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10gb Ethernet - Teach me!

E

elasticmedia

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 29, 2010
46
16
10gb ethernet: I want to hear from people who have this about how it helps them. What advantages does it give you? I have a home office, so I don't have built in cat6 networking, so I am assuming it would be of little value to me. I don't have a big NAS to send files to. Right now I use a 2012 2.6 ghz i7 Mac Mini.

Thanks
Jim
 
The obvious answer is that it enables 10 Gb networking. But it requires that both endpoints and all points in between (such as routers and switches) support 10 Gb. There aren't that many 10 Gb devices out there, and the only Apple device that has native 10 Gb ethernet is the iMac Pro.

Some devices that say that they support 10 Gb actually don't. I have a Cisco switch that negotiates my 10 Gb iMac as 1 Gb. You're probably better using a Cat 7 cable rather than a Cat 6a cable for 10 Gb.
 
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I am using a NAS at home that supports 10GBe networking.
I also have a 10GBe switch.

For me the speed difference is night and day.

I tend to move large Final Cut Libraries, or large numbers of raw video files to and from the NAS. Admittedly not often enough to warrant the equipment, but its so much more convenient!

I use a MacBook, and all of my FCPX libraries are stored on my NAS. Just last week I was heading out and wanted to take some work with me for when I was free during the day. The data flow is as follows:

NAS --> 10GBe Switch --> Sonnet 10GBe to TB3 Adapter --> MacBook Pro --> TB3 Editing Drive

Note: the editing drive is a ThunderBlade V4, so there are not bottlenecks lower then the 10GBe in the above chain.

Copying a 60GB library across the above chain took just under 45 seconds....
 
Isn't the advantage obvious? It's 10x faster than the standard 1Gbps Ethernet. It's only worth the upgrade if you need very fast access to things on your network. The standard 1Gbit port is more than enough for anyone besides enterprise users and professional editors, as it can do up to 125MB per second.
 
I don't use 10Gb at home but I use 10Gb and 40Gb networks at work. It's very useful if you routinely move large files (e.g. hundreds of gigabytes, terabytes) to/from a local server/NAS and really need the extra speed. Few home users, even 'prosumers' and techies, need it or would even be able to really take much advantage of 10Gb networking. A perfect home application for it would be someone who does a lot of video editing for a living.

To take advantage of it, every link in the chain needs to support it (all network interfaces, cabling, switches, etc) and 10Gb equipment still tends to be fairly expensive. Plus, most houses aren't wired to support it.
 
The beauty of Thunderbolt is that you don't need to spend money now to "future-proof" this. Just add a TB3 10Gb-Ethernet dongle years later if/when you actually have a need for it.
 
If your ISP provides more than 1Gbps internet it could also be useful.

But you can also get 2.5G and 5G Ethernet.
 
I got a refurb with 10G equipped but I think if I was buying new I'd just get an external TB3 dongle. Unless of course I was going to be pushing the TB3 controllers hard, but then I'd have to look at how PCIE lanes are configured anyways.
 
timidpimpin said:
The standard 1Gbit port is more than enough for anyone besides enterprise users and professional editors, as it can do up to 125MB per second.
Click to expand...

MrRabuf said:
It's very useful if you routinely move large files (e.g. hundreds of gigabytes, terabytes) to/from a local server/NAS and really need the extra speed. Few home users, even 'prosumers' and techies, need it or would even be able to really take much advantage of 10Gb networking.
Click to expand...

Even a home user can find it 10 Gbps very useful if they run, say, a media server on a NAS. When you are copying terabytes of data and 80 GB 4K video files you can see the difference if the NAS supports it and is fast.
 
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HDFan said:
Even a home user can find it 10 Gbps very useful if they run, say, a media server on a NAS. When you are copying terabytes of data and 80 GB 4K video files you can see the difference if the NAS supports it and is fast.
Click to expand...

Yup and that would fall under the "few home users" category I mentioned. Even still (and I'm one of those people you're talking about BTW), ripping 4k movies is usually not something folks will do often enough to warrant spending hundreds on a 10Gb switch, possibly having to run new wires in their house, paying the extra cost for 10Gb NICs, etc.

I have a 24TB server that's almost full and I'd only bother with 10Gb if I worked from home and having the extra bandwidth was required for my job.
 
HDFan said:
Out of curiosity what NAS are you using?
Click to expand...

QNAP 8 bay, filled with 6TB drives across the array.

I have all home users saving their data to it, so the extra bandwidth certainly helps maintain speeds when they are all accessing the NAS simultaneously.
 
HDFan said:
Yeah, we are early on the consumer 10Gb curve. Not many devices have the ports, and switches/routers are in the $400 range for the cheapest.
Click to expand...

10G is one of those things that would be nice to have but as you say, it's so early in the curve that I just can't justify the expense at this point. I'll hold off a while until prices drop.
 

I watched this video a while ago. The guy put 10gb equipment on his pre-installed cat 5e cabling. His result was that he couldn't max it out, but it was still orders of magnitude faster then a gigabit switch.

If your runs are short it may still be worth the upgrade even without running cat 6+
 
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