QNAP Unveils the QNA-UC5G1T USB 3.0 to 5GbE Adapter

[btarunr]

QNAP Systems, Inc. (QNAP), a leading storage, network and computing solutions provider, today launched the QNA-UC5G1T USB 3.0 to 5GbE adapter, allowing users to add 5GbE/2.5GbE/1GbE/100MbE connectivity to their computers and NAS via USB 3.0. Users can easily upgrade their network speed with the QNA-UC5G1T using an existing CAT 5e cable to increase file transfer speeds and work efficiency.

"Both home and business users require higher bandwidth to take advantage of high-performance systems and faster internet speeds. The handy QNA-UC5G1T adapter can be easily paired with QNAP's 10GbE switch to create a high-speed network environment at home or in the office to greatly improve network speed and application performance," said Jason Hsu, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "the QNA-UC5G1T is also useful for adding Ethernet connectivity to modern laptops that lack in-built network ports."



The QNA-UC5G1T can be connected to other devices using a USB Type-A or Type-C cable. It is palm-sized and passively cooled for easy and prolonged use.

Note:

• Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7 requires a driver.
• Current versions of macOS do not support the QNA-UC5G1T. Click here to manually install the Aquantia AQC11U driver.
• Linux: Supports Linux core 3.10, 3.12, 3.2, 4.2, and 4.4. Requires the Aquantia AQC11U driver.
• QNAP NAS: QTS 4.3.6 (or later) is required.

Key specifications

• Controller: AQuantia AQC111U
• I/O: 1 x USB 3.0 Type-C; 1 x 5GbE/NBASE-T port
• 0.2M USB 3.0 Type-C to Type-A cable

Availability
The QNA-UC5G1T USB 3.0 to 5GbE adapter is now available.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[bonehead123]

Nice idea

No so nice price ($80USD)

f.A.i.L.....

 

[Ubersonic]

A nice idea and very competitivly priced too, for those wanting more than 1Gbit but not requiring the full 10Gbit this is a great option to crack up the bandwidth without spending hundreads

 

[Deleted member 178884]

f.A.i.L.....

So a product is a failure because you can't afford it?
That's not how it works I'm afraid.

 

[BoiseTech]

This is perfect. My nas and server are itx builds with PCIe slots taken up. This way I'll at least get 5gbe ver 2gb (dual 1gb nics LAG'd)!

 

[randomUser]

So a product is a failure because you can't afford it?
That's not how it works I'm afraid.

It a nice product, but it costs too much.
for this price it should have been full 10GbE. Just what USB3.1 can handle.

 

[Valantar]

$80 on Amazon isn't ideal, but it's okay. Cheaper than a 10GbE NIC, if only just. Have to consider this in the future.

 

[n-ster]

To me this is priced pretty well... 10$ to get a friendly USB-C interface instead of PCI-E.

I wonder how it performs latency-wise compared to the pci-e variant

 

[TheLostSwede]

Less than $70 direct from QNAP https://store.qnap.com.tw/qna-uc5g1t.html

 

[bonehead123]

So a product is a failure because you can't afford it?
That's not how it works I'm afraid.

FYI #1: I know full well how business/marketing/R&D etc etc work. AND I could easily afford to buy this adapter, or any other similar one, but the real question is:

Why should I pay $70-80 for something that should cost ~$15-20.........

I was merely expressing my disapointment at seeing yet another tech company overprice their stuff simply because they think they can

FYI #2: I have 2 similar but equal devices for my work laptops, and guess what......they were included with the moderately-priced ($600 each) machines. So IMHO, this is just more evidence to support my "overpriced - fail" statement

 

[Valantar]

FYI #1: I know full well how business/marketing/R&D etc etc work. AND I could easily afford to buy this adapter, or any other similar one, but the real question is:

Why should I pay $70-80 for something that should cost ~$15-20.........

I was merely expressing my disapointment at seeing yet another tech company overprice their stuff simply because they think they can

FYI #2: I have 2 similar but equal devices for my work laptops, and guess what......they were included with the moderately-priced ($600 each) machines. So IMHO, this is just more evidence to support my "overpriced - fail" statement

I agree that I want this to cost $15-20, but that simply isn't reality, and a lot of that is likely due to Aquantia already pushing their margins low on their silicon selling 10GbE AICs at ~$100. Pure silicon cost is likely low, but R&D costs money. The 5GbE silicon is likely a bit cheaper, but an enclosure and USB-C interface isn't free, so this price is perfectly reasonable for what you get. In 2-3 years I would expect it halved, though.

 

[TheLostSwede]

FYI #1: I know full well how business/marketing/R&D etc etc work. AND I could easily afford to buy this adapter, or any other similar one, but the real question is:

Why should I pay $70-80 for something that should cost ~$15-20.........

I was merely expressing my disapointment at seeing yet another tech company overprice their stuff simply because they think they can

FYI #2: I have 2 similar but equal devices for my work laptops, and guess what......they were included with the moderately-priced ($600 each) machines. So IMHO, this is just more evidence to support my "overpriced - fail" statement

Should? That's a blod statement. Considering what Aquantia charges for the controller alone, means that this could never be $25.
But clearly you don't know the first thing about what components costs, yet like to have an opinion about the matter.
This is 5Gbps, not 1Gbps or even 2.5Gbps, where you can pick up an adapter for under $50 and soon, likely a lot less.

 

[bonehead123]

Should? That's a blod statement. Considering what Aquantia charges for the controller alone, means that this could never be $25.
But clearly you don't know the first thing about what components costs, yet like to have an opinion about the matter.

Well, sorry to disappoint you Swede, but I worked in electronic device R&D, manufacturing, production and assembly for many years (recently retired), so when I state that I think that a new device is overpriced, I am basing my statements on a solid, facts-based understanding of the costs involved and my on the job experience, if that counts for anything, which I think it does

This is 5Gbps, not 1Gbps or even 2.5Gbps, where you can pick up an adapter for under $50 and soon, likely a lot less.

Seems to me that you just killed your initial statement about component costs, which are ALWAYS high at the start of production runs and drops very quickly once production ramps up, the distributors and retailers start receiving inventory, and start selling the products to businesses & consumers. This process normally happens very quickly and repeats itself over & over again on an almost daily cycle almost everywhere electronic items are sold.... which nowadays is like almost everywhere, in most countries

 

[Octavean]

FYI #1: I know full well how business/marketing/R&D etc etc work. AND I could easily afford to buy this adapter, or any other similar one, but the real question is:

Why should I pay $70-80 for something that should cost ~$15-20.........

I was merely expressing my disapointment at seeing yet another tech company overprice their stuff simply because they think they can

FYI #2: I have 2 similar but equal devices for my work laptops, and guess what......they were included with the moderately-priced ($600 each) machines. So IMHO, this is just more evidence to support my "overpriced - fail" statement

So you're saying you would rather buy a ~$600 laptop in order to get two USB 3.0 5GbE network adapters then buy a QNAP UC5G1T at ~$70. That is somehow more cost effective,......?

Naturally I am kidding.

The price on such devices will eventually come down. I'm sure I have a couple of USB 3.0 1GbE NICs around here that I purchased for ~$10 to ~20 but this QNAP NIC is not that.

I'm aware that some motherboards have been shipping with 5GbE / 2.5GbE / 1GbE NICs but haven't been in the market for a laptop for some time so I don't know what some of these are shipping with these days. What model laptop did you buy that comes with two 5GbE USB 3.0 NICs,.....???? ~$600 seems like a really reasonable price overall assuming its robust enough,...

 

[Valantar]

Well, sorry to disappoint you Swede, but I worked in electronic device R&D, manufacturing, production and assembly for many years (recently retired), so when I state that I think that a new device is overpriced, I am basing my statements on a solid, facts-based understanding of the costs involved and my on the job experience, if that counts for anything, which I think it does



Seems to me that you just killed your initial statement about component costs, which are ALWAYS high at the start of production runs and drops very quickly once production ramps up, the distributors and retailers start receiving inventory, and start selling the products to businesses & consumers. This process normally happens very quickly and repeats itself over & over again on an almost daily cycle almost everywhere electronic items are sold.... which nowadays is like almost everywhere, in most countries

Silicon production costs are one thing amortization of R&D costs is another - and those are certainly not paid off in a matter of days, particularly with a low-volume part like nGbE adapters. I'd expect development costs for these to be quite a few million dollars, which will take a while to recoup if your gross margin per product sold is $20-30.

FYi #2: I have 2 similar but equal devices for my work laptops, and guess what......they were included with the moderately-priced ($600 each) machines. So IMHO, this is just more evidence to support my "overpriced - fail" statement

I missed this. Could you please point me in the direction of a $600 laptop that includes a >GbE USB dongle?

 

[TheLostSwede]

Well, sorry to disappoint you Swede, but I worked in electronic device R&D, manufacturing, production and assembly for many years (recently retired), so when I state that I think that a new device is overpriced, I am basing my statements on a solid, facts-based understanding of the costs involved and my on the job experience, if that counts for anything, which I think it does

Seems to me that you just killed your initial statement about component costs, which are ALWAYS high at the start of production runs and drops very quickly once production ramps up, the distributors and retailers start receiving inventory, and start selling the products to businesses & consumers. This process normally happens very quickly and repeats itself over & over again on an almost daily cycle almost everywhere electronic items are sold.... which nowadays is like almost everywhere, in most countries

Then you should know better, or at least spend two seconds doing some research before making a comment on a topic you clearly don't know.

First of all, Aquantia chips aren't cheap. Their 5GHz PHY, not integrated part, is around $30, which means the controller+PHY+USB 3.1 host is going to cost more than that, no?

Secondly, the reason 2.5GHz is cheaper, is because it's less complex, it's based around Gigabit Ethernet, whereas 5Gbps is based on the 10Gbps standard, which is far more complex.
Add to this that Realtek is making the lower-cost solutions that top out at 2.5GHz and was designed to be lower cost from the start and this is why you can find cheaper 2.5Gbps adapters, not because they're based on Aquantia hardware. So no, I didn't kill anything. You on the other hand shouldn't be so quick to make statements.

 

[Tigerfox]

Secondly, the reason 2.5GHz is cheaper, is because it's less complex, it's based around Gigabit Ethernet, whereas 5Gbps is based on the 10Gbps standard, which is far more complex.
Add to this that Realtek is making the lower-cost solutions that top out at 2.5GHz and was designed to be lower cost from the start and this is why you can find cheaper 2.5Gbps adapters, not because they're based on Aquantia hardware. So no, I didn't kill anything. You on the other hand shouldn't be so quick to make statements.

Can you explain this further? As far as I was informed (and wikipedia tells me), both 2.5GbE and 5GbE are based on 10GbE, just with reduced clock for coping wht Cat6 and Cat5e-cabling on longer distances. This was always stated as reason why NBASE-T-NICs and switches would always be 10GbE-NICs, too and there would be no cost benefit in production and thus no benefit at all for consumers, only for offices with old cabling.
Aquantia seemed to proof this, as AFAIR all of their "5GbE-only" and "2.5GbE-only"-NICs are just 10GbE-NICs restricted by using a fewer PCIe-Lanes.

The Realtek and Killer come along and develop real 2.5GbE-NICs which everyone told me didn't make sense. Why?

To this NIC: I think this is a wonderful product because you can upgrade every old desktop, NAS, Notebook and even SFF-devices to 5GbE as long as they have one USB3.0-Port availaible. A lot of these machines can't get 10GbE via PCIe x4-Slot or 10GbE-over-USB-C, most not even 5GbE via PCIe x1-Slot.

 

[TheLostSwede]

2.5Gbps is something of a hybrid, which makes it easier and cheaper to make. It works on cat 5e cables at the same distance as 1Gbps Ethernet, whereas 5Gbps requires cat 6 but not cat 6A for longer cable runs (over 55m in most cases), which makes 2.5Gbps the perfect update option. Yes, it's similar to 10Gbps in that is used the same spectral bandwidth and it pushes the same amount of bits per Hertz. You're right right thought, I shouldn't have said 2.5Gbps is based on gigabit Ethernet, I should've said it's more similar to gigabit Ethernet.

This is what Realteks 2.5Gbps controller looks like

As you can see, that's not that different from a regular Ethernet controller from Realtek, albeit a tad bigger. On the other hand, Aquantia simply offers a rate limited version of their 5Gbps chips that from what I can tell, are a lot more complex.

Another advantage and similarity with gigabit Ethernet is that 2.5Gbps can work over a single PCIe lane 1.0 lane, which makes it much easier to integrate in embedded devices, like routers.

Expect to see 2.5Gbps switches getting more common, with no support for the faster speeds. 2.5Gbps is likely to become the next "standard" implementation of high speed Ethernet as it offers enough of a performance benefit without much of a cost increase.

Side note, the Killer NIC with 2.5Gbps support is most likely Intel hardware in the shape of the I225-LM/I225-V which will be out soon.

 

[kwinz]

Can somebody with this adapter please post a iperf3 benchmark result?
I would love to know if it's limited by it's USB 3 Gen1 5Gbit connection.
Thanks in advance!

 

[kwinz]

Can somebody with this adapter please post a iperf3 benchmark result?
I would love to know if it's limited by it's USB 3 Gen1 5Gbit connection.
Thanks in advance!

QNAP Launches QNA-UC5G1T USB 3.0 to 5GbE Adapter

QNAP launched the QNA-UC5G1T USB 3.0 to 5GbE adapter, allowing users to add 5GbE/2.5GbE/1GbE/100MbE connectivity to their computers and NAS via USB...

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