Talk to me about fast home networking
Discussion
I currently have a self built Unraid box with 1 Gb Ethernet. Also a Mac Studio with 10 Gb Ethernet. A Netgear 24 port managed switch and a couple of tagged vlans. Cable is cat 6.
I’d like to connect the two faster if possible, but I’m not familiar with 10 Gb Ethernet, SFP+, and 2.5 Gb which now seems a thing.
Is there a simple (ie cost effective) home solution? Assume I’d need a new switch and network card, but not sure what. 2.5 Gb appears to be a simple upgrade, but 10 Gb less so. Not sure if/where SFP fits in.
I’d like to connect the two faster if possible, but I’m not familiar with 10 Gb Ethernet, SFP+, and 2.5 Gb which now seems a thing.
Is there a simple (ie cost effective) home solution? Assume I’d need a new switch and network card, but not sure what. 2.5 Gb appears to be a simple upgrade, but 10 Gb less so. Not sure if/where SFP fits in.
Simplest way, if you can actually exploit the speed and distances are short (<30m), is 2.5 or 10 gig over Ethernet.
For that you need appropriate network cards in each device and switches.
In simple terms, SFP+ are modules that depending on type either allow either fibre optic or gigabit Ethernet connections. There are also pre-wired SFP direct connection cables but they’re more normally used between equipment in the rack
Fwiw, aside from my NAS, although I run a 10 gig backbone there’s not much point taking individual clients past 1 gig unless you’re always pushing lots of data around and maxing it out.
What I have is overkill but we have gigabit internet and a reasonable amount of network base load so there is some benefit now but mainly future proofing.
For that you need appropriate network cards in each device and switches.
In simple terms, SFP+ are modules that depending on type either allow either fibre optic or gigabit Ethernet connections. There are also pre-wired SFP direct connection cables but they’re more normally used between equipment in the rack
Fwiw, aside from my NAS, although I run a 10 gig backbone there’s not much point taking individual clients past 1 gig unless you’re always pushing lots of data around and maxing it out.
What I have is overkill but we have gigabit internet and a reasonable amount of network base load so there is some benefit now but mainly future proofing.
Very useful, thanks.
I’m trying to improve performance when editing photos. Thumbnails are cached locally with main files stored on the server. Performance is still poor, and the software company aren’t being helpful in suggesting if this configuration is usual or how to improve it.
If I use a tool to sync them locally then performance is good, but it’s a bit of a waste of space (1 Tb or so) and I don’t really want them local. I could get a thunderbolt hdd and sync as an option, which would probably be the most cost effective solution.
I’m trying to improve performance when editing photos. Thumbnails are cached locally with main files stored on the server. Performance is still poor, and the software company aren’t being helpful in suggesting if this configuration is usual or how to improve it.
If I use a tool to sync them locally then performance is good, but it’s a bit of a waste of space (1 Tb or so) and I don’t really want them local. I could get a thunderbolt hdd and sync as an option, which would probably be the most cost effective solution.
Internal network speed might not be the problem then, especially if the server is remote.
Performance ends up being all about bottlenecks, so it could be that the limiting factor could be your HDD/SSD speed or, if using external storage/systems your external connection or their speed limitations.
If you don’t want to use too much space locally then consider more selective synchronisation to a local machine whilst you work on them?
Personally I’d look into these sort of things and only upgrade the network if you can see that it’s that that is holding things up.
Performance ends up being all about bottlenecks, so it could be that the limiting factor could be your HDD/SSD speed or, if using external storage/systems your external connection or their speed limitations.
If you don’t want to use too much space locally then consider more selective synchronisation to a local machine whilst you work on them?
Personally I’d look into these sort of things and only upgrade the network if you can see that it’s that that is holding things up.
First reaction is it doesn't sound like it should be network related but what are the file sizes and what's the storage layout?
What happens if you do some file copies of different size files do they copy in the (rough) time that the maths suggests they should?
I'd work out where your bottleneck is (if there is one) before throwing money at a network switch.
What happens if you do some file copies of different size files do they copy in the (rough) time that the maths suggests they should?
I'd work out where your bottleneck is (if there is one) before throwing money at a network switch.
2.5Gb is a simple cheap upgrade - switches are <£200 and cards for the Unraid host are only about £25. 10 Gb copper cards start from about £100, and will give you 10Gb over your existing cabling. Switches with a couple of 10Gb ports and the rest a mix of 1 and 2.5 aren't hugely more than 2.5Gb capable ones.
My concern would be that the Mac Studio is all nice fast SSD. What is the storage in the Unraid host? Unless that is at least SATA SSD, that is as much likely to be the bottleneck as the network.
My concern would be that the Mac Studio is all nice fast SSD. What is the storage in the Unraid host? Unless that is at least SATA SSD, that is as much likely to be the bottleneck as the network.
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