iPad Pro 10 GbE test with iPad Pro 2021

[DRDR]

Connecting a Thunderbolt 3 10 Gbit Ethernet adapter to the 2021 iPad Pro:

It maxes out at around 5000 Gbit/s. The limited performance is probably due to power limits, as the adapter ist very power hungry. The same adapter connected to a Mac achieves around 9600 Gbit/s throughput.

Update:

Using a TB3-dock gives a better but not steady performance with a maximum around 7700 Gbit/s:

 

[AutomaticApple]

Connecting a Thunderbolt 3 10 Gbit Ethernet adapter to the 2021 iPad Pro:

It maxes out at around 5000 Gbit/s. The limited performance is probably due to power limits, as the adapter ist very power hungry. The same adapter connected to a Mac achieves around 9600 Gbit/s throughput.

Maybe it could get even better once iPadOS 15 rolls around?

 

[DRDR]

Maybe it could get even better once iPadOS 15 rolls around?

I will connect it to a Thunderbolt dock to find out if it is power limited.

 

[el-John-o]

That’s fantastic!

Given others who have said that thunderbolt SSD’s don’t operate at full speed; and given that we know that the thunderbolt implementation on the M1 is capable of it; makes me wonder if there are overhead issues in iPad OS causing bottlenecks.

I know that the original version of iPhone OS back in 2007 was based on basically an ARM version of OSX Leopard. I’m curious how much the two OS’s share today, and whether there are ways in which the iOS/iPad OS variant has not kept up with macOS on things like I/O routines, because there’s never been hardware that needed it.

Still, for MOST people; unless you’re connecting to and editing off of a NVME SSD array on the network (and even then; is there even any software that will let you do that? And I don’t mean transferring the files to the iPad and editing); 5 gigabit is probably not the bottleneck. I know in my setup, where I keep things on a RAID5 spinning hard drive array, 5Gbps would be faster than my drives anyway.

 

[DRDR]

It is power limited. Connecting it to a TB3 dock (the dock powers the adapter and routes the data to the iPad) gives you around 7700 Gbit/s, although this throughput was not stable during my testing:

 

[el-John-o]

It is power limited. Connecting it to a TB3 dock (the dock powers the adapter and routes the data to the iPad) gives you around 7700 Gbit/s, although this throughput was not stable during my testing:

View attachment 1779327

Fascinating!

 

[DRDR]

Still, for MOST people; unless you’re connecting to and editing off of a NVME SSD array on the network (and even then; is there even any software that will let you do that? And I don’t mean transferring the files to the iPad and editing); 5 gigabit is probably not the bottleneck.

On my Mac Pro 2013 (TB2) the NVMe achieve 1.2 GByte/s which equals to 9.6 Gbit/s which saturates a 10 GbE connection. On a TB3 Mac things will be much faster. But of course, editing does not really need so much performance. But it is always nice to get the speed when you need it.

 

[el-John-o]

On my Mac Pro 2013 (TB2) the NVMe achieve 1.2 GByte/s which equals to 9.6 Gbit/s which saturates a 10 GbE connection. On a TB3 Mac things will be much faster. But of course, editing does not really need so much performance. But it is always nice to get the speed when you need it.

I guess that’s true. Connecting directly to another machine with an NVME drive is a good use case.

I’m just trying to envision who in a real world situation would both be using an iPad Pro for editing workflows and who would then be wanting to connect to NVME storage on the other end. I bet it’s a small number. Nevertheless, so awesome that it’s an option!

 

[DRDR]

still no maximum speed with iPadOS 15 Beta:

 

[Digitalguy]

In theory a gen 2 USB C dock capable of 10 GbE, if it even exists, should give similar results with a 2018 iPad pro

 

[waloshin]

Does not seem to be power limited if you have it power through a dock which was unstable… seems like a crippled chipset or iPad OS.