplex: Full
        Auto-negotiation: off
        Port: Direct Attach Copper
        PHYAD: 0
        Transceiver: internal

If you can use it, you can use it. Not really any way for other folks here to tell you what your requirements and use cases are. If I could afford it, I'd have 25Gbps to desktops and 100Gbps to server, but, that's out of reach for the moment.
 
Maybe? Depends on what you wanna do. Your 2.5 computer should be able send/receive to two and a half gigE devices at their line rate. Only you know if that's worth it versus alternatives. You could get something similar with 2-3 aggregated gigE links, if you can do that (multi-connect SMB sharing can work without explict aggregation support, too). Personally, I'm waiting for prices to go down some more, but I'm one of the cheapest bastards I know.
 
If only my current router has a one 2.5 Gbps port I believe, Asus RT-AX86. Plus I have one device that has a 2.5 Gbps network card and port.
I am not fully certain of the use case you want in mind if you just a single device with a 2.5 gbps card for a 2.5 gbs switch (switch is to connect multiple 2.5 gbs device together).

Is it because your Internet is over 1 gbs and you would want for a single device to fully access that bandwith ?

Your router seem to support multi 1gig lan to create a 2 gbs connexion that could be an alternative
 
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You could get something similar with 2-3 aggregated gigE links, if you can do that (multi-connect SMB sharing can work without explict aggregation support, too).
If it's smb to the nas you want to accelerate, the multi-connect via smb is cheap and easy way to scale as all you need is a cheap 1Gb ethernet card and bam, you're at 2Gb. Need more, add another card--bam--3Gb. And it's infinitely scaleable so that's a bonus.
 
Can you other devices do Link Aggregation? If not just because one device can talk at 2.5 GB speeds, does not mean the others can as well. You better off with Link Aggregation to NAS etc...
 
For typical home usage, I can barely see any benefit to 2.5 Gb ethernet given the current price of the switches/etc. I wouldn't bother replacing working 1 Gb equipment.

Now, if this is a situation where time=money, such as a SOHO setup where you're consistently waiting for file transfers to finish to complete a project, then yeah it's worth considering.
 
For typical home usage, I can barely see any benefit to 2.5 Gb ethernet given the current price of the switches/etc. I wouldn't bother replacing working 1 Gb equipment.

Now, if this is a situation where time=money, such as a SOHO setup where you're consistently waiting for file transfers to finish to complete a project, then yeah it's worth considering.
Yeah, if there's a situation where time is valuable, then it is something to consider. But then you should also consider used 10Gb equipment that is going to be around the same cost and 4x as fast. :D
 
Yeah, if there's a situation where time is valuable, then it is something to consider. But then you should also consider used 10Gb equipment that is going to be around the same cost and 4x as fast. :D
Got a link to something reasonable?
 
Got a link to something reasonable?
The good deals usually go fast, but look for anything with sfp ports and use transceivers and fibre or dac (direct attach copper) cables. The 10GBase-T stuff is more expensive, but the transceivers for those have come down a bit too if you want to try running it over your existing wiring where it will work at 10Gb in most cases.

Finding something like this would be ideal:
https://www.reddit.com/r/homelabsales/comments/10h9efy/fsustn_netgear_10port_gigabit10g_ethernet/
 
Got a link to something reasonable?
If you just need a few ports
https://mikrotik.com/product/crs305_1g_4s_in
With either DACs or transceivers from FS.com for whatever you want. Here at home, I have an ICX-6610 in my rack, then two of those Mikrotiks in the house. Each one has a 10Gbps MM fiber run back to the rack switch. On each Mikrotik switch, I have an AP, then either desktops or whatever from there. We're just two people and almost everything hardwired.
 
If it's smb to the nas you want to accelerate, the multi-connect via smb is cheap and easy way to scale as all you need is a cheap 1Gb ethernet card and bam, you're at 2Gb. Need more, add another card--bam--3Gb. And it's infinitely scaleable so that's a bonus.

Agreed... You can buy dual-port gigabit adapters for about $15 these days... add that to your existing motherboard gigabit adapter and boom you have 3x Gigabit bandwidth. Faster than 2.5GbE. All using regular old cheap gigabit switches. Only catch is that the computers have to be connected to the same switch, or if they are connected to separate switches, the switches have to be connected together via a link faster than 1Gb. That's not usually an issue as Gigabit switches with a single faster uplink port are more common and often still cheaper than standalone 2.5GbE switches.

multipathSMB.png

You could potentially mix and match also, such as having one computer using 3x gigabit connections and another computer using a single 2.5GbE connection and multi-path SMB will still be able to make use of the available bandwidth.
 
My router can handle 10Gb and 2.5Gb, my switch can only handle 1Gb. I have my *two* devices in the house that are capable of 2.5Gb hooked up to my router and everything else goes through the 1Gb switch. In theory my Wifi 6 can handle over 1Gb but I've yet to see that happen and was never really planning on it anyway.

The two devices are the only ones that really transfer large files, and honestly I don't think anyone else, or any other device, on the network would ever know that they aren't getting over 1Gb.
 
My router can handle 10Gb and 2.5Gb, my switch can only handle 1Gb. I have my *two* devices in the house that are capable of 2.5Gb hooked up to my router and everything else goes through the 1Gb switch. In theory my Wifi 6 can handle over 1Gb but I've yet to see that happen and was never really planning on it anyway.

The two devices are the only ones that really transfer large files, and honestly I don't think anyone else, or any other device, on the network would ever know that they aren't getting over 1Gb.
And this is why products like the unmanaged netgear with 2x N-base-T uplinks exist. Great for big pipes to the 1-2 things that need it.

And honestly, there's other ways to skin the 2.5Gb cat as there are 2.5Gb Moca adapters that will do it over coax, so a direct point to point link is possible without bothering the ethernet cabling at all if there's coax.
 
Yeah, if there's a situation where time is valuable, then it is something to consider. But then you should also consider used 10Gb equipment that is going to be around the same cost and 4x as fast. :D
This. If you don't know if you need more than 1 Gbps, you don't need more. If you do know, you should skip the 2.5 Gbps crap and go straight to 10 Gbps for comparable cost.
 
Updated to 2.5 gbps a couple years ago. Trying to speed up local backup and restore processes. You feel the improvement when there is a need to move around 600 GB of data. I get about 280 megabytes per second to and from an SSD.
I was in a situation requiring many bare metal restores of a server looking for a backup that would work. It took me nearly a week of nights almost entirely governed by the transfer speeds of gigabit. I ordered the 2.5 gig switch and NICs while I was working on it.

My next jump will be 25 or 100 gbps. For me, 10 gigabit is worth bypassing nowadays but 2.5 gigabit has good bang for your buck with so many motherboards having it baked in. A 40 gigabit setup is damn tempting with Ebay parts. I don't have a place for full rack size network gear and the sound associated with them.
 
If it's smb to the nas you want to accelerate, the multi-connect via smb is cheap and easy way to scale as all you need is a cheap 1Gb ethernet card and bam, you're at 2Gb. Need more, add another card--bam--3Gb. And it's infinitely scaleable so that's a bonus.
Got a guide or article about this?
 
Got a guide or article about this?

It's pretty much automatic with anything that supports SMB 3.0 or higher. It is very flexible. It will work with hosts that each have different network connections. For example, if one computer has a 2.5GbE connection and another has 3x 1Gigabit connections, you will be able to use multichannel SMB to transfer at 2.5GbE speeds between the two.

The only non-intuitive limitation that I can think of is that the network connections that are used on each host have to be the same speed. So, for example, if you have one computer that has both a 1Gigabit network connection and a 100mbps network connection, it will transfer at 200mbps, aka 2x the speed of the slowest interface. It would be nice if this worked out to 1100Mbps instead, but for whatever reason it doesn't.
 
The Asus RT-AX86, already has a 2.5 Gbps port, it should be sufficient for your specific needs. If you have a device with a 2.5 Gbps network card and port, and you can achieve maximum download speeds while simultaneously transferring files to the NAS, it indicates that the current setup is meeting your requirements well.
Upgrading to an audiophile-grade router or a high-end Ethernet switch might not provide significant benefits for your network's performance or audio quality. As long as your existing setup is working effectively and providing satisfactory results.
 
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