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I got the 10Gbe option. I’m adding a similar port (found on eBay for $30) on my beefed up HP Microserver Gen8 NAS and configuring it as an iSCSI target.
With iSCSI the mini sees the remote volume as direct attached storage and I can then deploy both my Lightroom catalog and pictures on the server and connecting to it at USB3.1 equivalent speeds.

Can you explain what it means to configure as an “iSCSI target”? I have experience setting up SMB shares between an always-on Mac mini and a MBP. What you describe sounds better/ as-if DAS.
 
I have a 10GbE network between my Mac, PC, and NAS. It's really great if you use the NAS or exchange files between machines regularly.
 
I have a 10GbE network between my Mac, PC, and NAS. It's really great if you use the NAS or exchange files between machines regularly.

This.

As a home user if I were to purchase any new machine now I would make sure it came with a 10GBe port.

At the moment I tend to use my MacBook wirelessly around the house.
At my desk I have a TB3>10GBe Sonnett Adapter that I use to connect my laptop physically to the network.
I have a 10GBe switch and a 10GBe QNAP NAS connected. File transfers are very fast. I can transfer video files across in no time at all - obviously if you are transferring from an external device connected to your system, then you need to consider where the bottleneck is there, but considering all my external drives are TB3 SSD's, I can move files around super fast. Even more helpful when it comes to moving a FCPX library across to an external TB3 drive for editing elsewhere, for instance.
I've been able to get rid of some external drives and use my NAS much more efficiently.
Its certainly the way forward, especially considering a 10GBe switch is now quite affordable.

Hence if I were looking at purchasing a new computer that would live permanently on my desk, it would be connected directly to my switch via 10GBe. I believe is a relatively 'cheap' upgrade to the Mac Mini, that would certainly future proof it even if you only use 1GBe at the moment.
 
10GbE is not expensive. You can use it at home for NAS.

Broadband greater than gigabit is offered around the world. Even cheap 10G.

You can get a 10G card for $80, a 10G switch for $150. An empty 10G NAS would start at 200 euro. A 10G router would cost at least $1100.

An individual could even buy a couple 40G cards for around $500 each. I have seen a small NAS taking such cards for 1600 euro (empty). A switch would cost at least $1000. This is TB3-like performance on the network, you would need to fit at least an SSD for cache in it.

Datacenters will get 400G soon.
 
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Can you explain what it means to configure as an “iSCSI target”? I have experience setting up SMB shares between an always-on Mac mini and a MBP. What you describe sounds better/ as-if DAS.
iSCSI is a network session protocol that allows you to deploy storage on the network. The resulting application becomes what is knows as a SAN (Storage Area Network).
The iSCSI target is the remote RAID array, the iSCSI Initiator is the client computer that connects to it. 10Gbe is the network physical layer.

As mentioned in my previous post iSCSI allows you to see volumes on the remote array as if they were directly attached. This means you can use them to install applications as if you would do it on an internal disk (DAS), a Lightroom catalog can also be saved there.

Many of the NAS devices on the market support iSCSI although not all of them provide adequate performance to saturate a 10Gbe network (enough CPU cores, RAM, RAID cards and disks).
The same devices however support iSCSI volumes and traditional SMB shares concurrently for maximum flexibility.

I have an HP Microserver Gen8 that I have upgraded myself to 16GB of RAM, a quad core Xeon and internal SATA SSDs. I'll be using it as an iSCSI target for Lightroom and ESXi datastore. I will connect the mini 10Gbe port directly to the Mellanox port on the Microserver without needing a 10Gbe switch for the time being.
 
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I think when 10G ethernet becomes the norm, a Thunderbolt to 10G adapter's price will be equivalent to today's gigabit ones.
Exactly. They're already under $200, it's no stretch to say that $100 spent say, 3 to 5 years from now, will give you the same capability when you need it rather than spending $100 now on the "Chance" you might use it then.
 
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